PRIEST OF THE IDEAL
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA • MADRAS MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
PRIEST OF THE IDEAL
BY
STEPHEN GRAHAM
WASTE 50 I SHEW THE FACE OF CHRIST.
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1917
COPYRIGHT
PREFACE
I HOPE that this book in the reader's hand may be a divining rod for spiritual treasure in himself, a touchstone for the hidden gold of the ideal, and that it may give him the sense some Indians have for living water.
It is a book which it may be difficult to classify, being a novel with emblems and at the same time an account of a pilgrimage to sacred and national places, a new survey of the progress of our Christianity and of the English idea, a study of spiritual values and of the significance of the life of Christ in this birth-moment of a new era of human life.
Each chapter embodies some idea which I have striven to indicate in the emblem above it. And in cases where an emblem did not occur readily to the mind I have felt that something was lacking in the writing or in the general conception of the chapter. The emblems, there-
V
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vi PRIEST OF THE IDEAL
fore, are intended as part of the expression of the book and not merely as ornament. I believe that much can be learnt and taught by emblems, and that little pictures of this kind may have more spiritual serviceableness than quotations used as chapter headings. They were drawn or indicated by me in a crude form and then redrawn by Miss H. R. Cross, to whom, for her patience and dexterity, many thanks are due. The idea came to me from the ILmblems and School of the Heart, and I can do no better than quote finally the word which Francis Quarles, for preface to his Emblems, addressed to the reader in 1635 :
An Emblem is but a silent parable : Let not the tender eye check to see allusion to our blessed Saviour figured in these types. . . . Before the knowledge of letters, God was known by hieroglyphics. And indeed, what are the Heavens, the earth, nay, every creature, but Hieroglyphics and Emblems of his glory ? I have no more to say ; I wish thee as much pleasure in the reading as I had in writing. . . .
STEPHEN GRAHAM.
LONDON, May 1917.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
1. THE QUEST OF THE AMERICAN . . i
2. THE LOST INHERITANCE . . . . ..21
3. THE SPIRITUAL BACKGROUND . . . • 33
4. GLASTONBURY ...... 45
5. IONA ....... 57
6. THE MIRACULOUS LIFE OF SAINT COLUMBA . . 71
7. HOLY ISLAND ...... 77
8. THE PETTING STONE . . . . .87
9. THE MORNING OF ENGLAND .... 101
10. SANCTUARY . . . . . .113
11. HAMPDEN'S LOVE ..... 123
12. THE MAN WITH THE HISTORICAL MIND •'.*•. . .131
13. A VOICE FROM FRANCE .... 141
14. BROTHER JOHN AND THE MAN WHO WORSHIPPED STONES 151
15. THE HOUSE OF COSMO . . . .157
1 6. BROTHERHOOD . . . . . .165
17. GOLLIWOG . . . . . .173
1 8. IN YORK MINSTER . . . . .195
19. MYSTICAL NAMES . . . . .201
20. FROM HARBY TO CHARING CROSS . . . 209
viii PRIEST OF THE IDEAL
CHAP. PAGE
21. ST. FAITH ; . . . . .217
22. PoLDU . . . . ..'•'•. . 221
23. BOOM . . . . '. . . 227
24. CRITERIONS . . . . . .239
25. THE LION . . .,.'-. . . 247
26. WHAT is ENGLAND? . . . ; . 255
27. MORALITY OR IMMORALITY . . . - . 263
28. SALES ....... 267
29. NOT FOR SALE ...... 275
30. THOUGHTS OF A THIRTY-THIRD YEAR . . .281
31. SACRIFICE . . . . . .301
32. PREPARING THE WAY . . . . 309
33. A CHILD is BORN ..... 321
34. THE MIRACULOUS LIFE . . . .325
35. LIFE AND DEATH . . . 355
36. DEATH OF TREVOR . . . , 363
37. HAMPDEN TAKEN . . . . . 371
38. WASHINGTON KING AND THE ELUSIVE SOMETHING . • 379
39. IN THE HOSPITAL . . . . -385
40. LAST CONVERSATIONS . . . . 391
41. IMMORTALITY . . . . . .403
CHATTER 1: THE QVEST OF THE AMERICA^.
7
I
THE huge raft they call a liner, a floating bridge propelled along by steam, an unworthy con- trivance, liable to all manner of accident and often faithless in its keeping of the ' wonderful humanity committed to its charge ; mankind divided into four distinct classes — first class, second class, third class, and those who live in a state of damnation, by which I mean the captain and the servants of the ship, who see the whole world thus divided. In the first class sits the American passenger, Washington King, and talks about his native land.
:< At the moment of peace America will have all the money in the world, and the warring countries will be without a cent. That serves the warring countries right. If they choose to waste millions of money in fireworks, the more fools they. But still I do not condemn them. They had to fight. The state of Europe, with
2 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
its many nationalities, and' kings, and tsars, means war. We of the United States, who have solved the problem by uniting under one president and in one common interest all the peoples of Europe, know that Europe is an anachronism, an old- fashioned thing, and that the Old World is really old."
The American was interrupted by a young English courier who was one of four chance passengers listening attentively to his remarks.
" All the same, you Americans have found our war pretty engrossing," said the courier. ' I know how wrapped up in yourselves you usually are, but directly the War broke out you all turned your faces and looked to us. You were anxious, you were even more passionate than we were."
" Yes, that is true," said the American, " we were profoundly distressed by the War, our sym- pathies were deeply awakened. We strove to relate ourselves to the nations engaged. The wholesale murder ravaged our souls. When you cut one another our nerves were lacerated. For this war our souls have gone into black. And now I am quite sincere — Europe is near to us akin. It is father and mother and grandfather and grandmother to us, and we are child and grandchild to it. Because of death in your old world, our young world goes into mourning, we are plunged into grief. But although we go into black it is not our funeral, believe me. We shall have to go on after Europe is dead, just as a child must go on living when his father has
i THE QUEST OF THE AMERICAN 3
passed away, no matter how much he loved him. As a matter of fact, we have a knowledge which we dare hardly face, that we shall be freer to live our own lives when Europe has passed away."
'* I should not advise you to be so sure that Europe will pass," said a young Russian who was returning to his native land, having made his fortune in America. * Russia at least is not passing, she has hardly begun to be."
;< And England is not dead yet," said a solid commercial agent who had been observing the American very quizzically and waiting an oppor- tunity to say something that would flatten the Yankee out. "We're not too proud to fight."
It was February 1916, and most people felt that America would accept from Germany any amount of wanton injury, and even insult, rather than join in waging war.
* We know a better way than war," replied the American.
" But is not war the test ? " asked the courier, smiling.
' Wait till you have to fight the Japanese," said the commercial agent.
The American waved his hand with im- patience, as if he held an india-rubber and was erasing their remarks. * This is schoolboys' talk. Now we, let me tell you, are ready to settle any difference whatsoever by arbitration. . War is an anachronism with us. And I fancy all you Europeans will confess how foolish you've been, in time. The future of civilisation is with the white races, and that means it is with us. We
4 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
have already eighty million whites, whereas the whole British Empire has no more than sixty million. We have more money, and when the War is over we shall probably receive an addition of many million new young men from Europe. The best blood of Europe is coming to us. Would you like to know the reasons ? I'll give you five ; I could give fifty. First : Your younger generations are disgusted with war and will be apprehensive lest it should break out again. Europe will be still a danger zone. America is the land of safety. Second : America is rich and can pay good wages, whereas you are exhausted by war and have to serve at least ten years bestial slavery to pay off war- debts. You think the Germans will sit down meekly to work off their huge war liabilities. Not they ! They'll come over here in masses. We shall have all the advantage of their efficiency and good training. Third : There will be a great feeling of unrest and instability in Europe, a disin- clination to settle down to the old pre-war occu- pations. There will be a tendency to go out and seek the new. What more natural than the thought of America ? Fourth : Every family in Europe has now some relative or connection or friend in the United States, and the strange country is not absolutely strange ; the word America to the European means invitation. Fifth : Every one is beginning to understand that the future is with us. We have the largest white educated population, and in a few score years we shall be double of any of your proud
i THE QUEST OF THE AMERICAN 5
empires of the Old World. We shall be in- venting three new bits of machinery to your one, discovering three new things in science to your one. We shall have gone completely ahead in the building of garden cities, in the eradication of slums, in the eugenically-established health of the individual. In fact, America will be first, and all the rest nowhere. All Europe will be looking westward over the Atlantic as we achieve the victories of Peace."
' You'll have a navy equal to the British Navy by then," said the quizzical commercial agent.
' I reckon your Navy will then be in a marine museum," said the American, showing his teeth in a smile.
" After all, he's rather an objectionable fellow," said the young courier to himself, for he would not hear a word said against the Navy, and he got up from his chair in the smoke-room and went out for a breath of fresh air on the deck.
But the Russian, who remained, confirmed the American's dream. :< He's quite right," said he to the commercial agent. :< America is going right ahead in that way. She is going to lead the world for a while. She has the same dream of progress, scientific and material progress, that we have in Europe, the same passion for humanity, but already America has got ahead. She leads. Though I wonder whether, when she has every- thing man can desire, she will not begin to die. Something will go wrong with her soul. It was not meant to live in a state of perfect comfort and health. Her soul will show negative and
6 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
vicious desires. Already you can notice some- thing of this. America is beginning to deny Europe. And the moment she does that she cuts herself off from her spiritual affinities."
To this the commercial agent made no reply, but the American gave a qualified assent. :' We do tend to lose our spiritual background," said he. " But I think perhaps by the help of his- torical museums on a large scale in America we could dispense with Europe geographically, keep an understanding of our true affinities, and have our spiritual background on the spot, so to speak. We need some cathedrals and castles and pictures and old villages for educative show. As a matter of fact, it is in this connection that I am making this voyage. I want to buy up as much as I can for our historical museums and the new America. I imagine the English will be ready to part with, a good deal now that they are so much in need of money for the War."
II
:< It makes my gorge rise to see the airs they give themselves," said the commercial agent to the courier as they sat on deck. ' They were bad enough before the War, but there's no being even with them now. They're so swollen out with money they're like to burst."
:< Still there's some truth in what he says," said Trevor the courier.
' That's the devil of it. It's impossible to take it calmly," said his companion, taking out
i THE QUEST OF THE AMERICAN 7
a cigarette. " If there weren't an inkling of truth in what he says we could let him talk on and laugh at him up our sleeve. But they've got all the money, that's true. Any one now who wants to make a pile must think of America. A consignment of goods to America sometimes means as much profit as two consignments to Europe. They can afford to pay a good price for a thing, and they've got a higher standard of living. All the same, I'd like them to get a good taking-down from the Japs that would let a little blood and cool their heads."
Charles Trevor listened indulgently to this talk, but put it aside in his mind as unworthy. His good English breeding caused him to avoid loose talk and ill-considered malice. He did not want America put in her place, or the conceit taken out of her. America's wealth did not trouble his mind, though he had been annoyed to hear the Navy spoken of in an unimaginative way. All that the American had said was legiti- mate and interesting, except the remark about the British Navy, which was an infringement of good taste.
:< No," said Trevor, " I'm more interested in what he said of Europe than in what he said of America. England interests me a long way more than America does. America may come to something, or she may come to nothing ; but I am sure this moment is our moment, not America's. Providence brought about the War, and the spiritual issues belong to those who are fighting, not to America, who is looking on."
8 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
" They've got all the chances for the future, though," said the commercial, his weight in his chair causing the legs to creak.
Trevor smiled cheerily, and remarked that when the vine is cut it bears more fruit in time. America going to leaves might seem more im- pressive than our shorn branches, but, like the fig-tree, she may be found to have no fruit when the Master comes.
This caused a pause in the conversation, and there was a slightly incredulous smile on the commercial man's face. Trevor felt sorry for him, and so went on encouragingly and asked what was his idea of the future of Britain. What would he do if he were Prime Minister ?
At this the latter grinned sententiously.
:< I don't suppose my idea'll ever come off," said he, " but if it did, I would dish the Yankee, you bet. I'd start the Federation principle here, federate Europe, and run the Old World against the New, commercially. We'd soon pull all the trade to our shores. The United States of Europe, that's my idea."
Trevor looked at him curiously. Here was a man who stood up for England and claimed to be a fellow-countryman, but was ready to sink England in a " United States of Europe."
' Why, I'd have thought that an Englishman so minded as you are would have first thought of the federation of the British Empire, and running it against all comers commercially."
Simpkins, the agent, threw away his cigarette and sneered. " What's the use of the Empire ;
i THE QUEST OF THE AMERICAN 9
it never did me any good. There's no trade in the Empire. The Empire is all desert and sheep- farmers. It's run on wrong lines. I'd rather sink my all in the States, bad as the Yankees are. And anyway, they were us — they're blood of our blood."
" Have you been long in the United States ? " asked Trevor. Simpkins admitted that he had been ten years absent from his native land, but averred that he was still a " Britisher " for all that.
* Well, I should say you need to come back to England and see what is in the air in the old country. We have been living at a new rate since you left. All sorts of things have happened since then. I am not a commercial man, and I know that I do not enter into the spirit of com- merce, but it seems to me that England has ceased to put business first. She is not going to be a nation of shopkeepers any longer."
' Well, what does she put first ? " asked Simpkins quietly. " Religion, Sport, Literature, eh ? "
' That I cannot say," said Trevor.
' Because, unless you've got a sound backing of good business, you can't have these orna- mental things. Just as you can't be religious and chivalrous and play the game and all that, if your breakfast and dinner are to seek. It may be basely material to eat and be filled, but you cannot get on without it."
To this Trevor answered that he did not mean that we were going to abolish business, but that we were going to put it into its true subordinate
io PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
position, and an argument ensued which was at last happily interrupted by the tea gong. It was by no means clear either in the mind of Trevor or Simpkins what England meant to put first in the new era.
Ill
" Well now, I'm rather surprised at your leaving America, the land of the free, to go back to that God-forsaken country of Russia," said Simpkins to Dmitrief, the handsome rich Russian, sitting down beside him after tea. ' You speak English well, you know your way about the U.S.A. You could make piles of money there, I should say. Why do you go back to bombs and prisons ? I suppose you're going for a holiday."
;< No, I am going for altogether," said the Russian engagingly.
* What, giving up America to go back to Russia ? "
' Yes, why not ? Aren't you going home too, to England ? "
;< England's different from Russia," said the commercial man. ' You can't compare them. One doesn't give up the Union Jack lightly."
" A Russian cares more for Russia than for anything else in the world," replied the young Russian. ' I think you give up your country more easily than we do ours."
Simpkins laughed to hear this "silly foreigner" talking. But before he said something rude in reply Dmitrief went on cheerfully.
i THE QUEST OF THE AMERICAN n
:< For example," said he, " look at the millions of English men and women who have given up their nationality to become Americans. The beginning of American history was rebellion against England. I think we love our country more than you do ; that is why we have so many revolutionaries. The revolutionaries' chief fault is that they love Russia so much. Russia is poor, but we all love her. She suffers, but we love her. She may oppress us, but we love her even more."
Simpkins was rather baffled by this exuberant outburst of the Russian. " Love " was a word which he did not use readily, it was too emphatic, too girlish and effeminate. He did not /ove, he acted according to his interest.
:< Any one who puts his money into a rotten concern is, in my opinion, a fool," said he. "Your Russia is behind the times. Her business methods are not those which lead to success or invite confidence. Then your Tsar . . ."
" He's very like King George, is he not ? " replied the Russian, smiling.
* I think they ought all to be done away with," said Simpkins. ' If we're going to compete with the Yankees, we've got to get Presidents."
Simpkins had changed his ground.
' I suppose Russia is really the richest country
in the world," he went on in a hushed whisper.
' Untold wealth of mineral resources, if only it
could be opened up. What a country ! I don't
wonder you're going back."
The commercial man had explained the
12 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
Russian to himself, and his mind found rest in this. The Russian was going back to Russia to open up Russia. He did not understand the religion of Russia which inspired Dmitrief, as he did not understand the religion of England which seemed to inspire Trevor.
IV
:< Now you ought not to take to heart what I said about the Navy. I saw that you took it ill. I meant no malice. You are proud of your Navy, and you have a right to be proud. It is a monument of the Anglo-Saxon race. What I meant was that in the coming season of universal peace the man-of-war will be a relic of the past, a curiosity, and as such only useful in a marine museum. Now come into my state-room and let us talk it out. Come on. You can help me quite a bit, and it is to the likes of you that I have been sent from America. I want to tell you something important, and ask your advice.'*
This was said to Trevor on the morning when the liner was due in at Liverpool. The young English courier was beguiled by the affectionate familiarity of the American, and allowed himself to be led off for an exclusive tete-a-tete^ one of those final and more intimate talks that often mark the very last day of a voyage across the ocean.
;< Now I wasn't saying to England that she was done, and that America was the only country in the world."
i THE QUEST OF THE AMERICAN 13
" That's very kind of you," said Trevor with a smile. ' But I was under the impression that you said something of the sort."
* No, I only said that the future was really with us, you must decrease whilst we must increase ; and that is in the course of Nature, as the old men die and the young go on and live."
:< Oh," said Trevor, and seemed plunged into thought. " Your belief is not a very altruistic one, is it ? "
' Oh no, I don't pretend to be altruistic or modest, and you mustn't take offence. Modesty is not my weapon. We are sure to fall out if we talk of abstract things, and I don't want you to fall out with me, but to listen to a practical proposition. As I said, we must increase and you must decrease. . . ."
Trevor squirmed and made a wry face.
"... We want to increase in a material way. Quite briefly, we want a lot of the things that you have to sell. And we are ready to buy them at your own figure. We are not so self-sufficient as we seem. We hanker after Europe — and there lies our weakness. We want to stare at your historical buildings and monuments and ruins and pictures. We need this spiritual background and we've got to have it. It's no use, there's no substitute. Now my task — it may surprise you — my task is to buy background and take it back."
4 You're mystifying me," said Trevor doubt- fully.
i4 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
" Wait a bit, hear me out. You, as you say, are starting a new era, a new season. Last year's goods are no use to you, we'd like to buy them up. We want them."
" You mean that in the season of peace you'd like to buy some of our antiquated guns and men-of-war, eh — something for the marine museum ? " asked Trevor.
" Oh no, oh no — forget my little joke about your Navy. We are not particularly interested in it just now. It is the past that appeals to the American — the past in which both English and American share, our common ground."
" How do you mean ? " asked Trevor.
" Shakespeare, for instance," said the American, " he is as much our inheritance as yours. The Pilgrim Fathers were Shakespeare's contempor- aries, they spoke the language of Shakespeare, and you'd find that many of our country people in New England to-day speak a dialect nearer to that of Elizabethan drama than any you possess in the old country. I know what you are going to say. The whole world inherits Shake- speare. His works are free to all. England does not keep Shakespeare to herself. But I confess I am after a smaller thing, but a human thing. We Americans want to have the pride of having produced Shakespeare. We want our children to remember that they are of the same race as he. For that reason we make so many pilgrimages to Stratford-on-Avon. Perhaps it's selfish on my part, but I'd like to buy Stratford and reconstitute it on American soil. At least I'd like to buy one
or two of its old houses, such as Shakespeare's birthplace — just to make it real to those who cannot cross the water."
Trevor was dumbfounded by this proposal, and it was only after a painful silence that he conquered his desire to explode angrily, and he merely said, " We'd never part with it."
:< No," said the American genially, " I did not suppose you would. There is no remedy for that. Perhaps, however, I could buy something else, but I do not expect to have much success at first. Let me tell you what I want. As a result of the expense of war you English are now much poorer, we Americans are rich. You must be ready to sell certain things to raise money. We are ready to buy. I have come to buy. But not in my own name. I represent a syndicate of some billions of dollars. I have carte blanche and a blank cheque. I can buy what I like, and pay what I think fit. Our idea is that there must be in England a great number of historical monuments, buildings, manuscripts, paintings, furniture, and what not, that has ceased to have any particular significance or cultural value for you. You have a superfluity of castles, abbeys, monuments, historical buildings belonging to the time when our ancestors and yours lived peacefully and undivided in the good old country. But we have none of these things. Our landscape is full of new houses, new monuments, new churches, and it has no cultural or spiritual value. It provides no background for the new American race. I hope you get my drift. They say that many
1 6 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
of your provincial cathedrals are now very foreign to the life and needs of the dwellers in your provincial towns. The people prefer a smaller, cosier, less majestic church or chapel, or they prefer none at all. The cathedral is empty or nearly empty every Sunday — it seems an anachronism. But think what a place of pilgrimage it could be for us, what a source of spiritual awakening. In America one of these so little prized cathedrals would be organised, functionised — wedded into the life of a great people and bringing forth fruit an hundred-fold. Do not be annoyed at my seeming presumption, but look at it humbly from the point of view of service of God, am I not right ? Would it not be good ? "
Trevor made a motion to interrupt, but the American answered his question.
' Yes, we are ready to consider the question of the transport even of a cathedral to America, if we could get one. We would take it over stone by stone and set it up exactly as it was in the old country. It has already been done with one or two of your old houses. And if there are new problems in the removal of a cathedral it will but stir up our ingenuity and whet the appetite of the press and the public for the great acquisition."
Trevor remained incredulous. * We should never be so poor as to sell our cathedrals and churches," said he. " They are things which cannot be sold."
" But for the glory of God ? " asked the
i THE QUEST OF THE AMERICAN 17
American. " Would you not part with one if you felt that it would have twenty or thirty or a hundred times the influence it has in England ? I do not mean such famous cathe- drals as Canterbury or Durham, but some more obscure specimen. We would fill it, give it a great metropolis, make it a centre of pilgrimage, have great national sermons preached in it, pack it with worshippers every God's day. Don't you see ? "
* This man is crazy," thought Trevor, but he wished him luck, though he expressed some doubt. The American, for his part, said he did not expect to obtain quickly anything so large and living as a cathedral, but he positively reckoned on buying some Christian ruins, the walls and foundations of an abbey or so, some old frescoes, a few tombs, a castle, a prison, a Wycliffe Bible, and, in fact, anything of the old -England that we should feel that we had outlived or had no more use for and were ready to sell. He expressed a desire to transplant an old English village with its lanes, meadows, cottages, and Norman church.
* Think how much more healthy England will feel when it has got free of a few of these things which are little more than tombstones," the American went on. :< Her national life will be twice as vigorous, she will have obtained a release from the natural burdens of old age and will taste once more something of the freedom and joy of youth."
' You will need to be persuasive if you are
c
1 8 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
going to prevail on us to give up our national treasures," said Trevor.
" Money, money," said the American know- ingly, " it has boundless power to persuade."
Trevor frowned. " There I think you make a mistake," said he. ;< Do not try to find a money value for these things, or you'll fail."
There was a note in the American's speech which was abhorrent, one impossible note. But still he was also a gentleman, a kindly, affectionate, spiritually-minded gentleman, and as such he established a feeling of understanding with Charles Trevor. They promised to meet again. The American's quest was in any case of real interest. Trevor was very curious to know how the American would fare.
:< Have you ever been in England before ? " he asked.
" Never."
:t Have you good introductions ? "
;< Five hundred and twenty."
" Oh dear, how terrible ! "
• Why, isn't that good ? "
* Three or four would have been enough, if they were to the right sort of people."
:< Now perhaps you will do me a real good service and look through the lists and pick out three or four names of people who will be likely to be really glad to see me."
The American pulled out a roll of papers from his dispatch bag. These were long lists of people, and each list began in a style somewhat like this :
i THE QUEST OF THE AMERICAN 19
MY DEAR WASHINGTON KING — I hope that whilst you are in England you will call upon the following friends :
James Johnson, Esq., of R-
Her Grace the Duchess of R
The Very Reverend the Dean of Mrs. Mirfleet of Golders Green, The Right Honourable D- Mr. Dewsbury of the Daily Chronicle ',
and so on and so on, a hundred or so lists and five hundred names in all, celebrities and nonentities, lions and lionesses, workers and drones, land- owners, journalists, politicians, clergymen, poets, shopmen, fellow- Americans resident in England, and even five or six French and Russians and Jews.
" There are some good names on these lists," said Trevor, " good names in plenty, the names of busy and important men and women, and some I know personally, but there are three or four worth all the rest. There is one man especially."
Trevor picked out one name from a long list — Richard Hampden.
" He knows more about England and these spiritual values than any man we have. He is my cousin. He's not famous, does not] want to be, I fancy ; he keeps in the background, but he knows all these other people, knows all who need be known ... a wonderful man."
The face of the young Englishman lighted up with enthusiasm for the first time during the talk. There was evidently some hero-worship here. The shrewd Mr. Washington King saw it, and
20 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. i
with that characteristic belief in men and in the value of warm sociality which Americans have, he decided that Hampden must be the man for him. If he could thus warm the heart of this polite and attractive young Foreign Office courier, he was likely to have blood in his veins.
" I shall go to him first," said he emphatically.
" You won't find him easily," said Trevor. " You see there is no address given. He is always wandering about, to-day at Glastonbury, next week at lona, then preaching a sermon for a sick clergyman in some remote country parish."
" Is he a clergyman, then ? "
" No. But he is specially licensed to preach. He gives lay sermons. If ever the press get to know him, he may become famous on that score alone."
" Good, you interest me extremely. But I am sorry he has not an address. How shall I get to know where he is ? "
!< He has a father living. You'd better go down to him at Salisbury. His father is irascible and bad-mannered. But you must not mind that. That is my Uncle Will. Perhaps I could come down for the week-end myself. Yes, I'll try."
' Let us shake hands on it," replied Mr. Washington King. " I should be so glad to take my first step into English life with you. You are very, very kind."
CH11.
HERE, FATHERS m£Y FOR YOVR OLD A'aE '
THE LOST iriHERIT-
A^CE
HAMPDEN was expected in a few days. And meanwhile the engaging American made himself at home at Salisbury, and was soon a popular and occasionally an amusing person, thanks to his enthusiasm for everything he was shown and for everything he found. He declared that the spire of Salisbury, pointing heavenward from the Dale, was really pointing from England herself, and he averred that no modern spire of a modern cathedral could ever do that in America — it could not find the spiritual angle. That spire was something unique, and so indeed was the whole Cathedral, with its old font in which no doubt many an ancestor of a present American citizen had in time long past been sealed for Christ, its effigies of cross-legged crusaders and mediaeval warriors, its memorials of fighting men from their day until now, and the inscription on the wall — "Through death: immortal fame," — its atmosphere of seven centuries of praise. It delighted him that the Cathedral had once stood
21
22 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
on Old Sarum Hill outside the city, and that because there was no water the inhabitants of Sarum had removed it stone by stone and built it up again- in another more convenient spot just as it was. If it could be done in the fourteenth century it could also be done in the twentieth. Once more, perhaps, the wells were dry.
" Standing in front of the Cathedral, I can say that this building expresses me," said he. " It explains me. We, all of us, need such historic art in stone before our eyes, lest we forget."
He walked to Bemerton one evening and found Herbert's old church, that gem of our national life, lying by the wayside on the way towards the town as if a pilgrim on the road for Salisbury had paused and had been changed by God into a little chapel of refreshment. The door of the church was open, and hardly had he gone in when the frail old rector followed in his surplice and began " Evening Prayer " — " I will arise, and go unto my father, and say . . ." He read Confession with a solemn voice, and the American was the only worshipper. Washington King was deeply touched when he heard himself saying the responses alone and when he noticed that the rector having said the first verse of the psalm expected him to say the second, and so on in alternation. .
* The priest was an old, old man," said the American in the report of his adventure which he gave to Hampden senior. " Methought he was the oldest man that ever bore grey hairs. It was just as if Herbert himself had risen from
ii THE LOST INHERITANCE 23
the grave as I went in, and his ghost had taken the old service, and just the same words to-day as then."
Old Hampden pretended to believe that it might have been Herbert's ghost, though the respected rector was well known to him and almost an intimate friend.
:< Imagine my being the only worshipper ! " said the American. ' You have such a wonderful national church, and yet it can be empty when a service is being taken "
' It would be full enough on a Sunday," said the old man.
Next day the American set off for Bemerton again, this time to see the rector and the rectory, and he obtained an extremely nattering reception. The rector declared that Americans seemed to have a much greater interest in Herbert than the English had. They were, in any case, much more eager and made more research. The best life of Herbert was written by an American, and, indeed, to be an American was the surest passport to the old man's heart. He showed the visitor the beautiful old English house, and ascribed to the poet long since dead the uses of rooms, the library, the place where he composed his whimsi- cal poems, the room where he thought out his sermons, the flowery fields in which he delighted to rove, the little brook flowing to-day with the same limpidity, sparkling and chattering as it did in the virginal days of good King James the First, and of the poet-priest of his reign.
24 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL *CH.
" Men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever,"
said the American reflectively, scraping with his stick in the sand. :< Men may go and men may come. Do you know why that verse of Tennyson means so much to me as I look at this brook ? Why, because my ancestors were among the men who went. I come back after several centuries, and the same pure brook of English country life flows on as it did then. It is inexpressibly touch- ing to us. We find again the sun-steeped morn- ings of the seventeenth century when the Pilgrim Fathers made up their sad hearts to leave and seek a better country."
Mr. Washington King had evidently now decided that Bemerton church and rectory were really something which he ought to try to obtain. There seemed to be fair signs that it would not be extremely difficult to purchase. No one at the church service. The English did not seem to prize the buildings much. Bemerton was not a place of pilgrimage, only Americans cared for it — in short, it was a nice find. But the American did not speak of his intention to make an offer, as he felt that any premature talk of proposing to buy might encourage organised opposition from some quarter, and start besides a newspaper campaign with the effect of raising the price or making trouble. So he wisely deferred mentioning the question, and merely noted it as a possible — an ear-marked property, so to say.
' You like Salisbury ? >J asked the rector in
ii THE LOST INHERITANCE 25
the interlude of King's reflections. !< It is a wonderful sanctuary ; Herbert used to go there twice a week so as to be in heaven in the cathe- dral, as he said. But I am too old now to go often, though I've always tried to live as Herbert lived. I have to find heaven here in my little church, presently I shall find it without taking a step. . . ."
But King was thinking of various other plans. * These are poor times," said he when bidding good-bye. :< Is your stipend secure ? If there should ever be any financial difficulties, write to me. America has a spiritual interest here. And if you ever come to America, we'll give you a good time. When you began your service yesterday with * I will arise, and go unto my father,' I felt that all we Americans were prodigal sons. But instead of squandering our patrimony, we've got rich, and can afford to make an allow- ance for father in his old age."
The old man smiled serenely, shook hands, and shook hands again, and nodded and bowed him out. And Mr. King returned to Salisbury.
The Hampdens were rather put to it to ex- plain the American's enthusiasm for Bemerton and Herbert. :< I shouldn't have thought that Herbert was a poet that in any way appealed to Americans," said Mrs. Hampden. :< He seems to me to be so essentially an English poet that I should say no one who was not English could understand him."
" Just so," said Washington King. " Only English could understand him, and we are
26 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
English at bottom, Mrs. Hampden. We are the English of Shakespeare's day. We speak the language of Shakespeare, and, as you know, Shakespeare and Herbert were contemporaries. The emigration of the English to America was a phenomenon particularly of their time, they noted it and were struck by it. Friends of both Herbert and Shakespeare no doubt went over. And those who went were the more religious people. It was a denial of the world for them, an attempt to find a place where they might serve God in peace. As the poet Herbert himself wrote, bearing witness to the sort of people who went :
Religion stands on tip-toe in our land, Ready to pass to the American strand."
E< And a nice mess they made of it," said old Mr. Hampden rather irrelevantly.
On Friday Trevor came down and took the American to see Stonehenge. On Saturday at breakfast Richard Hampden appeared. Hamp- den was a man above medium height, full at the shoulders, almost ready to droop, full-faced, with a large delicate, rounded, but compact brow, longish brown hair, brown moustache, and long flexible lips. He was clad in well-cut but full brown clothes, looked older than his years, which were thirty-two, and in appearance was like a less-worn edition of his father. There were streaks of occasional grey hair in his locks, scars
ii THE LOST INHERITANCE 27
of suffering here and there about his eyes, but his face had hidden in it a pent-up enthusiasm, a suppressed holy ardour. Something seemed to say, " Set me talking and I'll go on for hours." Yet he was ordinarily more silent than most.
He was a product of his time as his father had been before him, both self-made men. The old man had deserted his native village, where destiny would have left him as a farmer, and he had gone to live in Bow, where with his wife and small children he had tasted the poverty of London, that poverty worse than the poverty of the village, and Richard had grown up from the meanness and impropriety and low-mindedness of the streets of a poor suburb. It was only after Richard had left school that the father began to succeed in trade and he became comparatively well-off, through the discovery of an artificial manure which could be obtained as a by-product in some manufacturing process, and this had taken the family back to the country, or rather to a city in the country, to Salisbury, where they had now a good home and every appearance of gentle birth and training.
Richard at thirty-two was a remarkable figure, and, as Trevor had said on the boat, he was not famous, but his name might burst into fame any moment. At the age of thirty-two a penetrative and courageous man might have dared to say that Richard was a genius, and it would have been interesting to speculate whether he had been born a genius and consequently bound from the first to lead a life of genius, or whether genius
28 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
had come to him as a result of his special suffering and the special characteristics of his life. To look at his refined, powerful, and yet fastidious face, or to listen to his faultless English tone and diction, you'd never think it possible that his childhood had been half-drowned in the sordid expressiveness of the squalid street and the so- called national school. Yet it is true he came from that, and has risen as a clear star over a low world. At the time when Washington King is seeking him, he speaks, shows forth, divines for many. He is working in the midst of things, and is not even an ornament, but is part of the vital fabric of the new England.
:< Say, friend," said the American — he was sitting opposite him at breakfast, — " are you going to show me England ? I guess that's just about what I want. IVe never been here before except in fancy. I'll have to get the lie of the mother- land, and they tell me that you're the man who really knows. Now would you mind explaining to us just how it is you come to know England better than any other man living ? "
* That is not so. I do not know England well. I wish I did," said Richard, putting down his coffee.
' But you do know it ? How's this, what did you say, Mr. Trevor ? Didn't you say that your cousin was "
:< He's modest," interrupted Trevor.
:< He has been all over England, and knows people in every county," said Mrs. H.ampden. " You see, my son has a great gift of oratory,
ii THE LOST INHERITANCE 29
and wherever he speaks people begin to talk about him. He makes a great impression even in the Midlands, where heads are hardest. And he had a success even in dear old Bow, though they say a prophet is not without honour except in his own country. Now he has obtained a licence to preach, and can give the sermon in church if the clergyman be willing."
The old father laughed.
' I wish only they preached who had the licence," said he. ' Everybody thinks he has the privilege to preach at you nowadays. I'd like to be able to demand to see a man's licence before he started preaching at me. And I'd have the licence endorsed every time he gave a dull speech or sermon. Why, in my young days, silence was golden. People were not so glib ; they went about their own business. . . ."
;< Old man Hampden's going to give us a sermon himself," said the American sotto voce to Trevor. " Guess I'll wait for your cousin before I book a seat. . . . Now tell me," he went on in a louder voice, " what is the subject of your son's sermons ? ':
Mrs. Hampden looked appealingly to her son.
" I speak of the lost inheritance of England," said he, quietly.
There was a silence.
" Well, that's strange," said the American. " Now, although I am not a speaker, I am on a quest also, and my quest is the lost inherit- ance of America. We seem to have a common ground."
3o PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
At this Richard Hampden pricked up his ears, and, leaning across the table towards the American, he asked impressively :
" What do you mean ? "
The American met his eye, and began to tell the Englishman the content of his mission and to describe the coming spiritual spoliation of England for cash. Hampden listened in an impassive silence, growing restless only at the talk of purchasing churches, birthplaces, tomb- stones, and so forth.
The father burst into laughter once or twice. Seniority licensed his rudeness, otherwise the American might have been mortified, and Lucy Hampden, who was sitting next her brother, pursed her lips and arched her eyebrows in an expression of mirth and merriment at the American's expense. A smile twitched at the corners of Trevor's lips. But Richard heard the American through with studied seriousness, and said at last to the question — " Will you show me round England ? " — " Yes, I'll show you." And after a few minutes' silence he leant forward again and said to him, " What you say deeply interests me. It interests me more than I can say. Believe me, I do not regard your mission at all facetiously. You have a perfect right to come from America to see what can be bought. Much of the old is going into the melting-pot, and if there is anything we do not need any longer there is no reason why you should not have the option of acquiring it."
;< Now that's sense, you're a man," said the
ii THE LOST INHERITANCE 31
American, overjoyed at the apparent sympathy and understanding.
" You will help me, too," said Hampden. ' By your aid I can apply a test to many national things and find out whether we have grown out of them or not. I want to find out what is our real spiritual gold, and you can be my touchstone for finding it.'*
" How ? " asked Washington King.
"This way," said Hampden. "What you can buy, we have finished with. What you find you can never buy must remain, and that is our imperishable substance, our real spiritual treasure of to-day. That is what I am seeking."
They got up from the breakfast -table and shook hands.
" And what did you make of Stonehenge ? " asked Richard Hampden.
The American paused as he was walking away.
:< It is something like Salisbury Cathedral," he replied.
" What do you mean ? " asked Hampden.
:< It is a place where people once worshipped," said King with quiet impressiveness.
' I realised what this Salisbury of to-day is really like when I came in from Stonehenge last night," he went on. " It was an inferno of drunken soldiers singing choruses, of shopmen crying their wares, motors hooting, people push- ing, girls screaming."
' You should not seek the truth of England in the streets," said Hampden. " That only gives one aspect of the city. Did you not escape
32 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. n
from all that uproar when you passed through the gates, entered the precincts of the Cathedral and found sanctuary — the houses and lawns and gardens, the marvellous mediaeval temple like a pavilion of God* who has arrived and is dwelling among us ? The place that you describe is where there is no truth, i.e. the world ; the place where truth is, is the Cathedral."
" Truth is there, but not the people of England," said King, with a smile.
CHAPTER -Ifft THt
III *\H SPIRITVAL
BACK- GROVtyD.
There is d vJoman. txkinp-fum.
IT was arranged that in the afternoon Trevor should bring the American to Vera Middleton's to tea. Vera was Richard's intimate friend, with whom he shared almost every thought. She was ready to meet any one brought to her, to " take them for granted," as she would say, and not feel shy or in any way constrained. Richard promised a long talk about England, and hoped that they might in conference make some plans for the American. He went to Vera's directly after lunch so as to prepare the way, and Trevor and Washington King set out about four. It was half an hour's walk to Old Sarum Cottage, and they reckoned to get in for tea.
Vera had been a teacher of girls in a school in Bow, and later at a training centre in Shoreditch. But after a nervous breakdown, brought about by her lavish sacrifice of herself, by bad air, grey skies, and overwork, the doctor had ordered her to take things more quietly. She had applied for a country school, and started life afresh in
33 D
34 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
a little cottage with school near by, outside the cathedral city of Salisbury.
Old Sarum Cottage was an old-fashioned little house with beams showing amidst its red bricks. It had two yew-trees in its garden, and many rose-bushes. Under the eaves were the clay saucers of old swallows' nests. Sparrows and thrushes and blackbirds hawked worms in the morning on its bright green lawn, and could be coaxed to the windows for crumbs. It was a sunny cottage, and its red bricks and tiles seemed to have caught great quantities of sunshine and stored them for the winter. It was never really winter in the garden — wallflowers and Christmas roses and chrysanthemums gleamed cheerfully even in December, violets peeped forth, and there were beds specially planted where white violets should appear as soon as Spring was ready. Then also came primroses and polyanthi, to say nothing of the brilliant gems that bloom from bulbs, the procession of February, March, April, and May.
Vera had made the place her own in a very special way. When it was empty, that is, be- fore she came, it was by no means so beautiful and charming. Now many people exclaimed, " However did you find such a perfectly lovely place ? It's the very thing I've been on the look- out for for ages ! " But in truth Vera Middleton had simply found an ordinary country cottage and clothed it with her own personality, nourished and warmed it by her personal affection, and most beautiful homes in this world are like hers —
in THE SPIRITUAL BACKGROUND 35
they are made beautiful by the people who live in them. Whilst they are untenanted they are comparatively dead and void of beauty.
Inside, it was a little temple, with Watts and Burne-Jones pictures instead of frescoes, dainty models of sculptured heads, gracious but simple chairs and tables, polished floors, and rugs, hassocks where one could sit on a level with the glimmering fires in the old grates, handy little carved book-racks where lay the poets in small volumes — Browning and Rossetti and Arnold, Stephen Phillips, Rupert Brooke, and many gentle less-known singers whose voice- Vera had heard and loved : a charming abode — and yet, of course, a poor and barren place if only that, a graceful but temporary expression if only that. But it was more. Vera shared all her good things and the beauty with which she had sur- rounded herself with a score of others. She was a most beloved woman. She knew individually and privately at least twenty people, had their full history, full confidence, and in her bosom had been shed their tears. She could be simple and love, could give advice and love, help in all manner of material and spiritual ways and be loved in return, was mother to the motherless, friend to the friendless. Girls who wanted com- fort naturally went to her. There was something specially attractive in her womanliness, and with- out making appeals or in any way inviting confidence — her own came to her. She believed in human beings, and, as she sometimes said, staked her happiness in life on human beings
36 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
rather than in causes. In that way she was very different from many teachers working with her who , staked their happiness on liberalism, votes for women, socialism, and the like. Her life, therefore, was brimming to the full with love and sympathy and human interests. She was of middle years. Many of the children whom she had taught were grown women. But of her it may be said, " She never grew old, but remained like a marble statue round which a mighty city street had risen up."
Vera received Mr. King as if she had known him long, was at once eager, ready, warm, taking him to her bookshelves, showing him books, making him read to her poems which she loved in Lowell and Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The American read them, and was spurred to read them well. And she showed him her pictures, and brought him at last to Trevor and Hampden, who had been chatting apart.
They sat to have tea. Hampden broached the conversation and King took it up. The question was : " How is England to be shown, and what is our spiritual background as a nation?" ' What does America look back to in her own history, Mr. King ? "
Vera handed out dainty cups of tea, and invited her guests to be at home. Mr. King signified his thanks as he picked up a division of hot buttered cake meditatively between thumb and forefinger.
" Well, the truth is, we have not sufficient spiritual background in America, and what we
in THE SPIRITUAL BACKGROUND 37
have has been ruined by the cinema and the cheap-story syndicates. That is why I have come to England, — to get more."
He looked toward Miss Middleton impres- sively. She nodded to him to go on.
" We have one or two great spiritual incidents in our history," he continued. " America looks back, for instance, to the war of North and South, our great national struggle for right. America looks back to Bunker's Hill and the War of Independence, our first great struggle for freedom and the sacredness of individual rights. America looks back also to the sailing of the Pilgrim Fathers and the choice we made for God. These are our chief national values. They are all modern, as you know ; and of course we look back far beyond them to Magna Charta, and Wycliffe, and the making of the English Bible, and the Reformation, and Shakespeare, and Milton, and Cromwell. ..."
" You surely don't look back to Magna Charta," interrupted Trevor.
' Well, no, we don't, except in the history book. We look back more vaguely to the birth- places of our forefathers and the village churches and cathedrals — the knights in armour, the red- cross knights and the queens of love and beauty of the English Middle Ages. We admire the chivalry of Edward the First,' the spirit that prompted him so to honour his Queen, building crosses where her body lay. That spirit of worship towards woman is what America is yearning for to-day."
38 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
" How wonderful," said Vera. " Do you mean that the old chivalry is coming back in America ? I was so much afraid that there was thought to be no room for it in advanced countries."
" Well, man and woman consider themselves equal in all practical affairs, but honouring the American woman is part of our religion," said King.
' That's new," said Trevor, with a suggestion of mirth.
* True, however," said Hampden, protecting the American's opinion. " There is a fine respect for women in America."
The conversation ranged for some time over the subject of chivalry and belief in woman as the higher and redeeming power in the world, and then came back to England and Edward the First and the American's passion.
* The question is : What is our spiritual back- ground, what is the true national history of England ? "
* We ought to say Britain, not England," said Trevor. " First we were ancient Britons. But it depends on our politics about the background. Read Green's History and you get one idea of national heroes — all people who stood out for liberties ; read what Kipling says in his school- boy's history book, and the heroes are different."
' Whom do you call our greatest national hero ? " asked Vera of Trevor.
Trevor paused, and then said, " Gordon, perhaps."
in THE SPIRITUAL BACKGROUND 39
Every one smiled.
" I do not suppose you are interested in Gordon," said Hampden.
" Well, he affords a clue," said King. " He was a deeply religious Christian man, and I should back him any day against Disraeli or Marlborough or Bacon, or any of your meanest greatest of mankind. Gordon had a true English tradition."
Hampden agreed.
" We must think of our religious heroes," said Trevor.
" Our roots are in religion, but really not in politics," said Hampden.
" Our roots also," said the American. :c Our spiritual roots, out of sight, go down into the depths of the national religious life of Great Britain."
" Well, then, our research of England must be along the lines of religion and national expres- sion," said Hampden. " We are clearly both agreed as to that."
Vera invited them to her room.
They left the little parlour and went into the fire-lit room which Vera called specially her own, though the whole little house was hers. It had grown dark outside, but Vera lit no lamps. Long talks at Old Sarum Cottage on Sunday evenings were always by the firelight, and the reflection of the flames played on the faces of the four friends as they sat on hassocks and low chairs and conversed.
" First we were Britons, then Romans and
40 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
Britons, Christian Romans and Christian Britons, then Saxons and Britons, heathen Saxons and Christian Britons, then the Saxons became Chris- tians, then we were Danes and Saxons and Britons, and then Normans were added. I know you have a national passion, Richard, and are rather down on our aliens, but isn't our foundation alien ? There is no beginning to our national history."
This long speech was from Trevor. [
" But we are all one family now, are we not ? " said Vera. " These old distinctions are gone."
* The type emerged long ago," said the American.
" We are all English to-day," said Hampden.
" Have you ever thought," asked the American, " that the land itself forms nationality — land rather than race ? It is a favourite theory of mine. Britannia has made five or six people into one, into her children. Now in America "
" You tend to produce a type like the Red Indian," exclaimed the eager Trevor.
" Exactly, and if America had been discovered in 56 B.C. instead of A.D. 1492, the Red Indians would have been absorbed into the type of American by now, and we should speak lightly of the Indian temperament as you do of the Celtic. The conditioning thing is in the long run the land on which the races live, the sort of air they breathe, the common religion they find."
" That's a different idea that of religion," broke in Trevor.
in THE SPIRITUAL BACKGROUND 41
" A common religion inevitably springs up," rejoined Washington King.
" I like the theory," said Vera. 1 Yes, show me a fine Englishman of to-day, from North, South, East or West, Welsh, Cornish, Pict or Saxon, and I must say * England made you.' "
' What of the German settled in England, does he tend to become English ? ': asked Hampden.
" Yes, even he."
At this there was a chorus of dissent. ' You speak with an American bias," said Trevor.
:e And you with an English bias," said King.
' There's some truth in what you say, but you mustn't carry your theory too far," said Richard.
;< Oh, I wouldn't carry it too far," said the American, with a smile. " But I continue to think of the nation as Shakespeare did when he praised the land which bred you all.
" ' This earth of majesty" (he wrote), ' this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men. . . .'
And then again — " c This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.' "
And this set them talking of the patriotic speeches of Shakespeare. How precious were the places where Shakespeare went out of his way to say good things of England, Gaunt's speech, Henry
42 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
before Agincourt, Faulconbridge speaking the epilogue of King John, and then generally, how precious were our few national expressions such as the " Burial of Sir John Moore," the " Elegy," Henley's " What can I do for you, England, my England ? " Brooke's sonnet. . . .
" These are the national pages in our litera- ture," said Hampden, " and it is to these we must turn to find out what is the national idea of England, though I do not know that in these alone we should find a complete answer. We are a people more of deeds than of songs. But, as Mr. King was saying, we must go to the re- ligious roots of the nation. First of all, she was Ancient British, and then Christianity came to her, transforming Celtic night -twilight into Christian dawn -twilight, producing Arthur and Lancelot and Galahad and Percival, the Table Round, the Legends of the Grail. From that we went on. . . ."
Mr. King rubbed his hands gleefully, with appreciation of what he would have called " the real thing."
" I am with you there, Mr. Hampden," said he, " absolutely."
" So we must go to Glastonbury together," said Hampden, " and then to lona, then to Lindisfarne, to Durham, Westminster, Canter- bury, Winchester, to our ruined abbeys, the landmarks of the Reformation, to Stratford-on- Avon "
!c A large programme," said Vera.
" We must go to the national places, Runny-
in THE SPIRITUAL BACKGROUND 43
mede, Chalfont St. Giles, Stoke Pogis, Eyam, Hawarden for Gladstone, * who made the bounds of freedom wider yet. '
:' He does not interest me," put in the American.
" Don't forget to go to St. Faith's Chapel," said Vera.
" We ought also to go to Ecclefechan," Hampden added cogitatively.
;< And to Somersby," said young Trevor, with a smile.
"Well, I'm going to leave it to Cousin Richard," said the American, nodding good- humouredly at Trevor. " My object, as you know, is to find out what you do not want any longer, and to purchase it for America. My best way is first of all to review all your national sites and spiritual treasures, and afterwards to use what influence I have to buy what we specially want."
:t And use the rest of your five hundred and twenty introductions," said Trevor.
"Just so."
:< And my object," said Hampden silently to himself, " is to find out what are the national and religious things with which we will never part."
There was a pause in the conversation, and in it Washington King and Trevor stood up together and made ready to depart, shaking hands with their hostess.
* We can go to Glastonbury as soon as you are ready, it is only fifty miles away," said Hampden, " and thus commence our pilgrimage.
44 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. m
From Glastonbury we should go to lona, and perhaps more preparation would have to be made on your part, as we should spend at least a week there."
" At your service," said the American, bowing, and with that Trevor and he set off by moonlight for Salisbury.
Hampden, however, remained half an hour more.
CHAPTER
IV -BVRY
THE American was a practical man. Hampden, however, was a mystic. The American did not understand, but allowed himself to be governed by Hampden. For he thought that Hampden probably knew his own mind, and therefore he trusted him. So they entered Glastonbury in an unusual way. They went by train to Wells, and then walked across, their eyes fixed on the landmark of the Tor as they went.
" We must go to the hills before we go to the town," said Hampden, as they walked along the gentle English road. " The shops and the red- brick houses, and even the Pilgrim's Inn, have little to do with the Glastonbury which we are seeking."
They emerged at length in the region of the mysterious and beautiful hills where the first British shrines were made.
Behold, the Tor points its blunt forefinger to the sky. The larch trees climb aslant up Joseph
45
46 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
of Arimathea's hill. The spring of living water still dances from Chalice Hill, where the Holy Grail was buried.
Hither, as legend tells, came Joseph of Ari- mathea, who, though he had ready his own new- hewn sepulchre and could give it to his Saviour, yet lived seventy years from the day of the Cruci- fixion. Joseph was entrusted by the Apostles to carry the Gospel to Britain, and to be our Christ. He was shown by a vision that he must seek a hill like unto Mount Tabor, and he sailed in a boat with twelve holy men from France to Wales, and from Wales to the isles in the marshes. For at that time the hills were islands over the marshes, and the valley below them was Avalon. At last, one morning, on pleased eyes dawned the green hill of the Tor, which is so like the Mount of Transfiguration that people who have been to the Holy Land and come afterward to Glastonbury remark it, though the legend be unknown to them. So St. Joseph and the twelve hermits paused in their rowing and prayed. And they anchored their boat at the foot of these hills. St. Joseph brought in his keeping the mystical gift of the Cup of the Last Supper, and he gave it to the earth of Britain. The land was a wilderness then, but the aged Joseph placed his barren staff in the earth and it blossomed with spiritual blossoms, as it blossoms to this day, every 25th December, as Christ is born again in the land. He built a church of wattles on the summit of the Tor, and about the base of the hill the twelve holy men
iv GLASTONBURY 47
made twelve caves and lived a hermit's life therein. St. Joseph at length died, and was buried in the same earth with the Grail seventy years after his sepulchre had been used in Palestine. He found a successor amongst his holy men. But they also were growing old, and as they died new hermits took their places in the caves at the foot of the Tor, the firstfruits of sacrifice in Britain, for they were British hermits. Glastonbury is our British holy land, for from its sacred spring the first baptisms were made. As the Grail, when the heathen came, was put in the dank, rich British earth, or in a rock chamber of the well, so the mystic and gentle religion of the Virgin-born Saviour and Man of Sorrows who died to reconcile us all found a mysterious home in the souls of men. There is Celtic spirit in all of us to-day ; the earth of Britain has made out of us all its own people, we have grown out of it, and in the deeper sanctuary of our souls is to be found the mystic seed which St. Joseph and his hermits brought.
The ancient Britons were ready for Chris- tianity. No race received it more humbly, more simply and readily than they. The atmosphere of Britain was never that of the quarrelsome Levant. Joseph was not persecuted, his hermits were not butchered by the Druids. Probably Joseph was ex- pected by these people, seen coming by the mystic- ally gifted and by those who saw beyond material veils. They came and glorified God in peace.
Hampden and the American had walked to
48 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL 'CH.
the top of the Tor and stood looking at the old half-ruined tower and the railing around it.
' This tower is in complete disuse, I take it," said Washington King, scribbling appreciatively in a notebook. ;< No candle burning inside it, no memorial services for the birth of Chris- tianity ; instead of which people scrawling their names on the walls and this strong rusty iron railing to keep the people out. I should think it would not be difficult to prove that Britain had no more use for it."
' The railing ought to be removed and a hermit put in to keep charge of it," said Hampden. ;< Perhaps some devout crippled soldier might be put in it after the war."
" Meanwhile I can find out whether it would not be more prized if it could be put up on an American Mount Tabor," said King.
Then they turned from the tower and looked down upon the wide expanse of England below.
" All that you say is perfectly true," said the American. * This is the real beginning. This is indeed the first place in our common history."
" And there lies our wonderful England," said Hampden.
He pointed to the broad lands, green and grey and brown, the plain that was once a marsh, the misty hills beyond, the long bluish-silver lines of the dykes draining what was once the Marsh of Avalon, the reedy stream of the road of the pilgrimage of St. Bride, the white smoke of distant trains pensively puffing and pushing along as if laboriously measuring the broad English
iv GLASTONBURY 49
land, the vale of Glastonbury with its mounds and houses, all harmonised by soft air and spring sunshine, the great wide, open, tranquil vision of the land.
" Is it not beautiful ? " said Hampden. " It has a sort of epic loveliness about it, it has an ' is for ever England ' expression, has it not ? "
Christianity made such peaceful progress here that it lacks history. When Joseph of Arimathea came to Glastonbury, Britain was in Roman hands and the Romans were becoming Christians. There speedily came to be a recognisable Church : we had added a candle to the seven candles of the East. A hundred years after Joseph died, Tertullian wrote of our well-established Church in Britain, and a hundred years later still we sent our bishops to the Emperor Constantine's Council of Aries.
The Britons were baptized and had expressed Christianity in their lives and ideals for over three hundred years before Hengist and Horsa came to disturb them. There had been a British Church for a quarter of a millenium.
At Glastonbury St. Patrick was born, and at the time the pagan Saxons were ravaging the east of our country he was rebuilding the church on the top of the Tor. In his day the spiritual descendants of the twelve holy men were still living at the foot of the hill, -and St. Patrick organised these hermits into a society and made the first monastery of Britain, and he himself was head of it. From the primitive buildings
E V
50 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
of St. Patrick's time sprang the wondrous abbey, now lying in sad ruin and decay. Christianity intensified westward as it was driven from the east. Western Britain began to live by itself, and to whatever date in history we ascribe the truth of the legends of King Arthur and the Round Table, our Christian myths of the visions of the Grail, of the deeds of the Knights of the King, are nevertheless a growth of ancient British Christianity and life. And at Glastonbury it is said King Arthur and Queen Guinevere were buried.
Half England became pagan with the Saxon hordes, but St. Patrick had taken Christianity westward to Ireland, and the same swift Celtic absorption and conversion took place there, and from Ireland Columba took Christianity north- ward and eastward again to lona and Scotland. Columba converted the Picts, and from Columba's isle Aidan went to Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, and began the Christianising of the stubborn Saxons.
;< So this is the island valley of Avalon," said the American with satisfaction, as they walked down the steep hill by its well-trodden way. They passed over to the lower hill where the women's side once was, then to Maidencraft Lane, and Hampden showed him what Eager-Heart had shown him once, the grass plot of the Grail left amid the roads, and they agreed to go thence to the ruins of the ancient Abbey.
* You have an invaluable national and spiritual
iv GLASTONBURY 51
treasure here, Mr. Hampden. You can see how much there is missing for us in America with only our Redskins to balance your Celts, and Columbus instead of Joseph of Arimathea. Yet I expect most of you take all this for granted. Glastonbury is not the place of pilgrimage it might be."
" Let me tell you a little of the modern significance of Glastonbury," said Hampden. " Over the spring of living water which runs from Chalice Hill, Eager-Heart has a guest-house for pilgrims. There are at least unofficial pilgrimages to this summit, and a regular pilgrims' way from the town over the brow of the hill. There are thousands of personal pilgrimages such as ours every year. Unfortunately our John Bull of to-day does not like to call himself a pilgrim, and he disowns religious motives, but he has true yearnings all the same. Until recently the gay folk of the town used to have dances and summer parties on the lovely lawn between the Abbey walls, but now it is recognised as too sacred, and last year for the first time for three hundred years
52 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
there was service held in the ruined nave, and that by the Bishop of Wells. For generations the natives have been taking the stones of the ruined Abbey to patch or build their own houses, but now they are reverently restoring them when they can in order that they may be put back in the places to which they belonged. So you must know that there is still some life stirring in our roots, and the cells at the foot of the Tor are not untenanted."
They entered the grounds of the most majestic ruins in England, and stood amazed and reverent in the presence of the lofty arch, broken to let in heaven, and the pillars up in the sky. They walked silently about the velvet lawns, and paused reflectively before the broken walls and empty remaining windows.
* The people who broke this had no sense for beauty, no room in their religion for beauty," said the American.
;' Our common ancestors," said Hampden. :< I will not tell you the time this took a-building," he went on, " or of the love of the abbots and masons who built it. But you can imagine how it grew, and then how it was struck down."
They stood before the marvellous doorway in St. Joseph's Chapel, which possibly gave Tennyson the idea of the hall of Merlin at Camelot :
Four great zones of sculpture, set betwixt With many a mystic symbol, gird the hall : And in the lowest beasts are slaying men,
iv GLASTONBURY 53
And in the second men are slaying beasts, And on the third are warriors, perfect men, And on the fourth are men with growing wings.
" This breathes the very music of building," said King.
' You probably know the history of the purchase of the Abbey," said Hampden. ' You do not ? Oh, well, an American syndicate tried to purchase it in 1907, so I thought you might have heard of that fact. Did you notice the com- fortable mansion in the grounds ? The ruined Abbey formerly belonged to the owner of the mansion. All the windows of the house are arranged so that guests may get good views of the ruin, and the best rooms look right down the nave of the great Abbey. An interesting contrast, this mansion, with its good roof and closed windows and doors, and probably steam- heating to keep out the damp, and the Abbey without roof, without care, a mere vanity — the house of man and the house of God.
:< Owing to trouble about a will, the family's property had to be sold, and they put this sacred shrine to public auction, so that the devil himself might have come in and bid."
" So I might have had it ten years ago," said the American.
:< Saving his presence," said Hampden, with a smile. :< An American company did want it ; the Roman Catholic Church wanted it, for obviously it would be a great place to them. A certain American lady was hastening to the auction, and would have outbid all comers, but
54 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
her train broke down and she was stranded at Temple-Coombe, whence she telegraphed to the auctioneer, ' Postpone the sale till I come ' ; but her telegram was only delivered after the sale had taken place. When at last she arrived and learned that she was too late, her disappointment amounted to rage. ' This isn't a proper sale,' she cried ; * why, I'd give double the figure.' The ruins had been bought by a certain Mr. Jardine of Nottingham for £30,000, and it turned out afterwards that he had been bidding for our Church of England. Jardine was the Church in disguise, and it soon became known that it was the Church which had regained Glastonbury Abbey, and that it considered it a priceless treasure. Fifty years ago few would have dreamed of valuing it as anything more than a curiosity."
;< I see by the scaffolding that they have been restoring and building even in war time," said the American. * What do your lovers of the picturesque say to that ? "
" They are less noisy than they used to be," Hampden replied. :< I think we generally feel that their opinions were wrong, and that it was absurd to conserve merely ruins. It is the spirit that must be conserved."
Hampden and the American then visited Chalice Well and saw the original holy spring flooding forth over its golden bed. They stood with bared heads in the old monks' garden and listened to the murmuring and whispering and calling of the water welling up from underground.
iv GLASTONBURY 55
" You are now at the pure spring," said Hampden, " at the source, virginal and un- defiled. In this stillness you can hear the voice of Britain, the voice of the land that nurtured and bred us all. The marvellous legend is that here, actually here, the Holy Grail was buried, and from the Cup this living water flows.
" The Roman Catholics held to this a long while, hoping that the Abbey ruins might also fall into their hands, but when our national Church obtained the Abbey, the monks forsook the well. It was offered for sale. And now Eager-Heart holds it in trust for us all. And the rest-house behind it is hers — something new in England, a sort of lay convent with a theatre for mystery plays, common tables for meals, and the old bedrooms of the monks for all who come."
In the rest-house Hampden and King talked with a man who was wearing a pilgrim's token — not a munitions badge, as might have been expected in these times, but a medal struck on the occasion of a pilgrimage to the top of the Tor — and he discoursed of Glastonbury past and present, of the factories and the shops, of the visitors and the pilgrims, Chalice Well and the mystery plays performed there (he himself had played several pious roles on Eager-Heart's stage, and was almost an Oberammergau type in face and bearing), of Glastonbury men captured by the Turks in Mesopotamia, and of the churches of Glastonbury.
He was proud of his city, and though he had never been to London, and was, from our narrower
56 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. iv
English point of view, a provincial person, yet he had been enfranchised of the great city of cities and capital of capitals, and with regard to its gates was less provincial than most.
The pilgrim described a pageant play which was called " The Entry to Jerusalem," and in the course of his talk propounded to King a charming riddle :
" What is an outsider ? "
"You don't know? — One who has never been within"
As they went away King muttered that it was " silly."
" Within the City, within the City" said Hampden to him softly.
King and Hampden dined at the long table of the guest-house, and were given rooms for the night. Next morning being a festival, they went to early celebration at St. John's Church. Over those who knelt at the altar the priest held the golden chalice like a vision in heaven, and then it came down from heaven to their lips, and they remembered that though there are many they are all one, though many have died all are alive in the Lord, though there is a past and a future it is an eternal present before God.
CH'V.
tin ridn tie conquer
THE journey which Hampden and the American made may be called a pilgrimage. It developed that character in Hampden's mind and soul as he followed out faithfully our national way of the Cross. They journeyed from Glastonbury to Ireland, then to Scotland, and by Easter they had come to lona. The vision of the Grail flitted thus in time past from one region to another, a Christian will-o'-the-wisp which could not be materialised or extinguished, and it was strange in the ardent present of the twentieth century to find it again and follow it.
They travelled together through the West country abiding some days among the Welsh. These are an emotional, imaginative, expressive people ; they preserved our Christianity when the pagan Saxons came. They had a wide, deep Christianity, one in keeping with their nature, and yet to-day they are mostly Puritans, circum- scribed in Christian outlook, loving colour and form less than the English do, and finding
57
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characteristic expression in .ethical enthusiasm and personal devotion to the Good Master and Saviour. They love Jesus, who in His passion to make us good children of the Great Father and cease lying and stealing and cheating and using bad language, gave up His life for us. Yet, touching as is that personal attachment to Christ, the people of Wales had once a broader and more splendid Christian conception. Their Christianity held all the yearning and human mystery distilled from ages of paganism and nature-worship. The Grail overflowed with that beauty. Christianity used to be more than the rolling of the Sisyphus stone, the backsliding and then starting again and trying to do better next time. It voiced the mysteries and the melancholies, the yearnings and all the diversified pathos and splendour of spiritual experience. It was also more social and national. The Britons in Wales were the first champions of a national as against an inter- national Church.
When Augustine came to England the usage of the British Church was different from that which was current at Rome. The Church begun for us by Joseph at Glastonbury had developed locally and expressed itself nationally, glorifying God in its own particular way. The Celtic voice had its good part in the symphony of the Churches. But the one Church organised from Rome had a passion for uniformity of usage and allegiance, it abhorred difference in expression, it did not see that there were many thousand ways of praising God and every new way realised
v IONA 59
increased the great glory, and it brought into use the uncharitable name of heresy. Its dream was of an all-comprehending Church — one fold and one shepherd. But it put political unity before spiritual unity, and Augustine was as zealous to correct the British Christians as he was to convert the pagan Saxons. After the con- version of the men of Kent, he went westward to meet the bishops of the land that is now Wales. They were perturbed by the approach of the Roman missionary and applied to a hermit for advice. The hermit said, " If the man be of Christ, he will be meek and lowly, bearing Christ's yoke. If he be so, accept him, and listen to the message that he brings."
" How shall we know whether he be meek and lowly ? " asked they.
;{ If he receiveth you standing," said the hermit, " you shall know that he is of Christ, but if when you come into his presence he remaineth sitting, yofl shall know that he is a proud man and a politician ; accept him not."
Augustine received the British bishops sitting, conceiving that they were inferior to him in rank. So they would have none of him. The British remained national and worshipped God according to their traditions. The Roman had to rest con- tent with the conversion of Kent, and even the rest of the Saxons remained pagan.
But Rome won later, and Wales was swept into the spiritual dominion of the Pope, together with England, Ireland, and Scotland, not escap- ing till the Reformation. But it has never
60 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
regained the type of Christian piety which it possessed in the earliest days of our history.
Hampden and King went to St. Winifred's Well and saw the stacks of crutches left behind by cripples who had miraculously received their health from the spring. St. Winifred belonged to the time of Augustine, and miracles have been worked at her well ever since, though recently, tapped by some commercial company of our days, it suddenly dried up. Welsh national feeling is strong, but it makes little use of St. Winifred's Well.
From Wales the pilgrims passed over to Ireland, St. Columba's country, where, among the beautiful hills, the legendary stories of his time still live. From Ireland they sailed for Scotland, thus following the way of the gentle hermit- monk who brought Christianity to all the North.
Ireland passed out of sight, or was but a shadow on the horizon — Scotland and its islands climbed from the sea. So it was when Columba sailed in his coracle of skins — Ireland faded behind him, and yet would not fade. He loved Ireland so dearly that it was pain to look round and see the shadow of her. He would not, dare not, make his hermitage on any island where Erin, even from a mountain-top, should be in view. So he sailed his coracle from island to island, and climbed up the rocks to highest points to see whether his native land had yet disappeared. From Coll Ireland was in view ; from Oronsay it was in view ; from lona it was not in view,
v IONA 6 1
and he consecrated the little island to Christ. :< Some one must go into the earth and be our root," said he ; and Oran, a monk who was with him, offered to go, and legend says he was buried alive, so that by his self-sacrifice and denial of this world the earth might be made holy. Columba planted his cross on the spot where Oran was buried ; he built his church and cell, the Bethlehem of Scotland, from whence began his ministry to the people of the islands and the hills. He brought a Celtic chalice to lona, the shadow of the Cup that Joseph had brought to Glastonbury. He built a hundred churches on shores visited by the wave, and each had its sacred chalice, the emblem about which must have circled all the church service which they had in those days. Columba converted the Picts, and hermits and monks came from Scotland to the holy island till a large fraternity was formed. And other Irish Scots followed Columba from Erin's shore. lona became a Mount Athos of Scotland, an island of the monks. Columba and his brethren wandered all over the highlands of Scotland in the dark ages of our history, and lona was soon known as the most famous and holy shrine in the north. The kings and thanes of Scotland were brought to lona to be buried.
Where is Duncan's body ?
Carried to Colmes-Kill,1
The sacred storehouse of his predecessors,
And guardian of their bones.
Wales was the seat of Christianity, Ireland was
1 Gaelic for lona.
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radiantly Christian, Scotland had become Chris- tian. Meanwhile only Kent out of all England had received the Gospel. But after Columba's death another monk of lona crossed to North- umberland and found a second sacred isle, whence he made England Christian. His name was Aidan, the forerunner of St. Cuthbert.
" A beautiful island," said Hampden, " a gem in the sea, with such a peace that you can under- stand that it is holy — the snow-white sands, the red granite of the heather-covered hills, the ever-changing blue of the sea, the channel of the Ross of Mull and mighty mountainous Mull beyond it, the shadow-shores of distant islands far away on the sea, the rocks and abysses of Staffa, the sugar-loaf of Eig, strands of Coll and Tiree, peaks of Jura, distant hills of Rum, Ben More ; then here at hand the little mountain of the island with the cairn on its summit, and on the shore the melancholy block of the Cathedral buildings, the tall Celtic crosses, the crofters' white houses, the mountain sheep with heavy coats of wool, the primroses, the irises."
Hampden took his companion to Columba's bay, the shore where the coracle came to land. They climbed to the highest point in the island and saw, as Columba had seen, that Ireland was not in view. They saw the ring of the ocean,
the sapphire-spangled marriage-ring of the land.
It was changeable, stormy, cloudy, and sunshiny weather, the great sky was full of clouds and
v IONA 63
hurrying winds, the storms traversed the waves, pouring out of the skies ; the islets in the far sea fading into mists of rain and re-emerging into the splendour of sunshine.
They descended from the cairn on the little mountain, from rock to rock and moss-patch to moss-patch till they came to the ground where Oran was buried and the Cathedral now stands, and they looked at the antique tombs with effigies of Scottish warriors of the Middle Ages — Macleods, Macleans, M'Quarries, MacKinnons, knights, bishops, priors.
The whole island belongs to the Duke of Argyle. The last Duke, a man of power, was devoted to the island and understood its lasting religious significance.
It could be said of lona, as the American said of Stonehenge, " This is a place where people once have worshipped" but the Duke understood that people sooner or later must worship here again. His Grace of Argyle represented religious in- telligence emerging from the Victorian era. He was deeply interested in science, especially in geology, and the fact was ever in his mind that lona was the most interesting island in the Atlantic, by virtue of its geology — a lump of the oldest rock in the world. And yet he knew in himself that no story of the rocks could compare with the story of the man — Columba. He marvelled that in the monkish chronicles no mention was made of that wonder of the world, Staffa with Fingal's Cave, almost the nearest island to lona. As if the mysteries and miracles
64 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
of ^Nature were to be compared with those of Christ !
Hampden and the American were accommo- dated at the Retreat, a religious guest-house for the shelter of pilgrims in our day. The American read Adamnan's life of Columba, but it made a bad impression on his mind ; it seemed to him one long list of impossible miracles.
" I have a passion for x truth," said the American. ;< I hate a lie in any shape or form. And that is why I cannot away with this monkish history of miracles, this floating of stones and stilling of storms, and raising from the dead, and so on."
" Are you by any chance descended from the great Washington ? " asked a certain Mr. Adair who was present.
:< I am descended from Washington on my mother's side," said King ; " my father's family were the Kings of Pennsylvania. But we look back to English ancestry also. I am rather pained to realise what liars our ancestors were."
" How ? " asked Richard.
' Why I have here Adamnan's life of Columba, and it is the coolest and soberest tissue of lies I have seen. I can allow for a few miracles as a result of faith-healing, strong will-power, happy coincidence religiously interpreted, but this, for instance, of the staff left behind on lona shore and the monks praying it over the sea to Ireland, or of the Saint sailing over the ocean on a stone, is neither witty nor wise, and shows our ancestors in a bad light."
v IONA 65
:* It is possible to look differently on these things," said Hampden. :< Some allowance must be made for popular credulity. The miraculous stories have survived for us in this form. But even in the worst of them some original spiritual mystery or joy is set. That of the staffs seems a silly story. But Columba himself was not silly ; he must have been a sternly real man, and we cannot associate him with vulgar lying. If he had told the story himself, he would have told it differently. Adamnan was the ninth abbot, flourishing nearly two hundred years after Columba, and he put down the popular legends in the popular form."
Columba was British, retained the British usage, and knew very little of Rome. Adamnan was the first of the abbots to think that the Church in Britain should give up its local char- acteristics and become uniform. There was a bitter struggle on the island before it became Romanised. Roman, however, it became, as did all the islands and all Scotland — and remained so till the storm of Protestantism. Though a few secluded Hebrides such as Barra never heard of the Reformation, and remain peacefully Catholic to this day.
The late Duke of Argyle was afraid that at some time the holy site of lona might be sold to the Roman Church, and lost to Scotland as a national religious shrine. So he made definite pro- vision that the Cathedral should remain the trust property of the Church of Scotland for all time.
Mr. Adair who was talking to the American
F
66 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
was what is called Custodier of the Cathedral — dreadful expression — and kept the keys, a charm- ing delicate Celt of middle years, once an engineer, but now in happy retirement, an artist and metal worker. He knew Hampden well, and gave him the keys of the Cathedral that he might go into it whenever he desired.
The American was surprised to learn that the Cathedral was not used for public worship except in the summer-time when visitors were plentiful, and that the native crofters of lona had a suspicious dislike of the beauty and fittingness of the temple, preferring to offer praise in a plain meeting- house which they had built near by.
" Why," said the American, " I think His Grace did ill tying up this property so that it cannot be sold. These wonderful old stones are not really wanted here except as a commercial attraction of a watering-place, and we would have made real spiritual use of them in America — a place in ten thousand."
Inside the Cathedral were many presents given to it by rich lovers of the island, an altar in lona marble, and a large font in the same.
* When was this given ? " asked the American, pointing to the font.
' Eight years ago," he was told.
;< Has any one been baptized in it ? "
" No one yet."
" Appalling, is it not ? " said Hampden. " But we must have patience, Scotland is only behind- hand. She will begin to baptize here in time."
They admired the old stone-work and the Celtic
v IONA 67
art, but were sympathetically abhorrent of the machine-made wooden pulpit that had been installed, and of the newly-furnished stalls in which it seemed no one would care to sit.
* Won't there be service here on Easter Sunday ? " asked the American.
" No, not here."
Easter Day came with no Communion Service on the island, and Hampden went early to the Cathedral and spent an hour alone, watching, as it were, by the sepulchre of the Lord.
As he came out of the Cathedral at day- break he met a girl tripping along on bare feet, and she looked a little alarmed to see a figure emerging from this great locked and bolted tomb. But Hampden, when he came near her, smiled reassuringly, and asked :
:< And what can you tell me about St. Columba, my little girl ? "
" A worship the true God," she blurted, and then took to her heels.
Hampden joined the American, and before going to the hour's service at the Meeting-House they visited together the ancient graveyard, the fair field with its rows of stone effigies of kings, and they looked on the faces of those who had long ago died in the faith. In the dazzling sun- shine of the Easter morning reflecting on the tombs, the light of these dead men went up from earth to heaven.
There were fifteen worshippers at the service in the little chapel ; the precentor in the box beneath the pulpit yawed out the tune, the harsh
68 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
almentation of the psalms ; a long sermon followed on the material evidence of the Resurrection ; another psalm, and then home — the official Easter of lona.
In the afternoon Mr. Adair entertained the visitors. He was able to assure the American that his fellow-countrymen were more interested in the island than were the British from the mainland, and that, generally speaking, they were more intelligent, though there were some notable exceptions. He told a story of a New England lady who thought that Boadicea was buried on the island.
" I wan' you to show me Bo-dicea's tomb," said she.
" What ? "
" Bo-dicea's tomb."
:< I'm afraid she was not buried here."
;< Don't you know who I mean ? Wasn't Bo-dicea queen of the Ionian Islands, and isn't lona the capital of the Ionian Islands ? So of course she's buried here somewhere."
The kindly Adair showed her an ancient tomb- stone with an effaced effigy of an antique thane.
" I thought you'd remember where it was," said she.
She was one of those who come to lona on the day trips from Oban, and reckon to see all there is in an hour and a half. ;< I've often heard of the Marathon Race," said she in parting, * but I never thought I should be called upon to do it."
The American laughed heartily at this story at
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the expense of his countrywoman. And Mr. Adair hurried on to make a tactful reference to the library of the island, which they owed to Carnegie.
Adair himself had a happy collection of books, volumes of designs and replicas from the Durrow Book, the Lindisfarne Gospels. He and his wife copied Celtic patterns and reworked them in embroideries and silver. Their artistic com- munion with the wonderful designs in the Gospel pages gave them continual spiritual satisfaction. It was impossible to look even at the printed reproductions of the illuminated Gospel without a certain awe and wonder. The miracles which Columba wrought may appear foolishness to the readers of Adamnan, but the miracles he and his fellow-illuminators wrought in the tran- scription of the Holy Word convince even now. In these pages is manifest the intense mysticism of the Middle Ages — the feeling that even a letter or a word of the Gospel was holy and miraculous in itself.
" Here at lona one may fittingly breathe the illuminator's prayer," said Hampden.
" May I live this day the illuminator's life. May I interpret the glory of God in the moment which is the letter, and in the procession of man's life which is the word. May my soul magnify the Lord ! The old monks illuminated the word in manuscript ; we can illuminate the word in our lives."
' I should like to possess one of the originals of these illuminated books," said King.
" And I," said Hampden, " would willingly
yo PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. v
part with the originals if men and women would themselves live lives of praise. But I fear we still need the original symbols to remind us."
" I say you have outlived them and might as well sell them to America," said King.
" On the contrary," said Hampden, " we have not yet begun to live up to them."
Conversation naturally turned from the Gospels to the life of the monks and to the miracles which Columba wrought, and it became a debate on the subject of miracles, unsatisfying as all debates on that subject are likely to be. One of the issues was an agreement that Hampden should formulate his ideas about the miracles and give a lay sermon to the crofters and their wives. As the American and Hampden were leaving, Mr. Adair gave it as his opinion that lona was a more than usually healthy place. " People who come here ill recover ; those who are well to start with feel better still. I don't know what it is — a sort of purity that is here, as if the spirituality of the lives of those who lived here long ago had left some quality in the earth and the air — a halo of health round the island, existent since the age of faith."
:* Adair laughed at some of the miracles," said Richard as they went along the sea-front to the Retreat, " but in our unromantic days you can see in his mind a predisposition for the miraculous. What he would write, or an Adamnan of our days might chronicle, about the halo of health round the island might easily seem nonsense in a thousand years."
CH: VI.
THE
IS DEAD' MAY. HE LIVETH.
OF
SA11SJT COLVjyiBA,
THE following lay-sermon was given by Richard Hampden to the men and women of lona on the occasion of his visit there :
Columba, moved by the Spirit, sought the island of lona ; for him contrary winds became favourable, tempests changed to calms. Of those who accompanied him one turned sick when they reached the shore, and he wasted toward death. The others were sad because of this omen of ill fate on the island. But Columba put the faith of God into their hearts in this wise :
:< Oran," said he, for that was the brother's name, " must go down into the earth for us and sanctify it, so that we may know that this is Scottish earth, even as the land from which we came."
And Oran died and was laid in the earth of lona, and they built a little temple over him.
Then the saint and his hermit-brothers turned themselves to prayer, and claimed the island for
72 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
God, driving out malignant and innumerable hosts of demons warring against them. Thus lona became a Holy Island, and its voice was the voice of praise. Columba sang each evening to the Lord. Angels visited him, and his lips were unsealed. The holy man's voice was magnified as he sang so that the whole island heard him.
The Spirit moved him that he should go over to Caledonia to the Picts and give them the Gospel and the promise of God. Some of his hermit-brothers would rather have gone back to Ireland, for they saw difficulties. These difficulties Columba overcame through grace, and he journeyed over the sea in his boat of hides to the shores of other islands. When he was wrecked he put together what was left of his boat, and yet sailed on. So great was his faith, that he pointed to a boulder on the sand one day and said, "If our boat were utterly gone, nevertheless I would come over the sea, were it even necessary to sit on that white rock and pray God that it might float away with me." Thus arose the legend that he made a white stone float on the top of the water as it had been an apple.
He found the gentle natures hidden away in breasts of savage men, and brought the Picts as little children to Christ's feet. Wher- ever he went, even to far Inverness, what seemed difficult was made easy for him. When he was hungry he fished in the stream, and found that God had provided there wonderful big salmon. When he came upon a wild tree of
vi THE LIFE OF ST. COLUMBA 73
apples the fruit to him was sweet. When no man seemed near, suddenly he saw a hut and a farm, and found shelter for the night. Columba was a welcome guest, for the grace of God was in his face and blessing came forth of his lips.
" How many little cows hast thou ? " he would say.
" Five."
* Thou shalt have a hundred and five," would Columba answer.
Even the wildest men were tamed by his voice, and at that time men were wilder than beasts. What wonder that as the story goes a wild boar once lay down and died when Columba prayed that Scotland might be free from that scourge.
Wherever Columba went he baptized at the living water of the spring and of the rivers, and he found water when others averred there was none near. Columba had a veritable sense for living water ; he saw it hidden in the dark rock, brought it forth, and baptized thousands in the name of the Holy Ghost.
From Ireland he had brought with him silver chalices, and he taught the craftsmen of the Picts to make their own Communion cups, and the first services which the baptized heathen held were love feasts of bread and wine in memory of Him who had been broken and spilled to feed us and make us one. Columba found it sometimes difficult to obtain wine, and on those occasions he would bring the waiting congregation water, in Christ's name, telling of the marriage feast in Cana where water in Christ's name was as the
74 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
dinner of herbs where love is, compared to the stalled ox where love is not.
The miracles which Christ wrought in Galilee Columba wrought in Scotland in Christ's name, and the fame of his doings went abroad, and stories concerning him multiplied. The ignor- ance of the people was great, and the power of thought and of interpretation was in few. But . whatever has been said or written, be sure Columba lived an authentically miraculous life, being cared for every minute by God and up- borne on the waves of life by the Spirit within.
Upon a certain occasion he raised a man from the dead, which was a feat which all magicians and black-arts practisers had wished to do and pretended to do in caves and temples and dark forests before Christ came. But Columba brought the spiritual mystery of the resurrection, and whom you loved, though he were dead, yet might you know he lived in Christ.
When he had converted Scotland he returned to lona, where he lived to a good old age, a wise and holy man. And -he had visions, uttered cautions, and made predictions.
He predicted that a certain book would fall into a jar of water — and it did. He predicted of an inkhorn that it would certainly be upset, which it was. He foresaw the arrival of an unasked guest. A boy dropped a hymn-book from a bridge one Christmastide, and it was lost. Columba predicted that it would rise again, and it was found on a bank at Easter. Two priests going in contrary directions prayed one for a
vi THE LIFE OF ST. COLUMBA 75
south wind, the other for a wind from the north. Columba arranged that one should go in the morning, the other in the afternoon, and it turned out that the wind changed at noon and both were satisfied.
A certain St. Cainnech left his staff behind when he sailed for Ireland, and was much grieved at the loss. But when he came to the Irish shore he found a staff among the flotsam and jetsam washed up by the tide which had brought him home, and by faith he was able to pick it up and say, " Behold my staff, which the prayers of Columba have wafted over to me."
Many people came to live on the island of lona, and domestic worries arose. But every one felt the significance of living on an island with a saint. Women who were relieved in their pains ascribed the relief to the hermit's prayers and holy life. It is even said that the good man made an angry wife love an ugly and irritating husband, which was a great miracle.
Columba in his youth dreamed dreams, and that was how he came to lead a glorious life. And in his age he saw the visions which come to those who have had the dreams. He saw all that was, and is, and will be, and therefore knew the course of battles and the joy of the con- querors. It is said that he beheld the whole world at one as if collected in the eye of the Sun, which is spiritual second sight, given only to the holy and the wise. From Columba's vision sprang a calm which remains still upon his island, and all who go there may realise it in their souls.x
76 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. vi
Great was Columba and miraculous was his life. He is dead. No, Lazarus was more dead than he when he was raised. Columba liveth, and any struggling man to-day may have him as a friend and guide to Christ.
CHAPTER 5W HOLY
ISLAND.
I AM SAINT CVTHBERT5 CANDLE; WHO ARE YOV?
A SAXON prince fleeing from unequal strife in the south came to lona. His pagan gods could not give him victory, but obtaining in lona the new message, he carried a Christian banner into his next battle and the day was his. Then it was possible for Brother Aidan of Columba's Isle to claim Northumbria for Christ and he journeyed across the wild border, and on the eastern coast of England found the sister isle to lona, a place where he might at the same time be conveniently both a hermit and a missionary of Christ. This was Lindisfarne.
Now the character of Lindisfarne is strange in that it is an island one part of the day and joined to the mainland the other part of the day. Sometimes it is necessary to take boat thither, other times it is possible to walk dry-shod. In this St. Aidan saw a particular emblem of holi- ness, and the long succession of hermits after him saw the same.
In the coming in of the tide Aidan saw the
77
78 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
coming in of sin, dividing man from God and giving him the sense of being separate.
But the receding of the tide he called " the atonement," because thereby the mainland and the island were reconciled to one another and at one.
" In the morning I am in my island," said he, " and I am enough unto myself, but in the evening I am swallowed up in the great mainland of England. Blessed be the Name of the Lord ! So now, in the morning of life, I am myself, but in the evening when death shall overtake me I shall mingle my dust with all those who have died in the Lord."
This character of the island was a happy emblem for those primeval monks whose lives were those of hermits and missionaries combined, dedicated to God alone, and yet ministering to the needs of men.
Two men stepped down from the train at Beal on the Northumberland coast, Hampden and Washington King, and were met by a boy with a trap.
" Are you for Holy Island ? " asked the boy.
' Yes, for the castle," said Hampden.
" Yull hav' t' wait two hourrs fu' the tiede," replied the boy in broad Northumbrian.
Hampden and Washington King waited the two hours. It was a wet, stormy evening, and during the time that they waited the darkness of night came on with mists upon the waters and occa- sional stars peeping through the clouds overhead.
vii HOLY ISLAND 79
Two hours gone, the two men got into the light trap, weighing it down with their heaviness. The boy drove, and the wheels rolled over the mud. It still rained through the vague grey mist. The men put up their collars, put scarves round their necks, pulled their hats over their eyes, and were silent.
The road runs down to the sands and the sea, a blank and empty shallow sea, threshed by the driving rain. Nearly four miles across the water to Holy Island, and the sea not deep enough to stop a horse and cart. Two inches of water, four inches, a foot of water, splash, splash, splash.
It is latest twilight, and the night seems to have found a friend in the rainy mist. The sky is low, the sea is vast, and the mist gives the trackless way a most mysterious air. The cart makes no traces in the water as it struggles and splashes through, but a long line of poles marks the way it should go, and it doggedly follows these. Then the water becomes deeper and splashes into the eyes and across the back, but the boy and the two men go on without a word.
It is a slow progress, but as they go the night suddenly improves, the mists lift, the rain ceases, and great spaces appear among the clouds, re- vealing bright stars. Venus appears like a minia- ture full moon, and with much more dazzling light. There are two long smoky clouds, one above Venus and the other below, and the wonderful planet with a blueish halo about it sits as upon a throne.
8o PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
What a conquest of bad weather ! It is as if the mainland of England had one weather and the island another. The two travellers cross a strange flood, and behold a new country on the other side. Holy Island has its own weather, its own particular beauty always hanging over it. It is no ordinary place. The horse which is bringing the cart leaps up out of the sea and rejoices to have solid earth under his feet once more. It is the shore of Lindisfarne. But there are long stretches of ribbed sand and salt pools before the castle and the old priory are reached. Far away in the night distance a gloomy shadow is pointed out by Hampden — the old castle where they are going to stay.
And whilst they are rejoicing to be across the sea the last cloud disappears from the sky, and night is perfect with myriads of stars. The broad wet sands from which the sea has receded reflect the sky. The land, as far as eye can see, is of a wonderful purple tint, and is covered with infinite star reflections. It is as if the island were wearing a voluminous and marvellous robe as of a queen.
" The splendour of the eternal stars reflected in the earth," said Hampden. ' We are earth ourselves, and so they may be reflected in us. So they are reflected in our souls."
The cart wheels left dark tracks behind as the horse's feet pattered forward, pad, pad, pad, over the sands, and these tracks gave backwards towards the sea whence they had begun, but long before their shadow lines had reached the silvery
viz HOLY ISLAND 81
fringe of foam, they had melted into the unity of the wide and mysterious glimmering waste.
An end to the sands, and suddenly the harder substance of a village road. The cart clambered upward towards the romantic shadow on the rock of the island, the castle. A fisherman hailed the visitors at the foot of the castle cliff. * You'd better get down here," said he. The two men thereupon stepped down from the trap, climbed the cliff, and entered the stone-way of the castle. :< Now are we in Holy Island ; look around ! " said Hampden.
They stood upon the lower battery and looked eastward over the starlit and wonderful sea. The castle seemed immense, antediluvian, the sea more beautiful than it had ever been seen before. The American confessed that this was the most wonderful part of the pilgrimage for him. He had thought England small, and did not know there was room for such strange experiences and out-of-the-way places.
* This is an interesting example of the restora- tion work that is now going on in England," said Hampden after dinner, as he and the American sat in easy -chairs facing an enormous fire of blazing tarry wood in the " ship room " of the castle. " Twenty years ago this building was used as a coast-guard station, and was frankly a ruin ; it is said to be one of a chain of coast- castles built in Henry VIII. 's time. Situated on this high rock it is certainly a ' bit ' of England. Yet it fell into miserable disrepair. Stones were
G
82 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
missing, the walls were dilapidated, the arches falling, the floors uneven. Now, thanks to some one who had eyes to see what was and what might be again, we have what you see. I think this should be interesting to you, because it is not simply accidental, it is truly characteristic of the time. There is a passion for restoration and preservation all over England. Scotland lags behind, and there you would perhaps find it more easy to purchase an old castle, or one of those cathedrals which are rather in the nature of white elephants to the Church of Scotland, though even there you would have to be swift, for the mood is changing. In England they certainly do care for these things. You remember the work going on even in war time at Glastonbury. That was characteristic. The same work is going on below here at the old priory, and at nearly all our precious ruins. When we get to York you will see the wonderful work being done by Hambleton. Fifty years ago squires were removing the stones of old castles to use in the building of pretentious country houses, and there were even clergy capable of robbing their own churches, but to-day a new spirit of reverence has been born."
A Northumbrian maid came in and lit the screened lamps in the beautiful old jars on the long tables, lighting up the vaulted stone roof and the dark depth of the chamber beyond the speakers to the door which led to the windy stone-way of the threshold and the massive steps of the stair-way.
vii HOLY ISLAND 83
" You think restoration good ? " asked the American. " You don't think it would be more reverent to let the places where our ancestors lived remain as they were ? I don't like this idea of yours that there is a passion for restoration here, and I hope facts may prove you to be wrong. Why restore when the ruin is so much more picturesque ? Why not leave the ruins and build something to represent the age in which we live ? "
' These are mostly questions I should have been inclined to put to you," said Hampden. " Why bother about our ruins ? Why not build something in America to represent the age of America ? >:
" The ruins give true perspectives," answered Washington King. "The restored ruin is a con- fusion of times, and, alas, often of styles. Mine is not a sentimental attachment to ruins as such, but a practical appreciation of true values."
' Then let us put it to a practical test," said Hampden. ;< Our cathedrals are all carefully restored and preserved, and present a mixture of styles and times. Which would you prefer to possess, the hoary ruins of Glastonbury Abbey or, say, Durham Cathedral ? >:
The American held up his hands and smiled broadly, confessing he had only one answer to give when this was put to him.
At this point the spiritual curator of the Holy Isle came in to pay his respects. " The spiritual descendant of St. Cuthbert," cried the American. " Now tell us what you have done for the island."
84 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
11 I've enriched the church by £20, I've managed to get an extra £20 in legacies for our endowment ; that is something for my suc- cessors," said the priest.
" Do you pray for the sins of the world ? Do you missionarise the people of Berwick and of the Northumberland coast ? Do you light the hermit's lamp on Emmanuel Head ? . . . Ah, if we had this Holy Island on the Hudson the pilgrims would be so thick that we should have to build a new large cathedral for their worship, and a street of hotels to house them."
" Tell me," asked Hampden, " has all the old life of the hermits utterly passed away ? Does no one ever come here to find God in solitude ? "
" No, no, that's all gone," said the priest. ' Times change, and customs with them. The Church is on different lines now."
" And not nearly so popular," rejoined Hampden.
" The people are not religious now," sighed the priest.
The American chuckled. ' Religion has all gone to America," said he.
' The Americans are much more interested in Holy Island than we are," replied the clergy- man, smiling politely.
Then Jack came in, the sturdy Northumbrian who has charge of the castle, a great lover of the sea and a character withal. " There's a Mrs. Grey come from the coast to have her baby baptized and wants to know when it will be convenient," said he to the priest. " She's come from London."
vii HOLY ISLAND 85
The priest replied that it could be baptized in the morning.
" What, all the way from London to have her baby baptized ? " asked Hampden.
" Yes ; the Greys always bring their babies to Holy Island to be baptized, however far away they may be living."
" It is a popular custom to bring babies here to be baptized in the old font. Any one who has any connection with the Island does it."
" But it's just as efficacious to be baptized in London as here," said the American.
" Oh, just," said the priest, " but the popular sentiment clings."
" I smell decay," said the American when the spiritual curator of Holy Isle had gone out. " What is the use of restoring the decayed buildings if they leave the clergy in decay, and if they cannot restore the spirit of the people who used to worship in the buildings."
" We need to restore the spirit of the priests, though this man is a good priest in his way," said Hampden ; " but as for the people, do you not see they are thirsting for more religious expres- sion ? Mrs. Grey bringing her baby from London is all right. The priest here ought to be preferred for a so-called better living. He would do well in a town, but this wonderful sanctuary of Holy Island ought to be reserved for some one with a hermit's spirit. How odd that our clergy are marshalled about according to money values, not according to spiritual advantages ! Holy Island should be a spiritual
86 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. vn
beacon visible along the whole of the Northum- brian coast and far beyond. Hermits are some- times the objects of mirth, but we suffer from a dearth of them. They used to inhabit every desert island and dark rock, and the lights burning before the sacred pictures in their cells were the first lighthouses. Mariners of old, descrying the hermit's light, crossed themselves and gave thanks to God for the watcher. Then all along English shores burned the candles before the shrines of England. Every priest of an island should know that
" Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for ourselves ; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, it were all alike As if we had them not."
" Well," said the American, " I can see Heaven's got some work to do if it's going to make its modern priests into St. Cuthberts. But if Heaven is going to begin on this job, I had better get moving, and I intend to ask this new friend if there's anything the islanders would like to part with."
Hampden laughed. They both stood up to go to bed, and their feet echoed on the stone steps as they clambered aloft.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE
PETTING STOIfl.
CO/WAND THAT THESE 5TOMES BE MADE BREAD.
' Now what about these Priory ruins ? " said Washington King next day. " Can't they be thrown into the sea ? They're not nice. An ugly mass, spoiling the view." He did not mean what he said, but he thought he'd shock the man who was showing him round. The latter looked aghast.
" You don't want the tombstone of Chris- tianity staring you thus in the face," the American went on, " the open door of the charnel-house. It stands in the way of living Christianity. If you'll pardon my being frank, you want a fine modern granite cathedral on this site, and a sub- stantial grant to enable you to have a good choir."
A melancholy expression overspread the features of his companion. He had been deputed to show Mr. King the ruins as one who knew most.
" We may want it, but we're not likely to get it," said he.
" Would you call it a good exchange if it could be managed ? " asked King.
87
88 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
" Oh, certainly, if a philanthropist could be found to put up the money."
" I'd fix that for you all right. Now come and show me what you've got that's interesting here. You haven't been properly introduced to me. I look an ordinary man with eyes, nose, mouth, such as you have, but perhaps you do not know you are walking in the presence of three billion dollars. The syndicate I represent owns five Atlantic liners, any one of which cost more to build than this island would to buy entire."
The two men walked from the ruins of the old abbey to the precincts of the church of to-day. They entered, the American quizzically humorous and materialistically observant, the other half despising the American for being American and not English, but half subservient as to a rich man capable of buying a new organ or advancing restoration work, or perchance of making a hand- some endowment.
The church of the Normans probably ex- pressed praise, and every tiniest thing in it was lovely. The church of to-day merely expressed service and had the spirit of a schoolroom, not loved, utilitarian, with ranks of wretched pews and slovenly hymn-books here and there ; no beautiful Virgin receiving the gaze, no flowers, no little lovelinesses and evidences of personal devotion, but, like an exalted schoolmaster's desk, the pulpit up on high in sight of all worshippers, the central point of aspiration.
Just then the priest entered the church and King turned to him :
viii THE PETTING STONE 89
* Which is the most important place where a priest can stand ? " asked he. " At the font, in the pulpit, or at the altar ? The Baptist would say ' at the font,' the Congregationalist * in the pulpit/ and the Church . . ."
:< At the altar, I suppose," said the priest, " though most of us feel that we are judged by our sermons."
Outside the church, and on the margin of the yard facing the market-place, was a curiosity which interested the American — the petting stone of Lindisfarne, a block of granite with a socket- hole in the centre.
* That's our petting stone," said the priest. ' Every bride who is married on Holy Isle has
to jump this when she comes from the church. No exceptions ! If she fails to jump it, she will have ill-fortune in married life. If she stumbles in jumping it, it is a sign that she will fall out with her husband and get into a pet in the first year of her married life. If she leaps it clearly, 'tis a sign of certain happiness. The husband and best man take good care that the bride does not stumble. They practically lift her over. Unless the husband is rough and careless, there is little risk. It is just a formality, but it causes a little flutter."
' The usage is falling slightly into decay, eh ? " asked King. " And if the husband be careless it is likely enough that his young wife will fall out with him. But what is the origin of the legend ? "
The priest could not say. But as to the original significance of the stone itself he was well informed.
9o PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
" This used to be the socket for St. Cuthbert's Cross," said he. " It always stood here, and the position is several times mentioned in old manu^ scripts as being so many yards from the north wall of the abbey, and so many yards from the market-place. It was put here so that a wooden cross could be put up to let the people at the stalls and booths know when a service was being held in the church. The first Christians always carried their message into the market-place — they had to go to the heathen, not wait till the heathen came to them, and they held the cross so that all people could see it. Later, when meetings be- came regular, they would definitely place a cross in the earth of the market-place — the origin of many market crosses. Or a church was built as this one was and a cross was put up near the market-place to let people know there was a service in the House of God beyond. Or merely a stone socket was made, as this one, and a wooden cross put in it when service was taking place."
Washington King took out his notebook and scribbled the details. :* From being the sacred cross of St. Cuthbert this changed to a petting stone," said he. " So a Christian token has become merely a marriage fetish."
' When do you think the change took place ? " asked King.
The priest thought it was at the Reformation, when perhaps the actual wooden cross was taken and burnt.
:< Do you encourage the bride-lifting super-
viii THE PETTING STONE 91
stition ? >! asked the American lifting his glasses and regarding the priest studiously.
The priest averred that the custom did not depend on him. He could not alter it.
' I'd like to buy this petting stone," said the American.
;< It's not for sale," said the priest.
" Who would sue me if I carted it off ? " King appealed to the man who had been showing him round. He could not say. All he knew was that the islanders would make a great to-do. He was sure of that.
* Then I must obtain their goodwill," said Washington King. ' You must arrange a meet- ing for me, and I will put it to them — how much will they take for their rights in this stone ? I could get a facsimile of St. Cuthbert's wooden cross to put in it and the whole story of its original significance, the present lapse and my purchase might be recorded in a booklet, full of interest to the public.1
• •••••
The gossip soon spread that a rich American had arrived, having as his object the buying of the stone. Some of the villagers were for, others against, selling it ; the women were against it. The men of the village were divided in opinion. Some wanted to duck the American or turn their dogs on him. Others were disposed to see what money could be obtained.
1 It is only fair to the islanders to say that the episode of the auction of the petting stone is purely imaginary, and that very prob- ably in real life they would not agree to part with it on any terms.
92 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
King arranged a meeting, and at the appointed hour there was a considerable crowd of men waiting at the Assembly Room, and the ordinarily silent and inarticulate people of the village had all found voices.
" He wants to take our stone away." He wants to take away our married happi-
ness."
:< Shall we drown him ? '
" He can have my married happiness cheap. My Bess cleared the stone, skirts and all, and went into a pet the moment she landed on her feet. Never a quiet hour have I had with her."
" There are hard times coming, lads. If we take anything it must be money, something to put by."
" Na, na, if I get onything f the stone I'll drink it."
:< He's awful rich, this American. He mun do handsome by the village if he buys it."
" Does none of ye ken it's a holy stone ye're wanting to sell. Ye'll be selling God A'mighty next."
' Whisht, whisht, here comes the clerk ! "
At that point the chairman entered, bearing the communal register under his arm, and having put this antique tome on the table and shaken hands with Hampden and King, he addressed the villagers in the following words :
!< I've called you together to discuss a very important proposal which our American friend here is going to explain to you when I sit down, whether you would be willing to part with
viii THE PETTING STONE 93
the stone socket of St. Cuthbert's Cross which stands between the Priory ruins and the parish church. . . .
(A voice : We never heard it was the Cross
of St. Cuthbert he wanted to buy.) {Another voice : Whisht, man^ div ye no ken
thafs the petting stone.)
I ought to explain that he does not want it for himself as a curiosity, but for the American people. He is not purchasing it for a private collection, and if he were, we should certainly not agree to part with this historical relic of the past. But he wishes to purchase it for the compatriots of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, of whom you've all no doubt read. So you must give your opinion quietly and politely, and not interrupt. Hear what he has to say. He may offer to build us a new church, or give us a large lending library, or build us a bridge to Beal with electric trams, or finally he may offer us gold, hard food for Midas — you know the story. Do not give way to greed as he did. Listen patiently. Every one who wishes to speak will have a chance. And now I'll call on Mr. King to make his proposal."
He thereupon sat down and opened the register on the table before him, and commenced to report the proceedings, writing in a bold hand on a fresh page :
" On the eighteenth day of 19 — the
villagers met in the Assembly Room in order to discuss a proposal of Mr. Washington King, of Boston, U.S.A., that they should make over their
94 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
rights in St. Cuthbert's Cross, sometime known as the Petting Stone, to him for certain con- siderations. . . ."
King stood up and unveiled his intentions in warm friendly accents, to which for some time the islanders listened with suspicious silence :
" Burghers of Holy Isle, spiritual descendants of St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert, fishermen and mine-sweepers of Lindisfarne, men of the breed, as Kipling called ye, fellow-countrymen of Shakespeare and Nelson, I am real glad to make your acquaintance. You see in me but a humble representative of the greatest of the pro-ally nations, but I take this opportunity to say how much we have admired the silent courage, the set teeth, the grim sorrow and manful earnestness of the British race in facing the visitations of God. It has stirred the deepest thing in the American heart. God grant that we may profit by Eng- land's example if ever we are called to battle for the cause of liberty and our flag. Then it will be your turn to stand by and admire and make shells for us, and rake in the gold. And you will exclaim, with tears of pride, that we are chips of the old block. We look forward to the day when old John Bull will pat us on the back and say, * Well done, my boy. You have lived up to the honour of your name and family this day.' Britain and America must stand shoulder to shoulder then. There has been too much jealousy, but the day for that has gone by. To- gether we can defy the world if we like, and need never be afraid of any combination of enemies.
viii THE PETTING STONE 95
We speak the same mother-tongue. That is our bond of unity, and if the republican programme on the one hand and the liberal programme on the other could be realised, there is no reason why we should not look forward to the ultimate union of the two peoples and the control of the world by the English-speaking nations. Then we should have everything in common, and it would be impossible for us to be so tremendously rich and you so miserably poor at the same time. New York, and Chicago, and Boston, and Phil- adelphia would then be sister-cities to London, Liverpool, Manchester, and the money of these great cities would flow out to the relief of the cities of England. Our newspapers would sub- scribe relief funds for your starving, and our volunteers would fill the gaps in your Army. There would be no cutting of prices, but free and unlimited trade on the ocean. Your vessels would go free through the Panama Canal, ours through the Suez Canal. That is the material side of the benefit. Then comes the spiritual. We should have access to your spiritual treasures. Besides Chaucer and Spenser and Shakespeare, whom we already share with you, we should be able to be proud of all the later poets and writers, of Wordsworth and Tennyson, and Browning, Burns, Scott, Meredith, Fielding, Thackeray, Dickens, and so on. That would be an immense gain to us. We should be in some danger of getting conceited all at once. And besides par- ticipating in your literary treasures we should share in your art, in Turner and Gainsborough
96 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
and Reynolds, and many another. We should have access to your cathedrals in a new way, feeling Westminster Abbey or Durham Cathedral to be as much ours as yours. It may seem strange to you that we should care for these things. You think of us as the most purse-proud people under the sun, the nation of the almighty dollar. I can assure you that if we had your cathedrals and your art and literature, it is not purse-proud, but cathedral-proud or book-proud or picture-proud that we should be. No, you do us an injustice. There is no place in the world where money has less value than in the United States. We hate it and despise it : perhaps just because we have so much of it and so little of anything else. But we always arrive in Europe feeling a little apologetic for our wealth, and we should remain humble except that Europeans, by fawning on us, make such snobs of some of us. No one seriously thinks that the price he pays for a good picture or a religious token from Europe is really more than the thing is worth. He is deeply conscious of the deficiency inherent in money. So I come to you this afternoon somewhat apologetically I admit, as I want to take from you something that has no obvious price, such as a cargo of fish has or so many tons of coal. No one can quote the market price of petting stones and say what I ought to pay for the little curiosity on which I have set my heart.
(Some grunts and sighs are heard among the audience at this point., the men having
viii THE PETTING STONE 97
grasped that the American is coming to business.}
Now I'm going to make you various offers for the stone. First, since the petting stone was originally the foundation of the Cross, and there- fore of Christianity in the island, I propose to build a school for you and give it a good endow- ment, and let it be for the children of the island only — St. Cuthbert's College.
(A 'voice : The school we have is good enough
for us.)
Well, if you do not want a school, I would offer to build you a fine hall where you could have concerts and dances and entertainments.
(A voice : And pay to go in.) Or I could build you a library and put three thousand modern books in it,
(A voice : Na, na, we want nae books.) or build you a new church and pay for a good choir."
At this there was silence for a time, till an old fellow, who had spent most Sundays of his life poaching, cried out, " The kirk we have holds all the people we have three times over." The chair- man not approving of the objection, then intimated that the American had made several proposals, and it was for the villagers to decide what they wanted. Thereupon the people began to talk to one another and make suggestions in a hap- hazard style. The following were the voices of the meeting :
:' Could you not see your way to making a small grant of money to the village ? We could
H
98 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
then decide among ourselves how we would use it and no trouble ye any further."
" No, no, don't part with the stone at all ! 'Twould be ill-luck, and I'd never want to put out to sea again if we parted with it."
" We don't want his dirty money."
" Take the church, I say, or the school. It's something for nothing he's giving us. What's the use o' the auld stone ? Just a superstition."
" It would be ill-luck to part with it for any- thing but a church."
"But haven't we a church already ? We dinna want nor church nor school nor hall for entertainments where we should have to pay to enter. I'm with my neighbour who says, * Give us a lump sum down.' But let it be divided out equally, I say."
' Yes, five pun' all round. Not a large sum that we suld ha' to invest, but a small present that we could spend without any question being asked."
" What ! Five pound for the stone ! We'll never part with it for that. It would be blas- phemy to do it."
:< For shame, for shame, to think of selling it at all."
;< I think if each family in the village could have a hundred pounds, that would be some- thing substantial, and we'd think it over. But maybe Mr. King'd not be willing to pay so much."
Hampden, on being asked his opinion, said that if the villagers had indeed outlived St.
viii THE PETTING STONE 99
Cuthbert's Cross there was no reason why they should not give it to the American, who really wanted it for the spiritual needs of his people. Give him the old priory ruins as well. In these times it was well to get rid of old things if they had ceased to mean anything. But was this old stone without true value ? They might think so, but the American evidently thought not. He wanted it for religious purposes. Why not give it him for the love of God ? He questioned whether legally they had the rights to sell. But they undoubtedly had spiritual rights of posses- sion. He saw no sin in parting with the stone to one who needed it ; but to sell it was wrong. He appealed to them to change their minds and make to the American a gift of whatever rights they had.
This speech was listened to in silent distrust by the villagers. They were too hard and too remote from his religious spirit to feel the force of these remarks. When the American got up to reply, all turned hopefully to him.
He said : " If I understand the sense of this meeting aright, you do not want the school, or library, or theatre, or church. Some of you think it would be ill-luck to sell at all ; others that it would be sin. One thinks that it would be blasphemy to sell it for five pounds, but honour to God if I gave fifty for it. Now I am not going to haggle over a sacred thing. What if I say five thousand dollars down, to be divided equally among you all." At this there were murmurs of approbation with a few mildly
ioo PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. vm
dissentient grumbles. " I see the majority of you are willing. But I won't stop there. I want to put every one right with his conscience, and I have decided to make a small additional present. On the spot from which I take the petting stone I will put an exact copy in marble, so that your brides can still keep up the good old custom after I am gone."
" Those in favour kindly signify in the usual way/' cried the chairman.
(Several hands appeared.)
" Then I think we should all stand up and sing, ' He's a jolly good fellow.' If we have the right to sell it's a handsome offer."
In the midst of a buzz of conversation all in the hot room stood up and sang, and the American bowed with self-satisfied smiles. Thereupon the meeting dispersed. Hampden and Washington King went out together.
" I did not think to receive the help from you that I have had this day," said the American.
" I gave you no help," said Hampden. " I had rather the people had been ready to give."
!C Next winter, when the great pinch comes to these people, this little sale will keep several families going," replied King, " and save at least half a dozen babies. England's care after the war must be the birth-rate and the lives of the babies. She must cut down her infant mortality. You mustn't think I have converted this stone into vulgar dollars. I have converted it into bread."
CHAPTER IX.
ffofy.Holy.Holy.-ffcartn §Edrtk •Jrefutt of the rfo/esty ofTty Qbg.
THE flrjC OF
BRITAIN had no flag, no national watchwords. Great Britain as we know her now, knit together and conscious of unity, was not existent. England did not even know herself, but fought with herself in the dark, Northumbria and Mercia . . . the whole miserable heptarchy divided seven times against itself. England had no standard, no glorious lions, no famous kings, no Chaucer or Shakespeare, no formulae or famous sets of words that every one acclaimed.
The first great common interest of our fore- fathers was the new religion, Christianity. The name of Christ was the first common ground on which our nation grew. Perhaps to-day it may be objected that the history of Christianity in England is not by any means the complete history of England, that, as the politicians would say, Christianity and Progress have not proved to be synonymous. That political statement may be argued. But it cannot be denied that the Spirit of the nation was born in Christianity. Whatever
101
PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
our later developments, it can always be claimed by virtue of our birth that we are a Christian nation. For the first national emotion we ever had was in the acceptance of Christianity.
In later days the spirit of Henry the Fifth at war in France was the spirit of England ; the spirit of Walter Raleigh and Drake scanning the seas and seeking new worlds was one spirit ; in the works of Shakespeare we find the English gentleman and his code of honour emerging ; we find England in the spirit of Hampden and Pym and Cromwell. Our national passion becomes political and explores an illusion in the Common- wealth. The Church loses interest and is almost an anachronism in England, and is in no way associated with the national passion. And politics fare no better, the fine political rage of the Puritans having passed into party loyalty to Walpole and " every man has his price." But the spirit is in the Army, and lifts the standards of Marlborough, Wolfe, and Wellington. It is in the Navy, with Nelson and many another admiral and sea-captain of the Georges. And after the great wars there emerges the long Victorian peace, and we become the Empire on which the sun never sets — we rule the waves. The flag of England is thrice glorious. Trade follows it, and we must seek the national passion, not in the Church, not in literature, or in war and conquest, or in politics, but in commerce.
Then we sicken of commerce, and the great war with Germany shakes it out of our full hands
ix THE MORNING OF ENGLAND 103
and bulging pockets. Behold England poor again ! And the national passion, whither is it away ? Perhaps to the Church again, to the formation of a new Church which shall be the nation.
The early story may be written in this wise.
j$t. Jfosqilj came with his twelve hermits to Glastonbury, in which country was born :
%t. |Jatmk, who went to Ireland and con- verted the Scots of Ireland, in which country was born :
58t. Colnmba, who came to lona and converted the Picts of Scotland, and lona begat :
j^t. JU&att, who came to Lindisfarne, the Holy Island, and converted the English of Northumbria, in which country was born Sft. (ftutljbert, who received the vision when St. Aidan died. And meanwhile European Christianity had welled upward from the South and met the Celtic Christianity of the North.
Thus was Christianity established throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland. In St. Cuthbert early English Christianity bloomed and he ob- tained a greater repute than any saint who had preceded him. In his day though there were seven kingdoms there was but one Church. Some said that there would soon be one Church throughout all the world, and all the quarrelling states and kingdoms and nations would be put at rest at last by Christ reappearing and govern- ing in glory for a thousand years. To that end the churches should be uniform in their usages and in their allegiance. The authority
104 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
of Rome craved that no church should remain local and national, but that all should understand they were universal — that is, Catholic.
Yet many in Britain wished to remain national and keep for the British Church its own particular customs. Among these numbered St. Cuthbert, who was expelled from the monastery of Ripon because he would not accept the uniform usage demanded by Rome.
Perhaps some thought even in those days that the objects of the Pope might be as worldly as had been those of Caesar himself, that he sat in the richest and most fertile spot in the world, Rome, and not in Jerusalem or in the Egyptian desert. Perhaps some thought even in those days that the institution of Roman Catholicism, despite its beautiful ideal, was not going to express itself as the kingdom of Heaven upon earth. Perhaps some thought even in those days that the purple of Csesar ill-fitted the vice- gerent of God. The objecting Celts and Saxons Were no doubt thought to be stupid by their fellowmen, for the picture of universal uniformity and simple obedience is very attractive and seemingly an obvious choice.
Uniformity and (&bstoientt were first in the field, and Bitrersitg and ymfcom limped out to meet them.
Bibersitir was slain, and Jmoom took refuge.
Uniformity, in its triumph, grew rich, but C&fafrtec* became weak.
Jmoom, taking advantage of the weakness of came out in league with Jlationalism,
ix THE MORNING OF ENGLAND 105
and as kings had become poor fighting the Pope's wars, and popes had become rich, the kings made alliance with ymoom and Rationalism, Then Uniformity and (Bbtb'untt forged Cfeont^ mtxniration.
And Bitesitg and 3Fm00m were again overcome. But in defeat they grew and they produced JEartgrs, and when kings forsook them they were led by J^rljolars.
Two years after St. Cuthbert was consecrated Bishop of Lindisfarne, he died. In obedience to his wish the body was wrapped in linen and buried in a stone coffin. He was a good man, but his body mouldered to the common dust of Adam. A handful of his and a handful of yours when you are dead and gone, 'tis the same. Plant wheat in his dust or in the dust of the impenitent thief, and make therefrom a loaf of bread, 'tis the same bread. In Egypt, truly, bodies take longer to decay. There are mummies marvellously preserved. But in England were neither mummies, nor dry sands where corpses might remain uncorrupted in their sepulchres. Yet eleven years after the death of St. Cuthbert the monks of Lindisfarne disinterred his body and proclaimed that it was incorruptible. And they took it from its simple stone coffin and made a relic of it, putting it in a wonderfully carved and ornamented box of wood. And miracles were wrought at the shrine of St. Cuthbert during two hundred years of Saxon England. But the pagan Vikings came and sacked the holy island. The bishop,
io6 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
Eardulph, fled with his monks, carrying in the midst of them, like an ark of God, the wooden coffin with the sacred remains.
From that moment the significance of the body ceased to be merely miraculous, and became re-consecrated in love. The body of St. Cuthbert obtained a mystic meaning because of the love and reverence of the pilgrims who carried it. It had in it a reflection of the dead body of Christ, which the disciples guarded till the first Easter Day.
And wherever the monks deposited their burden a church or sanctuary shrine arose. The fraternity had sufferings and adventures. But God's Providence was centralised in the emblem of the body which they bore. Many new monks and pilgrims joined them, and as the years went by the old brethren died and new ones took their places, till none was left of those who fled before the Dane.
The body rested at Elsdon ; at Haydon Bridge ; it went up the South Tyne to Belting- hame ; along the Roman wall to Bewcastle ; then to Eden Hall. It was carried to Plumland on the Derwent ; was embarked for Ireland on a stormy sea, but could make no progress because of the great waves. The wonderful hand- painted Gospels which they carried with them, together with the body of the Saint, were washed overboard into the sea, and came ashore again on the Lancashire coast, whence they had come. So the monks understood that it was God's will they should not go to Ireland, but should remain
ix THE MORNING OF ENGLAND 107
for the grace of England in the land on which St. Cuthbert had ministered. And when they made that resolution the wind brought them to the Galloway coast, and they landed at Witherne. The wandering monks, now in a state of beggary and tattered and torn, passed through Westmor- land and across Stainmore into Teesdale, and they put the body down at Cotherstone. And thence they journeyed to Marske ; then to Forcett ; to Craike, which is near Easingwold ; to Chester-le-Street, where the fraternity found rest and abode for one hundred and thirteen years. And in the year 995 of our Lord they removed to Ripon. But two years later they went to Dunholm, which is the name of Durham. So the body of St. Cuthbert found its final resting-place, and from his shrine sprang one of the most mighty and wonderful temples in the world.
After many wanderings past St. Cuthbert chose his seat at last, Where his cathedral, huge and vast, Looks down upon the Wear.
And not pursued by the heathen, but following in the footsteps of history, Hampden and the American left Holy Island for Durham.
* This is the shoulder over which comes all the wind and the weather," said Hampden, as they were leaving the island. ' The morning comes here before it reaches England."
It was an hour after dawn, and the two men were driving from the castle to the mainland. The sky was piled up with tented clouds, with
io8 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
white peaks and broad dark bases. The brilliant sun shone out between them, gulls cleft the air and crowed and mewed and called, and the continuous voice of the sea was persistently breaking. The wheels of the cart, as it went forward, made deep ruts in the sand, and they made an unbroken if uneven track of parallel lines all the way to the Northumbrian shore. For to-day Holy Island was at one with the mainland, and its individuality swallowed up in the common soil of England. Sea-horses and warriors rushed up against the link and died a white death upon it, and receded once more into the great wild ocean whence they came. Thud, thud) thud went the horse's feet, and the horse's shadow went ever before them towards England, till at last the travellers were at the steep bank of the further shore, up on to the road, and spinning along 'twixt green hedgerows and pleasant meadows.
So they drove to Beal, and from Beal they followed as far as they could the way that •Cuthbert's body went, driving through the north country and considering villages and churches and old ruins as they went. At Chester-le-Street they stayed at the mighty castle of Lumley, a great stone fortress of the Middle Ages, and King looked on many covetable treasures, including the family tree of the Lumleys, now Earls of Scarbrough, but already a flourishing family at the time of St. Cuthbert. This tree was painted and illuminated in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and began :
ix THE MORNING OF ENGLAND 109
God
I
Adam
I Seth.
and gave twenty names to Edmund Ironside.
The American was much preoccupied with his success at Holy Isle. His heart was set on going to Worcester and trying to obtain the gilded Sepulchre of King John, which, he was assured, had no significance for Englishmen now. It was not clear wherein lay the spiritual significance of King John, even for America. But perhaps the spirit of the collector had betrayed him for a moment. He wished to make a bid for the sanctuary knocker on the north door of Durham Cathedral, since it did not afford sanctuary to any one now. He would take it to America and have it fixed to a cathedral in New York and so start the " sanctuary habit " there.
As they went from village to village in Durham and Northumberland he was quietly observant of the decayed state of many of the old churches. He looked at many battered and broken stone effigies of crusaders all scrawled over with the names of sight-seers of a past age. They seemed to be neglected now, and to be merely obstructions on church floors — probably not considered worth much. He visited the hermitage of Goderic, and saw the vision of industrialism which now hangs over the retreat of the hermit. Men lived for the most part in wretched red-brick buildings, walked
no PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
on cinder-paths to factories or mines on week- days, and to Bethels on Sundays, if to church at all. The Sunday newspaper had become the church for most. Among the more religious people the heroes of Methodism seemed more famous than Cuthbert — Jacob Rowell, John Rogers, Charles Wesley. But in 150 years Methodism did not seem to have done much to lift the people. As they passed a meeting-house in Chester-le-Street King pointed to a placard on which was printed "SPIRITUAL EVIDENCE MISSION." " That's what they are seeking now," said he, " Spiritual evidence." The American wondered if he might beg the old font at Chester-le- Street from the Church of St. Mary and St. Cuthbert.
" I should think it would be no exaggeration to say that hundreds of thousands of babies have been christened Cuthbert in that basin," said he. " If we had a Cathedral of St. Cuthbert in the U.S. A., it would be a fine thing for all our people claiming to be of North of England extraction, and for all people named Cuthbert."
" But you do not give your babies Christian names in America," objected Hampden. " I have seldom met an American who has truly a Christian name. You name your children more as we would suburban villas, or after the ancients — Cyrus, Homer — or after famous men in our mutual history. . . ."
" Washington," said the American self-con- sciously. ;< I don't deny it. We have extended the calendar of saints. But in any case Cuthbert
ix THE MORNING OF ENGLAND in
is not an uncommon name. It has a good sound for business purposes."
" St. Cuthbert was no business saint," said Hampden ; " this font would be little use to the Cuthberts of America."
They came to a hill outside Durham, and saw at a distance for the first time the Cathedral. Hampden turned to the American and said, " This is ' Signing Hill.' Here you make the sign of the Cross."
The American smiled.
" I'll wish," said he.
* You wouldn't care to make the sign ? " asked Hampden. " All travellers used to do so when they came -to this point. For that reason it is called Signing Hill. The custom has lapsed, but if you care so much for the Cathedral that you would like to have such an one in America, perhaps you'll feel able to make the sign."
Washington King confessed that he did not know how the sign should be made, otherwise he would have been glad to make it.
They came to Durham in the morning, and there before them rose the great Cathedral, strong and mighty, as if it were supporting heaven itself, the loveliness of strength, of reserve, of promise, the chasteness of youth, the holiness of the early manhood of England.
" By this Cathedral," said Hampden, " we can measure the spiritual stature of England. Its mighty columns, in their simplicity and strength, have survived many a low and miserable era, when men dissociated themselves from the
ii2 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. ix
grandeur in the shadow of which they lived. It has saved us from thinking ourselves mean. What we owe in general to the cathedrals of England ! They have been ideals written in stone, surviving as a witness of God from generation to generation : they have kept us from contentedly dwelling in a small way, leading mediocre lives, and assuming that God meant us to be slaves. Much of our love of freedom, our love of uprightness, of power, of spiritual fittingness of expression, has been inspired by these perfect walls, these portions of the architecture of Jerusalem the heavenly."
Hampden and King saw St. Cuthbert's coffin and his pastoral staff, kissed his ring, and were silent over the spot where his body is secretly thought to be buried. They touched the old metal head and massive ring of the sanctuary knocker nailed to the ancient timber of the northern door. In the great stone temple morning lights crept through high windows and streamed on the yellow pillars. It was the morning of England ; a hill of England, and the Lord above it, transfigured.
Over against it stands the Castle, the emblem of the State ; down below is wild Durham, — the world. It was possible to ask the question, " Where seek ye the true England, at the foot or on the summit of the mountain ? " King was of opinion that the real England was that which crowded the public-houses below, and that the Cathedral was only another Stonehenge in a better state of preservation. Hampden, however, held to his faith.
CHAPTER tf$$fe>_ SAnCTVAFY X
HAMPDEN gave a sermon at Durham concerning the sanctuary knocker. King's idea that it might be a symbol we had outlived prompted him to take this subject. No one took down his words verbatim, so there only remains the ideal im- pression of what he said. It was beautiful in its expression and subtle in appeal, and Hampden himself, by his own presence and personality, added so much to the charm and power of the words that they were heard not only by the ears of the head but by the ears of the heart, and where they took root they were nourished by warm love rather than cold reason, by love that creates, not by barren reason that looks on (when God created the world, all the devil could do was look on). Hampden, as he stood calmly before the people with nothing in his hands, no elaborated manuscript such as this that tells of him, spoke simply and earnestly. The thoughts of his heart flowed naturally into speech, and his personality was a sanctuary where furtive glances might find refuge.
113 i
n4 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
What is the sanctuary and what does it mean ? The sanctuary knocker is the emblem of some- thing which once was but now has passed away. But has it utterly passed away ? Is this knocker on the northern door of the Cathedral only a curiosity. Or has the sanctuary idea changed into something new ?
Is there sanctuary to-day ? Do you ever ask for sanctuary ?
I am not speaking to you as to a congregation, but to you each as individuals. Have you ever needed sanctuary ? Have you ever obtained it ?
Answering for myself, I can say yes with a ready heart. I have been in bitter need of it and have obtained .it, praise be to God. I have often been pursued by the world and have fled to the Cathedral, been in the presence of devils or devilish thoughts, have pronounced the name of God and obtained sanctuary by faith. I have again and again fled from the sordid world and found sanctuary with beauty, in a woman's love, in nature, in beautiful art. Perhaps the thought is not familiar to you that a beautiful picture has a presence in which one may kneel. In the presence of beautiful pictures I have found sanctuary.
In the Father's House are many sanctuaries. Ye believe in God : believe also in Christ. Christ will prepare a place for you.
Caesar crucified two thieves at Golgotha. Behold the evil perish ! It is good that these despicable and alien creatures should perish. There was evil in these men, and yet in the midst
x SANCTUARY 115
of them how much good there was also ! God Himself was there, and when they crucified them, they crucified Him. Poor thieves ! In the midst of them, however, was outspread He who said, " I am the Vine, ye are the branches. Ye are members one of another."
And one of the thieves understood this even in the extremity of his pain and found sanctuary.
Before the coming of Christ those of our brothers whom we call thieves, murderers, publi- cans, and sinners, found no sanctuary. Chris- tianity itself is a giving of sanctuary to all who are weary and oppressed.
How simply this was understood by our fore- fathers in England ! Too simply you think. . . . That practice of shielding criminals from their just doom by giving sanctuary in the Church could never go on. It was intolerable. It en- couraged crime. Is that your point of view ?
To every man his deserts, and yet, as Hamlet said, if every man had his deserts. . . .
Yes, truly, it could not go on, for the Church of that time was infected by the world, was itself becoming worldly and took sides in the worldly struggle for material pomp and power. When the Church first gave sanctuary it must have given it in a true way, since the idea is so beautiful. But later, as always happens, the idea was lost in the form. How wonderful, however, when the iron ring was first nailed to the Cathedral door and the poor thieves could run to Christ.
Fleeing, fleeing from justice ; dust on the feet, sweat on the brow, fear in the eyes, fleeing
u6 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
and panting and struggling to out-race pursuers, to escape from their rage and their hate, to find shelter and peace and stillness of heart, to slip under the Virgin's veil and be hidden from the world.
So sought they sanctuary in ages past, so fled they to Durham and its northern door. The watchers waited for them, and when the outcast came, the outcast from the world, they sounded forth a joy-peal from the tower and threw the livery of St. Cuthbert over him, a black robe with^a blood-red cross upon it.
And he was saved, saved from all his enemies and shut off from the world. Within the temple of the Lord no man condemned him. And if his heart were true and he could be as gentle as a child upon its mother's breast, the Virgin for his mother he might take ; for brother, Jesus, and for father, God.
The most outcast, rejected, and disowned, the most despised and wretched man the world con- demned, the branded, the abhorred, the singled out to be destroyed, might respite find in the Cathedral walls, and howsoever worthless man might find him, he found there he was dearly worth to God.
Such was the simple sanctuary which men out- grew. Another sanctuary was the Name of God, pronounced when devils tempted or when things of tevil lured. The doubting Christian man was pressed, and nearly chose the fate the devil wished him take, when swift he spoke the Name of God or Christ, and he was saved.
x SANCTUARY 117
Thus in the wilderness Christ Himself found sanctuary ; and when the devil tempted Him to force the hand of God by suicide, to make stones bread, or in despair to give ambition wings and rule the world, Christ raised His cross and said, " Get thee behind; 'tis written, God shalt thou worship and Him only shalt thou serve."
The hermit in the desert, tempted sore by lust for fleshly life or vanity ; the prelate on his Alexandrian throne, alike found sanctuary. And when the devil purveyed flesh instead of spiritual bread, or prompted lust towards material power, they made the sign of the Cross, and thereat evil thoughts gave way to spiritual peace.
Hampden told the story of the Golden Legend and the sanctuary of love ; how Henry of Hoheneck was saved by the love of Elsie, the pure maiden who was ready to lay down her life to save him. And from 'the story of the Golden Legend he passed down the centuries to the story of Peer Gynt, who found sanctuary in the love of Solveig.
Peer Gynt is the modern man who has strayed after false gods, has become rich, has become fat and proud, has played the prophet, aped Napoleon, laughed at the Sphinx, .saved himself at the expense of a cook, cheated women, men, God, and would cheat the devil. His life is forfeit unless he can find his soul or a witness to the fact that he really has one. Every one fails him except the sanctuary of the pure woman whom he first loved, Solveig.
n8 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
In England we have left out of our religious expression the beautiful image of the Virgin. And in vain. Man kneels to woman, and a woman kneels to God. The womanly is the highest revelation of beauty in love. At the last the male will disappear and there will be only the spiritually feminine, the bride of Christ. The Virgin is the highest type, the archtype of the Elsies and Solveigs among mankind.
Many find sanctuary in a woman's love. There used to be a law that when a felon was condemned to death he could obtain complete pardon if a woman would come forward and offer to marry him. The poor hunted criminal at his last gasp pressed forward with his hands towards the sanctuary ring, to a woman's bosom, and was saved.
That mediaeval custom could be abused and mishandled, as beautiful things can be, but it was a true merciful dispensation.
Women have many gifts, but the greatest that they give is sanctuary. They have the calm of the Cathedral, the presence of God, and, coming into that presence, there is refuge from the world. The man confesses, he kneels, he melts, he prostrates himself and is at peace.
Alas, however, if the sanctuary be abused. It soon ceases to be sanctuary, and the fact that the woman was held to afford sanctuary then becomes a mockery to the cynical. O ye who need sanctuary, take care of the sanctuaries, do not abuse them, do not let them be abused.
Again, all that is beautiful in nature and in
x SANCTUARY 119
art can afford sanctuary, and in this sordid world who is there who is not in need of sacred refuge ? When Christ went up into the mountain to pray, it was often that He might see the view, that He might survey the wondrous beauty of the earth. Thus in a seaside town, after long days of im- prisonment in factory and workshop, languid men and women stroll out to look at the sea — to take sanctuary. It is almost as if they said the Lord's Prayer.
And the remembrance of the beautiful is sanctuary. It is almost as if you made the sign of the Cross.
In prayer is sanctuary. In time of danger say the Lord's Prayer. The phrase " Hallowed be Thy name " is a clasping of the sanctuary ring, a putting of one's hand to the door of the Cathedral.
Our greatest cities are our biggest prisons, and are full of torture-chambers. If you can only get out of them and get to the beauty of nature and the realisation of God, you have obtained sanctuary. Our London is Giant Despair's Castle, where the great giant beats us daily, and Diffidence, his wife, counsels us to make away with ourselves. Yet each Christian has the key called Promise in his bosom and an avenue of escape.
A beautiful poem can be sanctuary — " I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree." A beautiful painting in one's room can be sanctuary. Do not ornament the walls of your houses, but make them holy, put beautiful pictures on
120 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
them, and in the hour of danger they will afford you sanctuary. When the devil says, l!< Curse God and die," you will cling to the knocker and live.
Some need sanctuary from failure, and that is love ; some from success, and that is humility. Some need sanctuary from mean birth, and there is the carpenter's Son ; and some from noble birth — let them go with the kings to do homage.
And now of Durham. Up above us is the vast and spacious lovely Cathedral, full of the presence of God, in which each one of you may find sanctuary. Do you know of it ? Do you care for it ? In this sordid modern life, this Durham life with the coal in the eyes, coal even beneath the skin, do you know what a means of grace you have in your midst ? Ye unhappy ones, boisterous or beaten, discontented with conditions of labour, with wages, with coaly homes and coaly bodies, do not run to the public-house to forget, but come to the Cathedral, and remember what is mysterious and beautiful in your own souls. There is no happiness in the one, but only despair and diffidence, but in the other there is sanctuary.
You are proud of your Cathedral ; well, use it ! Do not think of it as an ornament of your city. It is no ornament of Durham. Your whole Durham of this day will pass away, as older Durhams have passed, but this Cathedral, this emblem of the Kingdom of God, will not pass away. Durham is holy. Think of the many other places where the Cathedral might
x SANCTUARY 121
have sprung up — but St. Cuthbert chose this. He might have chosen Chester-le-Street. It is God's special providence for you. God has made His dwelling-place in the midst of you. May not that fact crown the significance of your life in Durham ?
Go up to the Cathedral. And when you go in at the door and look on the old head and ring, remember that it is sanctuary from all that is pursuing you, from all the evil thoughts and cares which are hunting you down, from the world of which it was said, " It hated Me before it hated you."
" Your words warm my soul," said the American to Hampden after all this had been spoken, " I think they would have been heartily appreciated in America itself. Our hustling cities do lack calm, whereas yours always have it. And these people to whom you speak are slow. If the truth must be told they are sodden. They are not in the rush of the hurly-burly, but stuck in the mud of a dirty sluggish life. You waste your sentiments, believe me. And you hardly help my purpose. These people of Durham will be less likely to part with the knocker now, and we in America want sanctuary."
' England herself can be sanctuary to many Americans such as you," said Hampden.
" I thought you did not like the American visitor much," said King.
' I do not care for the noisy Americans who come scattering money and degrading the
122 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. x
population," said Hampden. :< But Americans seeking sanctuary would come in a different spirit, removing their shoes when they landed at Liverpool, recognising that the earth whereon they trod was holy ground."
SON/
CHAPTER XI.
HA/yiPDETfS LOVE.
THY
HAMPDEN and the American were together and shared thought, and it might be considered that they knew one another and that each knew exactly who the person was with whom he was walking. They had asked one another many questions — the obvious questions, and they knew where they stood. There was a certain famili- arity. And yet how marvellous and infinite was the extent of the unseen and unknown in each. It is always so, even with the most inti- mate or persistent fellow-travellers. We do know somewhat, but what we do not know is a whole world of the mysterious and beautiful. Do you know that your friend is beautiful in secret — he is surpassingly and inscrutably lovely ; is there a sadness in his eyes — it is deeper than ever plummet sounded ; is his speech simple and direct and manly — there are myriads of whispers and echoes in it that only angels' ears can catch.
And this Hampden who marvellously lisps
123
124 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
forth the words he has to utter is full of the unutterable. He loves : love flows in his veins with his blood. His hand that he gives you, which you touch, which you hold so cheerfully and conventionally, is mystically sensitive, was wrought by God. Such things may be truly said of each fellow-traveller which you and I possess, even though we feel certain that if we knew all we should admire less. Hampden and the American walked side by side, and that of which I am going to write the American could not know.
Vera was Hampden's sanctuary. As he went on, his soul flew back to her at Salisbury. She held him in her heart, in her faith and love. -i
Hampden's early spiritual life had been what is called a hard one, full of self-despisings and self-conquerings. As a boy he was often held to be stupid, he was always beaten in argument and confessed to seeing truth in the side he had contested ; he was called lazy, for he had not " application." He was of " weak character," and had told lies in order to escape punishment ; he expected to go to Hell when he died ; he was not good-looking, but was, as they say, " gawky." Some people knew how to wear clothes, and whatever they had on they looked smart. Poor Richard looked awkward whatever he put on. He was clumsy and struck his head against low doors and ceilings ; he upset vases of flowers, said the wrong thing or at the wrong time. He had been beaten often and humiliated. Tears came readily to his eyes. But, despite all these
xi HAMPDEN'S LOVE 125
things, he was liked. He was in many respects typical of his age and generation, though he was clumsy and ordinary. He was not below " the average," he would find his place in the machine.
Some people he knew liked poetry. One night Hampden reflected that he did not know more than four or five lines of poetry. These, how- ever, he said to himself then, and they pleased him. He began to read poetry. He started a poetry-book, and copied into it what he liked. They were the most hackneyed, the favourite poems in all anthologies — " Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note," Gray's " Elegy," " On Linden when the sun was low," the " Ode on the Intimations of Immortality." He labori- ously copied them out, and day after day read them aloud to himself with joy. He read them, making daily discoveries in them, and feeling them anew each day. This was a complete secret ; no one guessed the existence of that poetry-book crammed with the poems which had ceased to mean anything for most people. Hampden had a double life. None guessed in the gay cricket- player, runner, and lively chatterbox of eighteen the secret life he had in his own room apart, the glistening tear, the bright eye, the murmuring voice in which eternity dreamed.
The poetry sent him to women, and though they had hitherto filled his shy soul with fright, he looked to them and idealised them as if the angels had come down and were dwelling among men. They for their part, however, were not interested in him. He could be played with,
126 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
laughed at, kept waiting, cut, encouraged, and so on and so forth — all of which he bore patiently, conscious of the infinite depth of his unworthiness. A deep melancholy possessed him, however, and many a sad poem was beloved by him and copied and loved again.
Then at last he came to the woman who was to be his spiritual mother and lover of his soul, Vera Middleton. The first time they met they disliked one another, the second time they quarrelled, the third time they explained, and the fourth time they loved. The fifth time Hampden knelt at her side.
And Vera loved him with a miraculous love, cared for each finger, each word, each footfall. Never was mother more heart-occupied with the babe at her breast than she with him. It happened at Christmas time. On Christmas Eve she first kissed him, and he was hers. Such gentle, faint, unearthly kisses she put upon his brows and his eyes and his lips — as if she were unsealing some mystery, letting forth some spirit from the mystical prison-house of the flesh.
That night in her little house they were alone, and there was naught else by. The fire burned clear in the glimmering stove, the smooth wooden table had food upon it. Absolute stillness reigned within and without, and through the upper part of a window a bright star seemed literally to be pouring its rays, and a picture of the Virgin took a star-reflection. Indeed 'twas her night, hers for ever.
" Oh, Vera," said Hampden some days later,
xi HAMPDEN'S LOVE 127
" the old year is passing and this new year that is coming is so new for me, so absolutely un- imaginable, that I am amazed. I feel I have not lived till now. This is my year One."
Often he would pause, and his heart would almost stop beating as he reflected — the New Year is coming, and all that new year I shall know Vera.
He told her all his life, and revealed the long- stored-up poetry of his soul. In her presence he began to outpour not only the poetry he had absorbed, but his own natural poetry. And Vera cherished him, gave him of the poetry of her soul, feeding him with celestial manna. For on Christmas Eve God had unsealed her breasts for a sweet spiritual child. She could give to him as she had not been able to give to any other before.
One day she playfully propounded a choice to him. ' Which shall I give you as a present from me, a fountain-pen or a copy of Millet's ' Angelus ' ? " Hampden chose the " Angelus," and that was the first picture he possessed of his own. That man and that woman in the picture are Vera and he. Wherever Hampden went he carried that picture, and he put it up in his bedroom, in hotels, in houses where he was a guest, at home, and on all this journey with the American he carried it with him. It was. his sanctuary picture, and when he looked at it the Angelus rang in his heart and he prayed with Vera.
She gave him a white Prayer Book with ivory
128 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
boards. Before then he had had any Prayer Book on a Sunday morning, any he could snatch up, and sometimes such a rag as had pages missing from the Te Deum to the Creed. Now he had one specially given to him by one who could give.
He said to her one day as they walked in the garden at Salisbury : " I always feel sorry to cut flowers, I feel a regret."
She said to him : " Do you think so ? I think the flowers love to be picked, it is a glory for them." And Hampden gave her flowers, knowing that the flowers loved to be put at her feet.
Together Hampden and Vera could create a sort of crystal calmness that is akin to the idea of communion. In that calmness they loved to kneel together. It came sometimes in the little house at Salisbury, more often when they were together in church, and when they knelt at the altar receiving the Holy Bread and Wine. The temple of silence was created. In that calmness, personality and individuality merged into some- thing different, and there were not two people but one, a mystical unity.
And when they separated, when far away from one another, they learned to remember one another and realise that unity again.
Vera told Hampden who he was. There are
thousands of inadequate shabby answers to the
question " Whom do men say that I am ? "
'Tis a bold answer to say, ' Thou art a king,'
xi HAMPDEN'S LOVE 129
and a bolder still to say, ' Thou art a god.' ' But Vera wrote to Richard Hampden the sweetest words that were ever said to him in his life. We put dear letters next to our bosom, and these words of the poet were imprinted close to Hampden's breast :
Not for this only do I love thee, but Because Infinity upon thee broods ; And thou art full of whispers and of shadows, Thou meanest what the sea has striven to say So long, and yearned up the cliffs to tell, Thou art what all the winds have uttered not, What the still night suggesteth to the heart,
which was a true answer to the great question, and such an answer as you or I may receive or could receive when we are truly loved. That is what thou art — a marvellous creation of God ; every lovely winter and summer of the world has laboured to make you, just you, just me. And the stars have shone down in just proportions and poured their loveliness into the feminine earth, that you, that I, might spring therefrom.
Hampden and the American walked side by side in modern attire, and one had a paper in his hand, the other held a book. One had given a lecture last night, the other had listened. One was an Englishman showing to an American the national things in his country, the other was an American sizing up these same national things and considering whether England had finished with them and what their price might be.
Yet each of these men, the American as well
K
130 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xi
as Hampden, had a marvellous accompaniment of an unseen spiritual world ; and, as Hampden was fond of saying after some unveiling of the ideal side of a practical proposition, " that is what we must not forget."
CH'-Xll. / ^A WITH
THE HIS-
i ~»&*ms«a«Br i
THE
Ijtt progress.
FROM Durham they journeyed to marvellous York, and on the way there accompanied them a certain well-known Nonconformist preacher, an old friend of Hampden's, the Rev. J. S. Griffiths of Caerclyth, a most able, eloquent, and passionate evangelist and liberal. He had heard Hampden's sermon on the sanctuary, and Hampden, noticing him, had sought him out and shaken hands. As Griffiths was also going to York, they had agreed to journey together. There also joined himself to their company a Mr. Cosmo, a clever business man to whom King had an introduction. Griffiths talked to Hamp- den, Cosmo to King.
Hampden imagined that Griffiths agreed with him and understood his sanctuary thoughts, but that was far from being the case. What seemed clear as day to Hampden in his expression had been lost on the preoccupied and troubled mind of Griffiths.
Griffiths thought Hampden wanted literally
132 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
to resuscitate the use of the sanctuary and give back to the Church the political power of har- bouring prisoners.
" All that I am working for is life," said Hampden, " more life, and the only way to obtain it is by spiritual interpretation, spiritual humility and love. Death comes from material interpretation, spiritual pride and selfishness. You did not think I wished to resuscitate the latter, did you ? " he asked.
Griffiths smiled in a preoccupied way.
" You are a mystic," said he. " You have the mystical mind. But my mind does not work as yours does. I have a sense for cause and effect, and I see sequences in history. I have the historical mind. I see throughout the ages an increasing purpose running, and my duty is to co-operate with that purpose. I confess as I listened to you I was afraid of the political tendency of the idea. We want a regenerated England, and find it hard to forgive the criminal, the man who sins against society. We are not going to give any quarter or sanctuary to sin."
Hampden interrupted.
;< Did you ever notice that giving quarter and making the sign of the Cross were in any way connected ? " he asked.
Griffiths looked puzzled. So Hampden drew with his pencil on the margin of the Daily News which Griffiths was carrying a little square.
" In order to quarter," said he, " I must make the sign of the Cross — look."
Griffiths laughed. " Oh, you have an im-
xii THE HISTORICAL MIND 133
possible mind," said he. * That does not mean anything."
" So you're not going to give quarter to the poor sinner ? " asked Hampden.
" We are going to get rid of sin, with God's help," said Griffiths.
Hampden doubted whether humanity could get rid of sin, whether we could all become virtuous as the prodigal's elder brother. Chris- tianity meant conquering death and sin, the enabling of the poor sinner to look up to God and say, " Our Father." But Griffiths said that was all very well ; it was necessary to have the higher aim of God in view — the establish- ment of the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth. Hampden held that that Kingdom was in the heart, Griffiths that it was spread out over the world and could be realised in time. Then Hampden listened whilst Griffiths expounded history.
" First, there was the abomination of Rome," said he.
Here, however, Hampden already objected.
:< Forgive my interrupting," said he, ' but the word first is always more important than second and third^ and I like to have it right. First, there was Christ."
c Well, first, there was Christ, then Rome, then Wycliffe and Tyndall, and the England that wanted and obtained the Reformation. There was the Puritan movement culminating in the great era of Cromwell. Romanism was error. The Divine Right of Kings was error. The
i34 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
Restoration brought great error again. But God raised up Bunyan and Wesley. God has wrestled a long time for England's soul. We have been as stubborn and perverse as the children of Israel. But God has not deserted us. That is evident by the long line of our prophets, our Brights, Gladstones, Lloyd Georges. On the eve of the Great War, I must say, all seemed going well. My faith was that each succeeding Government was always better than the last. I looked to Lloyd George to guide the great cumbrous chariot right home."
' To bring the Kingdom into the world of reality ? "
" Yes, to build the New Jerusalem in all this sweet and pleasant land. Then came the great catastrophe — war. As a Christian, I have always held war to be wrong in itself. Any peace was better than the justest war. Yet in a moment I found I had thrown that belief overboard and was an ardent believer in war. I saw the great religious awakening it brought, and agreed to a nation in arms for a Christian ideal, for the protection of little Belgium and Serbia and Poland. I rejoiced to think of the chorus of prayers in the trenches. My own son volunteered and gained a hero's wounds, and I saw him grow into a finer man before my eyes. The glory and holiness of manhood came into the boy's face in a few weeks. I looked for a speedy victory, a miracle from God, looked and waited. And in the long period of waiting my doubts com- menced. They have been growing ever since,
xii THE HISTORICAL MIND 135
and at this moment I do not know whether we should not have made a more Christian choice if we had offered Germany colonial territory and tried to make peace."
" You know she would never have made peace," said Hampden. :< Surely our Chris- tianity expressed itself in the defence of the oppressed."
' Yes, but we seemed to change our mind as to the spiritual issue. We began to say that we should have had to go into the war any way to defend our own material interests. Then it was a war for trade. My friend George invented * the silver bullet,' made friends with the arch- enemy, and became the hero of the Primer crying every day ' Shells, shells, shells ! ' As I told my people in my church one Sunday, ' If instead of shouting Shells, shells, shells ! we were crying God, God, God! I thought we should be nearer victory than we were. Now the Liberal party, which I always understood to be founded on certain well-established ideas con- cerning the liberty of the individual, has adopted conscription in spite of those ideas, and my many Christian friends who feel that Christ's message was to turn the other cheek are to be forced into court and persecuted. Thousands of men who made true Christian choice are going to languish in prison, and other thousands to be sold into the slavery of labour battalions. It is like the early days of Christianity. As Christians, of course, they might generally expect persecution in this world — but not
136 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
persecution at the hands of the Christian State of England."
" So the historical mind has suffered ship- wreck," said Hampden gleefully. " Ah, Griffiths, my dear friend, I can see you will be with us in the end. That old ship of State of yours is a ramshackle concern. Give up your belief in it and in politics. Put your faith in the in- dividual."
" And England ? "
:< England also is in the individual. England is not England's Government. You are England, I am England, or again the earth of England, the pleasant fields and sky above them are England. You ought to have come with us on our spiritual pilgrimage. We have been to Stonehenge, Glastonbury, lona, Lindisfarne, the old holy places of the land. To some extent they are in spiritual atrophy now, and my friend King has been considering the chances of buying their most sacred tokens for America. They are like inland towns that were once on the coast, but from which the great sea seems long since to have receded. Once they were great spiritual ports, now they are obscure."
' There are other holier places now," said Griffiths.
E< For instance ? " asked Hampden.
" Well, Whitehall, Downing Street, and the Houses of Parliament are holier than these others ever were."
* Whitehall is the pilgrim's way to the Abbey," said Hampden. " And in that it is holy. But
xii THE HISTORICAL MIND 137
even you would not say that War Office, Board of Trade, or Scotland Yard had sanctity."
:< England, then, has no holy places in your estimation ? "
:< She has," answered Hampden quietly. ' These old holy places, Glastonbury, lona, Lindisfarne, and others are holy still. There is spiritual life in them and about them. They must re-emerge as great sources of spiritual redemption and healing power."
Griffiths still seemed perplexed.
Cosmo, meanwhile, was plying the American with a very different type of conversation.
:< I am surprised that a practical and level- headed American should go about this business in this way," said he. ' You can get all you want and get away with it safely. But you've got to set about it in a certain sort of way. Pardon my whispering, but you don't want to be carted round by a blooming idealist. He is queering the pitch for you and working up the opposition. You ought to do all the investigation you require in the quietest way. Why do you go with him ? "
:' He interests me," said King. " He is giving me the time of my life. I am getting an insight into England. He is not working against me. He is quite ready that I should take away any- thing that England has outgrown. And England has outgrown a great deal : he admits it. It would be no use trying to buy either by fair or foul means something that was really sacred to the English to-day. For instance, an American
138 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
citizen, the late Price Collier, asked what was the most sacred spot in England to-day, and received for answer, * Lord's Cricket Ground.' Now, supposing that had any spiritual value for me, I should nevertheless never dream of trying to purchase it. You see my drift ? I am convinced that I can find enough and more than enough for America in the things England has outlived. It is not easy to obtain a comprehensive picture of England past and present, but he is helping me. . . ."
The American paused reflectively, and then went on : " England is more beautiful than I thought. I see that she could be the spiritual home of the American nation if it were not for petty rivalry and English jealousy of our wealth. I feel I ought to come to England every year, and come here as I would come to church."
;< No ? " asked Cosmo incredulously.
" I assure you," said the American.
" Well, it takes people in different ways," said Cosmo. " Old Blighty a church ! Well I never ! "
Cosmo put away the end of a cigar and resolutely turned the conversation into a more pleasant channel.
" D'you mind if I give you some advice ? " asked he. ' You want a few slices of our national territory, a few front trenches, so to speak. In order to obtain them you'll have to make a vigorous preparation of artillery, take a leaf from Lloyd George's book. You must get the Press on your side and have a regular Press campaign.
xii THE HISTORICAL MIND 139
The Press invents public opinion. The first person to approach is Poldu, he is running England just now. He is the man behind the General Press. Contrive to spend a thousand or so in advertisement — that would be a mere nothing to you and would be well spent. As you prob- ably know, the money for which in life you get the greatest return is that spent in this way. If you want a good return you must be prepared to sprinkle a little. You must also approach Yellow- lees. All you have to do is to say you are knocking the bottom out of the Church of England. He owns, or partly owns, whole rows of periodicals. '
" What of the writers in the papers ? "
' They don't count for much now," said Cosmo. :< Go straight to the proprietors, they have all the * say-so.' You ought also to go to the Jews, to their Press especially, and put your case to them in such a way that they will come to the conclusion that the sale will be a heavy blow to Christianity, but be careful not to say so directly ; they are an intellectual people, and you will be doubly sure of them if you let them come to it for themselves. Then, when the Press campaign has fairly started, step in quickly and gain over Cabinet Ministers, for you'll need Governmental help to unlock the tight grip of the Clerk of the Office of Works."
:< And the ecclesiastical authorities, the arch- bishops, for instance ? " asked King.
:< Avoid them like poison. Now I'll tell you whom to avoid. The bishops and the clergy
140 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xn
generally, the headmasters of the public-schools, the dukes and duchesses, the poets, the idealists, and the journalists. Heaven help you if you should become prematurely written up in Lloyds. It's a delicate job, but it can be done if handled firmly ; it can be done, and I tell you straight, I think it ought to be done, for we need the money."
' There's our neighbour crying out that we need money," said Hampden. :< I am always amused when I see people excited about the want of money. It's the easiest thing to obtain. If we could only obtain grace as easily as we can obtain money, if we could obtain love or happiness as easily . . ."
" All can be had for it," said Cosmo, smiling jovially.
CHAPTER Xlll.
A \O1CE FR01X1
FRANCE.
HAMPDEN and Griffiths and King and Cosmo listened to a sufficiently green but strikingly enthusiastic clergyman at York, the Reverend Ernest Biggleswade, a chaplain to the British Army in France. He was just back from the Front, and spoke his mind with the licence of one who had seen real life and had authority to say " home-truths." His object was to give a picture of the religious life of the Army and to express the lessons which he thought all priests in England must learn.
The gathering was predominantly of Church of England men, but there were Nonconformist clergy present, as also a few laymen. Hampden as a persona grata easily obtained cards for himself and his friends.
Biggleswade was a strong, well-fed, and even florid young man, with long limbs and broad shoulders. He wore khaki, and was only dis- tinguished from an officer by his high and troublesome clerical collar. Sunshine and fresh
141
142 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
air had entered into his cheeks and eyes and lips, which were all very full of life and manifest youth. He spoke very rapidly and impulsively, pretending, for good manner's sake, to hesitate over a word now and then, but proceeding at a great rate after the pause, pouring out long conversational appeals and expressing himself not only colloquially but in the slang of the trenches.
Said he :
" GENTLEMEN — I am not used to this job of speaking, and it is not at all to my liking ; but I have been asked to say in public what I have not hesitated to say to friends in private, and I feel I must try to do so. I have seen some surprising things over there in France, and I must try and tell you of them. I want to put the great religious problem of the hour before you just as it has been revealed to me. We have over in France and Belgium a God-fearing and religious Army, imbued with a totally new spirit. No British Army of the past has ever resembled this one in its religous earnestness and idealism. The question I want to leave with you when I've said my little bit is — * What sort of an England are you preparing for them ? What sort of an England are they coming back to when the new era arrives ? '
" First, about the progress of the work of our clergy. I can tell you it is something marvellous. And no thanks to us. If it hadn't been that the men wanted religion, we should not have been able to do anything. When the war commenced, the whole British Expeditionary Force had but
xiii A VOICE FROM FRANCE 143
one chaplain. Later on two more were added, and we had three. After a year there were nine. The first idea of our work was as that of a great universal undertaker. Our services were with the dead. We arranged the funerals and all the formalities of the funerals. In this we felt, at least, that we had much to do : a use had been found for us. Our place was in the rear. We were looked upon as absurdities, nincompoops, useless idiots pottering about in the way. * For God's sake,' they said to us, ' go where you like, but don't get fiddling in the trenches.' We were not in khaki in those days, but in our ordinary black clerical attire. I well remember one day in the great retreat from Mons I was sitting on a bank hopelessly lost. The whole Army and all its impedimenta seemed plunging past me, and suddenly I saw a man I knew, from my own parish in England. He did not know I was serving in France, and he stared at me as if I had been a ghost. * How under heaven do you come to be here ? ' he asked.
" * I'm an Army chaplain,' said I.
" ' I did not know there were any,' said he.
" * We are usually employed in the rear,' I replied ; c but to-day . . .'
" Well now the Army has wakened up to the real use of chaplains, and ask any officer you like, he will tell you that the chaplains are among the most helpful men in the Army. And we can mix with the men in the trenches as much as we like and go where we like. The men fight better because of us. Haig and Munro have
144 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
done a great deal for us, and I can tell you these two Generals are among the most priceless men I have ever met. They never miss Communion or Sunday evening service. They are absolutely reverent towards holy things, and you could not possibly hear one of them giving voice to a cynical opinion. Neither of them has any re- servation in his mind upon this matter, and they frankly say : ' We do not know how we should get on without you padres, you are a godsend to the Army.'
" Now about the men sent out to be chaplains. I must say I think some of the bishops have not played up at all well. They have sent us out some toppers, I admit, but they've sent some pink-eyes too, regular pink-eyes. The bishops, fondly imagining they were in the old time before the war, when such things could be done, sent us out more than a few impossibles with the warmest letters of recommendation. These have had to go back, bishop or no bishop. At the Front we need only the best possible men. And it's a good place even for the best of us too. Ah, we are the most undisciplined set of men under the sun, we parsons. It is disgusting to see a priest in slack trousers and with unshaven chin and longish hair confronting a set of men whose every button is polished and shining. It's a good thing for you parsons to come out there. And we need more of you. What does it matter if a few churches in England are shut up ? The manhood of England is out there. I would shut up all churches where the congrega-
xiii A VOICE FROM FRANCE 145
tion is small, and wait for a petition to have them opened again.
(Cosmo nudged the American at this point
and made an encouraging grimace.} " Then as to what we have done ! Well, we have confirmed tens of thousands. We have popularised Holy Communion. Would you be- lieve it, not one man in ten out there knew what Holy Communion was ; they were afraid of the service. At home, perhaps, as working men, their hands had hardly ever been clean enough to be extended for bread at the altar rail. I frequently heard the opinion expressed that Holy Communion was * the officers' service.' Figure to yourself the horror and shame in our minds at that idea — the officers' service.
*Z/
"Now, thank God, there is no more popular service than Holy Communion. At first we clung to the idea of early celebration, but we had to give that up, as the troops are employed early and cannot get to such a service. We have made many alterations in the liturgy to meet the spiritual needs of the time, and I put it to you gentlemen that you should be ready to do the same at home. For as the War goes on towards its finish that is the urgent problem : What are you going to do at home ? High church, low church, broad church, I don't know what I am now, thank God — that has all been blasted out of me by the shrapnel ; but I'm all out for reverent experiment. If the public finds it easier to come to evening Communion, well then, let us have evening Communions. If the Creed
L
146 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
of St. Athanasius shocks, then ruthlessly cut it out. And, gentlemen, once and for all, do drop the everlasting G. You must get rid of that whine. Christianity is not a whining thing, and that the soldiers know. You must put some reality into public worship and be ready to throw out anything that is not truly jelt or understood. I am asked : Is there a revival ? There is — not a vulgar revival of the Billy Sunday type. But look at the faces of those in hospital or of those happy and unwounded fellows just returned, and you see a spiritual gleam in their faces, a re- flection of the true vision. And I assure you that is the real thing. They say it wears off after a few weeks of life at home. Well, that is your responsibility. If the churches are too stuffy for them, you must open the windows and throw some of the furniture out. If the Sunday paper has become the solace of the working man, you must plant your pulpit in the Sunday paper as R. J. Campbell has done. If the ministry demands not only prayers and psalms and cele- brations, but also the miracles of the healing of the sick and the consolation of publicans and sinners, you must go out into social service and make your appeal that way."
Biggleswade paused and seemed to have come to an end of what he had to say. And then, suddenly, he went on and drew his conclusion. :< If not, gentlemen, you yourselves will have to go ; these great churches and cathedrals will have to be pulled down in order that the build- ing sites, growing ever more precious, may be
xiii A VOICE FROM FRANCE 147
used for public libraries, schools, and public baths.
(At this an elderly clergyman, who had been hitherto listening 'very attentively, giggled audibly.)
" The buildings will go, and the office of priest will pass to others. I see no reason why lay persons such as schoolmasters, librarians of public libraries, members of Parliament, and so forth, should not be consecrated as priests if the clergy of England fail England in the greatest moment of her spiritual need. It is not we, gentlemen, who are holy ; we can be dispensed with. Christ is holy, God is holy, and can fulfil Himself in many ways.
" Perhaps I have said too much, but it is out of the fulness of the heart, and through me speaks our wonderful Army, all the young men of England in arms. They ask : * What sort of an England will it be after the War ? To what are we coming back ? '
Biggleswade sat down.
Questions were asked :
(i) About the Roman Church. Was it true that the Roman Church was making great progress in the new Army at the expense of the Church of England ?
(Answer.) " At first we were at a disadvantage, though I must say I do not grudge the Roman Catholic Church a single soul gained. Many Roman Catholic priests enlisted at the beginning of the War, and so got straight to the trenches, where in moments of suffering and perplexity
148 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
they were able to say the right thing. Many carried ' pocket-altars.' But the wounded Eng- lishman first met his own clergy in the base hospital, and wakened one morning to hear a curate's voice saying : * Have courage, there is a God. . . .' But as many a wounded man must have thought as he closed his eyes again, * How does he know ? Where was he in the hysterical moment in the trenches when men were cursing and swearing and weeping, or falling on their knees and praying to God ? ' But we have altered that now, as I pointed out. My colleagues and I visit the whole of the British lines."
(2) What of the Y.M.C.A. ?
(Answer.) " I go down on my knees before the Y.M.C.A. and its work. And I do not know which I reverence more in this War, the red cross or the red triangle.
(Comment.) One irate clergyman remarked that if he went on his knees before the Y.M.C.A. instead of before God there was no wonder he preferred the red triangle. The Y.M.C.A. did educational and social work, but it was not primarily occupied with religion ; it petted the soldiers and did a great deal for their amusement, but it was undisciplined and " go as you please." Its religious expression was only of that Billy Sunday type which the speaker had decried.
(Answer.) Biggleswade calmed the clergy- man, assuring him that it was the work of the Y.M.C.A. he admired, and for that reason bowed to the triangle, the symbol of masonry, but
xiii A VOICE FROM FRANCE 149
he deplored the lack of spiritual keenness due perhaps to the absence of the Cross.
(3) One unfortunate asked whether psalms read would be more attractive than psalms sung, and obtained the obvious answer.
(4) A discussion arose over the subject of evening Communions. The general point of view was that the Sacrament should not be cheapened. Is was worth while getting up early and making it the beginning of the spiritual day. On the other hand, as Hampden urged, if people did not come at all, it were better to help them occasionally by having the Communion in the evening as Wesleyans and others had. Then they could be told the extra joy and felicity of the early celebration.
(5) The proceedings closed with a remark made by the vicar of a York parish : " You have asked what sort of an England awaits the troops. The answer is : The same sweet England, the women of England, the fields and woods of England, the same open churches where they may come and kneel, the language of England pure and undefiled. There is nothing the matter with England, if only the Army could realise
it."
1 This isn't helping you," said Cosmo to the American, " it is queering the pitch. You must get out of this set."
As the meeting broke up several people came to Hampden, and he introduced them. The first was little Brother John, who, since he never shook hands conventionally or idly, gave very
1 50 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xm
serious consideration to the American and promised to show him things in York.
The vicar of All Hallows Church came up.
" The most valuable glass in the north of England," whispered Cosmo.
' Where ? "
" In his church. You ought to try for it. The place is more than half Catholic, and nobody would mind if it were sold up."
King made a note in his tablets.
It was agreed they should go to All Hallows whilst they were at York, and Brother John stepped in and claimed Hampden and King for a morning.
' This Biggleswade has a real message," said the little man. " We must have a talk, you and I, about it." Brother John nodded sententiously at Hampden.
" He afforded material for your historical mind, did he not ? " asked the latter of Griffiths.
" Indeed he made me think hard," said Griffiths. " But I did not like his praising Campbell. To take his stand in the Sunday paper with Bottomley, and Blatchford, and Win- ston Churchill, and the like, does not seem to me to be a Christian example."
;< Oh, publicans and sinners, publicans and sinners," said Hampden sotto voce.
CH'XIV.
BROTHER
THE
WHO WOR- SHIPPED STORES.
BROTHER JOHN is like a dwarf, but he is a well- disposed fairy, wistful rather, pathetic, and yet brisk and clear-willed. He is any age, but not old, though his fine brow is wizened and lined with thought, a bushy pale-yellow moustache, rather ruddy cheeks, deep-set thoughtful ante- diluvian eyes, ears sticking out attentively. A kind little man, but kindness is not his reason for living. Look at him when he does not know you see him and he seems to be listening, listening for something, or with one wet-tipped finger on his lips he is calculating something, calculating.
He is simply, rather poorly dressed, he has no attainments, no big business or wealth or rank, he is of the people — but he is not abashed. If it be necessary for him to go to the proudest man in York in order to ask something, he will go straight to him, never fearing that doors will be shut against him. It is nothing to him what any man says of him, for he is serving a cause — as
1 52 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
he would say, " the sacred cause of humanity." Brother John has found spiritual peace, just as Jesuits and monks and nuns find peace — through obedience in faith.
He has been many things in his life — working man, lay preacher, organiser — but now he is simply a little brother of humanity. He does not, as they say, " earn a living " ; he has " no money in his pocket," but lives in faith and does a great deal for his great Taskmaster and his brothers in York.
He met Hampden in this way. Some years ago Hampden was staying in some rooms in London, and one evening, whilst he sat with a book, the door suddenly opened, and in came little Brother John with a quaint smile on his kind and knowing face. He toddled forward to Richard and said to him quickly, " Don't get up from your seat, don't let me disturb you. I am Brother John. I want you to come to York for
us " Hampden agreed, and in ten minutes
little brother was off to find some one else in London, a certain Eastern priest, and went straight to him in the same way. Brother John is a sort of lay-Franciscan. He is a Protestant friar — or (let us delete that anachronistic word " Protestant ") an English friar.
He is much more a Martha than a Mary, and though he has given up the world, he has not done so in order to pray and save his own soul, but for the service of his brothers. A contrasting figure is Hambleton, the curator of the archi- tectural museum. His life-work is the collecting
xiv BROTHER JOHN 153
of the lost stones of ancient York. He is re- erecting, stone by stone, the fallen Abbey of St. Mary's. Wherever a house is being pulled down or alterations being made somewhere in York, Hambleton is there with his keen eyes and ready hands, to claim back the stolen stones of the Abbey. And if you go to the green lawns of St. Mary you can watch the columns and the walls of the old Abbey growing again. Or go into the workroom and museum and you will see all manner of figures and parts of the holy edifice put together and waiting patiently for lost stones. Some parts have waited five, ten years for a missing stone. Then at last Hambleton has found it somewhere in the city, and brought the prodigal home with rejoicings. A reverend holy love this for the stones of England !
When the American was brought to St. Mary's he complained to Hampden that it gave him a bad turn. If there was such love in England for the old stones, he had better go back to America. But Brother John comforted him accidentally.
:< Hambleton is saving old stones when he should be saving ruined people," said he.
:< And if he did not save the stones they might as well be sold and cleared away," said King.
;< Some of these things would fetch quite a pretty sum, and the proceeds might be given to the poor of York," said Cosmo.
They told this to Hambleton himself. He
i54 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
smiled sadly, but Hampden put his hand on his shoulder and said, " Let him alone. There will always be a poor of York. But these stones which had disappeared he has made to reappear miraculously. Whenever I come here T think of that sentence of Christ about destroying the Temple and rebuilding it in three days. The three days are our dear Hambleton's life. He has ransomed the stones with his love. Then, remember, it was the poor of York, for whom Mr. Cosmo is so solicitous, who originally stole these stones away."
Cosmo thought the rich stole the stones.
But Brother John pleaded that it was the poor. Their houses let in the rain, and it was a good use to which to put the stones of the old Abbey — to shelter human homes.
A week before the visit of Hampden and the American the Zeppelins had come to York. They stood an hour over the Cathedral and could not hit it (Hambleton shuddered at the recollec- tion). They killed no one, but destroyed, or partially destroyed, several blocks of York slums. Little Brother John rejoiced : there was nothing to do with these slums but destroy them. Hambleton at once went down, and, prying among the ruins, he found, after long searching, a little fragment of statuary, the sculptured fold and hem of the dress of the Virgin.
Brother John transported the shivering home- less parents and children from the demolished slums to the brightness of a settlement. Hamble- ton with joy carried the lovely fragments of the
xiv BROTHER JOHN 155
Virgin's dress and put it in its place in the whole figure in St. Mary's.
Brother John, though he was poor, found money to pay for their needs, milk for the babies, bread for the grown-ups, warm clothes for all since the winds were keen. He visited them daily and brought news of relief ; of new work and new homes coming, — and the happiness of hope warmed their forlorn lives.
Hambleton rejoiced in the stone which had been lost and was found. He considered once more all his stones, the disjecta membra of the Church, and prayed that all which were lost might be found and that each which was found might find its true place in the scheme of glory.
When Washington King learned these details, his heart beat rapidly. " Why," said he, " this England's soul is not forfeit, if she has such people serving her. I was told there was nothing of the kind in the Old Country."
But Cosmo took the American apart and hardened his heart. " These people are excep- tional," said he, " they don't count, they are not sound. Brother John has a screw loose, you can bet your life. Hambleton is simply a crazy archaeologist."
Washington King was fain to listen to Cosmo. He was a true gentleman at heart, and was probably nearer to Hampden than to Cosmo personally. But America swayed him towards the business man. And then he fell in love with Cosmo's daughter. From that time forth King
156 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL GH. xiv
began to be less near to Hampden, less sincere, and he harboured secret thoughts about his mission and the means he would employ to get from England the coveted spiritual treasures she possessed.
THE HOVS£
AND so a separation of a kind began. King accepted the proffered hospitality of Cosmo, and went to live in a house of brass on the western side of York, whilst Hampden lived with an old friend in St. Mary's.
Cosmo's home was grand, and he was quietly proud of its grandeur. Compared with other houses it was very large. Yet it was completely hidden in its own grounds — a huge dolls' house having every imaginable toy within it, including the dolls.
Mrs. Cosmo was a heavy lady with puckered cheeks and grey hair. She bullied Cosmo terribly and caused him to lose in his family circle that rich tone, dignified aplomb, and cultivated self- possession which marked him when he was at large out of doors.
Celia was a striking young woman of twenty- two, with bright open face and large daring eyes ; she was tall rather than otherwise, well-formed, athletic. Ma reproved her, Pa petted her, and
158 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
for her part she did what she liked. She was impulsive, talkative, pretended occasionally to be shy or diffident, but did not know what shyness was. She had, however, a good English beauty, unspoiled by smoking, and, as King soon learned, she played tennis, drove her own car, rode on horseback, rowed, swam, could out-race her younger brothers, and even raise herself more times than they by her arms to the horizontal bar in the playroom. She spoke with a good English accent, but fell occasionally into girls' slang.
Mrs. Cosmo played off Celia upon King, otherwise, as he was himself rather shy of women and inclined to slip out of their way, he would certainly not have fallen a victim to her frank gaze. But Mrs. Cosmo arranged that the rich suitor should get as full and intimate a view of her eligible daughter as was possible without letting either feel strange.
So King was seeing an English girl clearly for the first time in his life. Celia entertained him. Cosmo and Mrs. Cosmo looked on. She talked impulsively ; her features played as she laughed or smiled ; she asked questions about America, listened attentively to his replies ; asked questions about King personally, and compared likes and dislikes ; promised to show him her garden, her horses, to take him to see a certain view outside York, to show him the ruins of certain old abbeys which he might be able to buy. Would he like to ride out with her on the morrow before breakfast ?
Mrs. Cosmo frowned and said, " You really
xv THE HOUSE OF COSMO 159
ought to ask me before you make such arrange- ments."
" But I may, mayn't I, Ma ? " said Celia beseechingly.
" Perhaps Mr. King will be tired and not wish to get up early," said Mrs. Cosmo.
King waved his hand deprecatingly. Celia went on.
" And I must show you my collections," said Celia. " Do you know toys ? I have German toys from Dresden, Russian toys from Moscow, made of bark and lichen, and wonderful carved squirrels and foxes ; Japanese toys ; delightful peasant toys from the Tyrol. Only I haven't an American toy."
" I am afraid we have no characteristic toys," said King. " All our little things for baby are borrowed from Europe. Mothers are very con- servative, you know. They don't want new toys for their children."
" Then my collection of playing-cards with beautiful backs — and my toothpicks and postage- stamps and war-trophies," Celia went on. " Now you know my specialities. And if you come across anything very rare or curious in these lines you won't forget me, will you ? "
She looked at him very sweetly and pouted. His gaze was riveted on her eyes.
" Why do you study my face so quizzically ? " said she.
King blushed in confusion and protested that he was not staring.
" You are so perfectly English," said he.
160 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
" I can't keep my eyes off your daughter's face," he added to Mrs. Cosmo. ' We have not her type of beauty in America."
" I suppose not," said Mrs. Cosmo. " They say American women are very coarse."
" King is crazy about everything English," said Cosmo. " And he wants to buy everything he takes a fancy to. But he'll get over it."
" I love everything English," said King senti- mentally, " and always will."
" Ah," said Cosmo, roguishly pointing at Celia with his two first fingers. :< He loves everything English. He wants to buy English things and take them where they'll be admired. Ah ha, Celia, my little duck, ah ha ! >:
" Cosmo, for shame, how ill-bred ! Why must you show your origin to all visitors who come to the house ? " growled Mrs. Cosmo, and her husband subsided.
Celia changed the conversation.
' You are a great collector, are you not ? " she asked.
King told her of his quest.
" How fearfully thrilling ! " she commented.
Incidentally the conversation turned on Hamp- den. Celia had heard of him. She supposed he would go into Parliament or enter the Church. " Is he interesting ? " she asked.
" You would not care for him," he replied. " He is a recluse, a bookworm, an idealist. He is all talk."
" All talk and no do," said Cosmo, resuscitating himself.
xv THE HOUSE OF COSMO 161
' But he knows every one," said King. :< He has certainly a great pull in this country. And he is an interesting speaker. He ought to write his philosophy and make a book of it."
" Married ? " asked Celia.
;< No. But he is perhaps engaged. He is the very close friend of a certain lady. His friendship might not be possible in America unless he were engaged. But things are differ- ently arranged here. One thing I must say about him, he has a very high view of women. He worships them."
Cosmo sniggered and looked at Mrs. Cosmo. She pierced him with a deadly frown.
:< I think he is wrong," said King meditatively, as if the thought were occurring to him for the first time.
" How ? " asked Mrs. Cosmo, with an en- gaging simper.
" Women do not want worship, they only want love and decent treatment. . . . What do you say ? " he addressed himself to Celia. " Would you like to be treated as a goddess or a fine spirit ? "
" It would be nice," said Celia facetiously, and then turning earnest she added, " but not practical. I could not bear a man who treated me as if I were a mystery. Of course it's nice to be adored, but I must say I had rather be loved. It's nice to be a goddess — but if a man prayed to me, I should be repeating to myself all the while, * I'm a woman, that's what I am.' :
Mrs. Cosmo looked on her daughter with
M
162 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
doubt. But Cosmo evinced an affectionate pride, clapped his hands, and cried " Bravo ! " The American smiled in pleasant flattery of the girl's talent, and did not attempt to think more or add a word.
Not long after this Celia and her mother retired. But Cosmo, during two hours more, proved to the American what a bore he was, insisting on showing him four or five hundred views of the Italian Lakes and the Austrian Tyrol in a large stereoscope, which he was proud to point out could be manipulated and used also as a lantern throwing the pictures on a screen.
Cosmo's father had made his fortune in varnish, and the house, a fitting monument of their fortunes, exemplified varnish. There was not a bit of plain wood in the whole mansion. King retired to his pompous bedroom, which was in itself a world of varnish. In a special ante- chamber were bath and complete toilet appliances in lustrous red which you thought was mahogany. Certainly old Cosmo had been rich enough to have real oak panelling and beams for the em- bellishment of the .bedroom, but he hated the natural wood, and King had therefore round him lovely imitations. On the green mantelpiece of pseudo-marble two nude but lacquered females held up a timepiece that seemed to be of gold. King's bed was on a throne. The violet silk counterpane had been removed, and his pink silk gossamer sleeping things reposed where the sheet was turned down. A terribly stiff lackey with
xv THE HOUSE OF COSMO 163
powdered face helped him to undress, and took away his clothes till morning. He nakedly entered the pink silk, lay at length on the bed on the throne, turned to the reading-table at his side and lit the electric lamp. On the table were the complete works of Maurice Hewlett in a scented purple binding of soft leather. A vase of newly- picked flowers was by the side of the books, and as he turned the title-page of the first, he read in delicate writing, which he took to be Celia's :
I love that I may be loved, My secret is in love. God made you for a lover And made me to be loved.
And he began to read The Forest Lovers, furtively scanning the pages, but he could not keep the sense, his mind being constantly occupied with the face of the young girl. At last he confessed his own thoughts were more interesting, closed the book, turned out the light, and lay and dreamed, and dreamed again.
In the depth of his slumber he was released from limitations. His dream became better than life, it flattered his life and its hard problems. He moved upward easily into an atmosphere of splendour. His first name was lost in his second, and democrat became prince. All were bowing around him in service. But only to one person did he, for his part, bow, and that was to the princess at his side, to the maid who should be queen. She whispered to him with a smile, " You must not worship me, I'm a woman, that's all I am." But the sound of a great organ
1 64 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xv
drowned her voice. On each side were tiers and tiers of men and women fashionably dressed — the four hundred of New York. She was all in glistening white, he in glimmering black — and pacing down the magnificent stone-way of a great aisle. He was being married in America, in his own cathedral.
CHAPTER XVI.
BROTHER- -HOOD.
" MY dear Brother," said Brother John when he had Hampden to himself, " what a great time this is. You heard Biggleswade. Wasn't he pregnant, wasn't he full of // — the Spirit ? He put the problem to the clergy. But of course the problem is to us as well. We are standing at the crossways, we English, and have got to choose a road. I don't know what road we shall choose, or what our working men will do when the War is over. All depends on them, I think.
" They are stirred — oh, deeply stirred. They are going to try for something new. But many of them are very angry and full of the spirit of revenge. They are unreasonable about the way they have been treated during the War. They want * their own back.' They are more con- scious of their power than ever before. They grudge all those who do not work with their hands, all the wealth and elegance, the cars, fine houses, beautifully dressed women, and so on. The extremists are almost anarchists, and would
165
1 66 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
pull down, destroy, kill. All are enraged by the seeming contempt of those who do not work, the hypocrisy, the shameless exploitation.
" They have plenty of religion, plenty of uncultivated religious passion, but do not know what to call it. Some say Brotherhood, some Liberty. But they're out of love with Chris- tianity. Christianity is on the side of the em- ployers. It is handed down to the working men by the rich and the educated and well-dressed. A great movement is now in preparation, but will it be a Christian movement ? "
* We must make it a Christian movement," said Hampden.
* They do not know what Christianity means ; they open the Gospel or the Prayer Book — it's all abracadabra to them ; they can't get through to the sense ; they can't grasp the social message of Christianity. And it is the social thing that the working man wants, the working man's state with justice, liberty, social equality, and equal means of personal life and happiness."
Hampden and Brother John were on their way to York chocolate factory, a Quaker institu- tion where some attempt was being made to conduct a little working men's state on model lines. Here, certainly, was no exploitation of the working class. Every hygienic rule was observed, the work was carefully shared and the wages fair. Balance sheets were shown and profits shared. Libraries, baths, reading-rooms, play-roorns and grounds had been arranged, model homes were provided for the workers.
xvi BROTHERHOOD 167
There were common tables for meals. Com- mittees considered new proposals or complaints and criticisms. By common consent fines were levied on those who through negligence or ill-will did anything to injure the common good.
Brother John took Hampden into various halls and eating-rooms, and invited him to say a few words to the people. They listened cheer- fully and with a certain gladness.
Hampden was almost taken by surprise. Brother John did not ask him beforehand whether he would like to speak. But he announced boldly and unexpectedly that Hampden would say a few words to them about his work and mission.
Hampden told them briefly that in England there were plenty of men on the positive side, the plus side. Those on the negative side made most noise. But those on the plus side would win in the great struggle for the new England.
:< If any of you have love for England and a passion in your hearts, do not think you are alone in the wide world — you have friends. Get to know these friends and find your common ground. I am trying to make life more beautiful by redeeming the common things, by finding out what lovely things we have lost or forgotten, by reinterpreting symbols and emblems that have become dead, and digging up again long-buried treasures.
;< I want to give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, life to those who are dead. That is, to open the eyes of those who cannot see spiritual things, and to unseal the ears of those who cannot
168 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
hear the music which is always going on. I want to give life. I cannot explain much to you in a few minutes, but I know you hear much of me, and I want you to know what I stand for and what I am doing. All this is in the name of Christ. Forgive my breaking in upon your meals and your work with these words."
There followed uproarious and somewhat in- appropriate cheers, and Hampden stepped down wondering to whom, if any, he had given a chance seed.
" I said nothing," said Hampden as he re- joined Brother John.
" It's the faith that tells," said the latter.
He introduced Hampden to the great Quaker himself, the brains of the whole model factory, a short, grizzled, intellectual-looking man, a merchant-type, and yet not by any means brisk or materialistic — on the contrary, gentle and sympathetic. His ideas " for humanity " were evidently much more dear to his heart than chocolate profits.
" All really springs from him," said Brother John, " and that's the real trouble here, the lesion, the trail of the serpent. The settlement is disciplined. It is too much from above for you. Things ought to start from the men and women themselves. The workers are taught in the settlement ; they have to attend the classes, chiefly technical. The teaching makes them better wage-earners, and at the same time makes the masters more rich. How to put that right, that's the problem. ..."
xvi BROTHERHOOD 169
" The men and women themselves have very little initiative of the kind you want," said Hampden. " Despite all their talk about free- dom they like to be ordered to do things. Remember the thousands of young men who preferred conscription to voluntary service. ' Order us to fight and we will fight,' they said, ' but this making us choose, this appealing to our hearts with advertisements and posters, makes us sick/ "
"The come -and -fetch -me's," said Brother John.
' These people make us heavy as a nation," said Hampden. * They say the same thing in the world of labour — ' Give us work to do, whatever it may be, whether shameful or not does not touch us — that is the employer's re- sponsibility ; give us food and shelter and keep us from the workhouse in old age, that's all we want.' The souls of slaves ! And yet no doubt many solve their lives satisfactorily that way. But from the point of view of national health, to have an enormous number ready to obey, un- troubled by conscience or political desire, is not good. It casts too much responsibility on the rich man and the employer, on the Government and the Press."
" And it stands in the way of the social idea," said Brother John. :< I believe in Socialism, but nobody knows what Socialism means. We used to think it meant nationalisation of industry on broad lines. But since the era of Lloyd George at the Ministry of Munitions the working man is
170 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
not at all eager to have the State as his employer. He realises that it is much more difficult to quarrel with the State than with the master. That has been one of the great lessons of the War. The ordinary socialistic ideal has fallen through. Perhaps so much the better for Socialism. The great social idea is free again."
Hampden told Brother John that he, Hampden, was not really working for the socialistic idea. He believed in individuals rather than in humanity as a whole. He was a Liberal in the true sense of the word. But he was not a Socialist.
' Why not a Socialist in the best sense of the word ? There Socialism and Liberalism are one," said Brother John.
Hampden did not answer to this, but went on :
' You know I am not disappointed with the world. Every beautiful destiny is fulfilled or can be fulfilled in the life and soul of one human being. In my most despairing moments I turn to the Gospel, and the life of Christ makes the world tolerable. Any human being can live as He did. I see Alpha and Omega and the ultimate glory and significance of God in any one human being."
:< But what about the rest of humanity, HAS brothers ? " asked Brother John.
* They are in Him, in His love, in His soul," said Hampden. " There is no many men and women, there is only one."
* Well, there we are on common ground," cried Brother John in unexpected excitement. " All make one. That is my Socialism in the
xvi BROTHERHOOD 171
long run — that all should be one. That is a Christian idea — the unity in multiplicity. One in three and three in one, is that not it ? And Christ died to show us all one. My ideal, an impossible one, is that one day our whole society will feel that it is one and its interests one. But Church Christianity is heartless — that is why we laymen must take the message from Biggleswade's lips. The Church insists on / and My Father are one, and forgets, or wilfully omits, the equal truth that I and My brothers are one. Now there, as I see it, is the Christian approach to the working man. He needs a new Gospel founded on the idea of / and My brothers are one ; a life of Jesus rewritten simply, with that emphasis, would come like a river to thirsting plains."
Brother John produced a life of Jesus from his pocket, a twopenny edition of a book after Frensham, a gospel for the working man, but quite dead.
' You said you wished to give life to the dead," said Brother John, with a wistful smile. ' Take this, then, and change it into life for me, and I will give it to the working men. It is true, as Biggleswade said, they don't know what con- firmation means and they think communion is a service for the rich. But what is more than that they can't read the Gospel, they can't get the hang of it. They are used to the outspoken language of the Labour L,eader and the Clarion. They'd like to feel that Jesus was their friend, but when they try to read about Him they can't find Him. The New Testament is in the language
172 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xvi
of scholars. So try and write in working men's language and remember the important thing — not I and My Father, but I and My brothers are one."
At parting Hampden thanked him for what he had shown him and for the book.
" Don't thank me, I'm the link," said Brother John, which was very characteristic of this kind and almost selfless man.
CHAPTER M GOLLI-
XVII. -©- 'WOO.
WASHINGTON KING and Celia went out riding before breakfast. After breakfast Cosmo went to his office, and Celia showed King her treasures. Mrs. Cosmo was out of the way. King felt the due relief of a pretty girl's company after many days of men's companionship. He was much interested in Celia. He felt he could learn a good deal about England from her. She was his kind and did not despise wealth and the things that money could buy. He cast about in his mind how he could make her an expensive and charming present, a toy of some kind.
Celia was certainly very kind to him, very intimate. When they bent together over her curious toys her hair touched his cheek. When she took him to her rooms she caught him by the sleeve and pulled him in. What interesting rooms they were, probably the most interesting in the house, her den and her bedroom. The den was a frank muddle, her room was perfumed, elegant and beautiful, the room of a princess.
174 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
Her bed, with its silk canopy and lace hangings, was a delicate mystery ; on the polished floor were delicious oriental rugs ; the walls of the room were white as alabaster, and hung with many distinctive pictures. The shape of the room was pentagonal, and along two walls were glass cases and cabinets with shelves of old silver, toothpicks, quaint sets of playing-cards, and curiosities of various climes. Celia opened a door and handed out various things — a set of Swedenborgian fortune -telling cards, an Egyp- tian talisman, a Russian ikon of the Virgin and Child. The last was rather dusty, and Celia rubbed the face with her handkerchief to see what it was. " Presents from friends," she said in passing.
She opened a door of what appeared to be a cupboard, and behold a bright little chamber with a Sandow apparatus ; opened another and showed a green porcelain bath. In the centre of the bedroom was a marvellously varnished table, a tall varnished lamp in the centre. On the table were volumes of poetry, chiefly Masefield — in any case all modern. In a bookcase against a wall were many novels in the same purple bind- ing that had graced Hewlett at King's bedside. King looked at some of the pictures on the walls — " Ideal Love," " Mistress of the Hounds," a group of Rosa Bonheur's horses, a drove of Farquharson's Highland sheep in a mist, but he passed his eyes rapidly over " A Daughter of Eve," an endeavour of a modern artist to show the perfect beauty of a woman.
xvii GOLLIWOG 175
" That is my lady, isn't she beautiful ? " asked Celia naughtily, not knowing that with some people in America such pictures are not quite good form.
" And here," said Celia, " is Shim - Rah." She pointed to a golliwog reposing on a pedestal, evidently in the place of honour in the room, a figure something like a stuffed cat with lackadaisical legs and huge circular eyes. " He is my idol," Celia added. " Aren't you shocked ? "
" Not in the least," said King gaily. " It's all perfectly charming."
The early afternoon was spent in the gym- nasium with Freddie and Charlie, who strove in vain to emulate their sister on the trapeze and later to wrestle her and pull her down upon a mattress. The American could only be a looker- on, and he had an uneasy feeling that Celia was stronger than he, that she could easily have put him down upon that mattress and made the back of his head touch the floor, but he admired. ;< She's a rare piece of England," he said to himself, " a regular chip of the old block. There's life in the tree yet."
Then Celia motored him to Riveaux in her own very sweet chocolate car which just seated two. A bunch of coloured ribbons danced in the air as they spun along, and a little black mascot, Shim-Rah in miniature, sat securely on the front of the car and looked ahead as they went. Celia drove deftly, and King admired her shoulders and firm arms as she controlled the large toy and
176 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
literally devoured the York roads to the beautiful ruins of the abbey. King was much in love with the abbey, but was somewhat surprised to learn from Celia that Yorkshire was full of such ruins, and that she could show him a dozen in an afternoon.
They drew up at a pottery and china shop, and Celia showed him five pictures of ruined abbeys done on silly-looking teacups — A Present from Riveaux, A Present from Furness Abbey, from Roche Abbey that was once " Our Saviour on the Rock," and so forth. At Riveaux there were evident traces of visitors, if not of pilgrims — chocolate wrappings, cigarette ends, matchboxes, ragged wisps of newspaper . . .
On their roundabout way home over the moors they came to an old church and vicarage, and in the vicarage garden King found an old gargoyle. He called on the vicar, an antique pimply man of eighty, and bought the gargoyle on the spot for a guinea, much to his own delight and the amusement of Celia. They fixed it with a rope on the car behind, and sped on again for York. It must be said they looked rather curious with the little black golliwog in front and the hideous gargoyle behind.
On their way through York they called at All Hallows' Church to look at the old glass. The church was somewhat difficult to find, and as they slowly threaded the narrow streets of the York slums the children evinced a great deal of interest in the gargoyle, which, once they had come into the shadowy town, seemed to take life and looked rather like the devil.
xvii GOLLIWOG 177
It was just five minutes to six when they arrived at All Hallows', and the Angelus was softly ringing for the daily vespers. King and Celia had hardly time to look at the windows in whose old glass Biblical stories and saints had been created, to consider the statue of the Virgin with the swords in her heart and the votive lilies at her feet, or to see the hundred little marks of love and tenderness that mark the mediaeval church in the year of grace 1916. In came the priest with children hanging on his arms even after he had passed the portal. He was a man beloved of all the children of his poor parish. For him All Hallows' meant — all the little children of the streets about his church. When he came to vespers this evening a large crowd of boys and girls had collected round Celia's car, and were staring at the ugly gargoyle. He gave one surprised glance at the figure, and said, " Come, children," and they all flocked after him, pressing close to catch hold of his sleeve — lucky they who got his arm.
Then commenced a beautiful little service. There were only five other people in the church besides the minister and the children, and the sweet and tender bond of understanding ex- pressed itself in their voices. :< Dearly Beloved >: was left out. The priest shared the prayers and the psalms with the children. Thus the priest said :
Our Father
and the children answered plaintively : which art In heaven^
N
178 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
The priest said :
Hallowed be Thy Name, and the children added :
Thy Kingdom come. The priest said :
Thy will be done in earth, and the children finished sweetly :
As it is in heaven. The priest began the next verse :
Give us this day. and the children finished it :
Our daily bread. Said the priest :
Forgive us our trespasses, said the children :
As we forgive them that trespass against us. Said the priest :
Lead us not into temptation ; said the children :
But deliver us from evil : And then the priest finished by himself : For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the
glory, for ever and ever. Amen. In the same way they took the psalms. There were no lessons. In twenty minutes the service had been sung, and Celia and King were free to come out of the pew in which they had been reverently kneeling.
!< I didn't think that we should go to church together," said King to Celia in a whisper.
The priest came along and, curtseying to the altar as he passed, approached the two visitors, and offered to show them his church, which he did
xvn GOLLIWOG 179
very gently and lovingly. Here everything was beautiful — everything was old, and at the same time everything was new and full of life, and on the ancient pulpit was carved the beautiful text, E< And how shall they preach unless they be called."
From All Hallows' Celia took King home to the house of Cosmo as fast as* she could. The gargoyle was unroped from the car and taken to King's bedroom, and when he went up to dress for dinner he had rather a surprise to see this strange face of the Middle Ages staring at the varnished wall and seeming ill at ease.
' Is this spiritual treasure, or merely a curiosity ? " asked he of himself. " Can I do anything with it in America ? This Hambleton who saves the stones would treasure it. There's something very haunting about it, though it cannot be prayed to." Then his thoughts ran to Celia and Shim-Rah, her idol. It had been a happy day. Surely she was delightful, and she had brought him luck. There was something lucky about her. It had often occurred to him before that some people were lucky and others unlucky. Celia was full of it, she had an atmo- sphere of good-fortune. It was good to touch her, to take her hand, to sit next her, be in her presence. He now felt a better augury for his quest than he had ever done before. If he could only win her hand . . . and they make his quest together. She was, in any case, a born collector.
He turned and looked rather fondly on the
i8o PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
dark horned figure in stone that he had found in Celia's presence, and for a moment the gargoyle seemed to smile back approvingly.
When he rejoined Celia in evening dress he whispered to her, * The figure we found is splendid. You must take me out again. I feel you give me luck."
She smiled.
" Do you not give me luck ? " he asked of her entreatingly.
" You must pray to my Shim-Rah," said she archly, " and I'll pray for you too. But don't say anything about it at dinner, the bishop is coming and he'll get the horrors. Pray to Shim- Rah, or pray to him."
" To whom ? " asked King.
But Celia's attention was taken by an incoming guest, no one else than the bishop of North Riding himself, a tall, fresh-faced, decisive man who established himself and was at home directly he came into the room. Hampden followed, and then charming Mrs. Leverdale, at once the daughter of a bishop and the wife of a banker. Then came Oppenheimer, one of Cosmo's cronies, a rich importer and a patron of art ; with him came his wife, Lydia, who looked thirty but was fifty, a vision of expense and artificial beauty. Last came Celia's friend Cynthia, a young beauty of York, wearing round her neck a beautiful gold ornament which had earned for her on one occasion the nickname of the '" daughter of the vine," a golden vine with emeralds for grapes. The bishop took down Mrs. Leverdale,
xvii GOLLIWOG 181
Hampden took Mrs. Cosmo, King took Mrs. Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer took Celia, and Cosmo took Cynthia, and it happened that Hampden was opposite the bishop, and Celia was next him on one hand, and opposite Celia was Mrs. Leverdale. King was between Mrs. Leverdale and Mrs. Oppenheimer. Cosmo was at one end of the table, Mrs. Cosmo at the other.
;< Do you know Frimley Younghusband, who writes the pithy pars ? " asked Mrs. Cosmo of Hampden. ' Well, I don't know him, but my husband invited him last month to make up as we were one gentleman short. And when he came into my drawing-room he looked round him curiously and said, * How perfectly Victorian ! '
" Did you take offence ? "
" No. I said to him, * Mr. Younghusband, we are Victorian.'
Hampden laughed and said, :< I am also Victorian, if that means taking the stand beside Ruskin and Arnold and Browning and Carlyle."
" There were giants in those days — George Eliot, Mrs. Oliphant, Ouida . . ."
" Mrs. Cosmo is talking of the giantesses of the Victorian age," whispered King to Mrs. Oppenheimer, barely audibly. ;< Does any one dare to confess he is Victorian nowadays ? "
" Our Celia is not Victorian," said Cosmo. " She belongs to the age of aeroplanes. She once flew in Hamel's machine, and when Hamel fell into the sea Younghusband wrote her a poem to console her."
Cynthia laughed.
182 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
And by this time Mrs. Cosmo had ceased to talk to Hampden and was engaging the bishop, and Hampden was talking to Celia, and King was trying to listen to Hampden and talk to Mrs. Leverdale at the same time.
Celia was deeply interested in Hampden, but on the surface shy and diffident. She felt she had nothing to say but platitudes, and she was uncomfortably mute. But Hampden released her voice.
" Which do you prefer to live under," he asked, " a king or a queen ? "
" A king certainly," said Celia.
" And I under a queen," said Hampden.
" But Queen Victoria was a very plain cross- tempered old woman," said Celia.
" Oh," said Hampden, " never say so. That is a ridiculous mistake of the biographers who wished to make way for King Edward's popu- larity. She was Queen of England . . ."
" I like Alexandra."
" She also was Queen of England."
" And then Queen Mary . . ."
" I live under her" said Hampden. " King George means less to me personally. My real allegiance is to the Queen. The living queen is an ideal personality. Men need a queen, and a nation needs to look up toward her. The idea of Queen Victoria was supremely valuable to us as a people — the great queen. Queen Mary now holds her position, holds it at least potentially."
Celia seemed surprised. ' Yes, Queen Mary or the princess who marries
xvn GOLLIWOG 183
our Prince of Wales has the power to become a bright star in the new England that is coming. Who do you think is the first woman in England, the one from whom every poet, and artist, and musician, and soldier, and courtier should wish to have a smile ? not beautiful Lady Helena who is the goddess of one set, nor the sprightly and intriguing Lady R. round whom the politicians buzz, but the Queen. Now tell me who is the first woman in York."
Celia laughed and looked across to beautiful Mrs. Leverdale, who did not notice her glance, and along to the " daughter of the vine," who was looking hard at Cosmo and laughing as she ate.
" We are very jealous," Celia whispered softly, though she did not really mean what she said.
" To whom in York are sonnets penned and flowers sent ? " asked Hampden, smiling on her tenderly. ' Who is queen ? "
Celia did not know.
" Mrs. Leverdale opposite, for instance ? >: asked Hampden.
" She has a husband," said Celia.
" But that does not matter," said Hampden.
" Oh, it matters in York."
:< And when you are married, would it matter to you ? "
" I should not be queen," said Celia. There was a pause in the conversation, and then Hampden remarked :
;< So many women fail because they are afraid, and snub their admirers instead of accepting and
1 84 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
spiritualising the admiration and leading it higher."
Oppenheimer at this point said that women owed it to the world to dress well, and there was no greater pleasure to him than to see a pretty woman well dressed.
" A beautiful woman beautifully dressed," said Hampden, but Mrs. Cosmo began to talk to him about his travels with the American, and Celia was left talking to Oppenheimer.
The pompous men behind the guests moved to and fro, removing and replacing dishes, filling the champagne glasses from gloomy -looking napkinned bottles, dexterously putting Oppen- heimer right when he used wrong knives or forks, hovering silently over the heads of the guests like half-visible angels. Cosmo and the bishop enjoyed their dinner most of all, and this was evident in that the prelate was not bored by Mrs. Cosmo, and Cosmo kept up a running comment of chaff with Cynthia and Mrs. Oppen- heimer. Now and then there were bursts of laughter at his end of the table, and Mrs. Cosmo, though she could not hear the joke, knew that all was going well. King alone was somewhat fidgetty and discontented, and he was evidently relieved when the ladies arose and filed out, leaving the men to their cigars.
:< After a good dinner there is nothing more enjoyable than a good cigar," said Oppenheimer to King. But Cosmo disallowed that line of conversation and took Oppenheimer to himself, leaving King, the bishop, and Hampden to
xvii GOLLIWOG 185
converse together. Out of the subject of the American's quest a discussion arose on the Church of England and the supposed decadence of our people.
The bishop was a statesman rather than a priest, a man of strong will endeavouring, after the flabby rule of his predecessors, to convert a Low-Church, dull, and almost Puritan diocese into a delicate and subtle and understanding segment of the Church, to give it spiritual power and passion — he could do no greater service.
His great plea was that we English had not reached our zenith racially. Bad industrial con- ditions and a low, uninspired Church had brought about physical degeneration and moral abase- ment. Among the Canadian and Australian troops in England there were many from York or Yorkshire towns. They had gone from the old country, or their fathers had gone, being poor specimens of Englishmen ; they returned from the open places of the Colonies restored, mighty — -showing what Yorkshire men to-day might be if the conditions were improved. The Colonial Yorkshiremen had not developed spiritually in the Colonies because there, as here, the Church was in a poor state. But physically they showed that our apparent degeneracy was only accidental and could be remedied.
King rather annoyed the bishop by assuming that we had no further use for many of our old churches, and that if America could not buy them from us to re-erect in a fitter land, it would be only because we held them as the dog in the
186 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
manger. The bishop asked jestingly if when he had bought the churches he would not buy the bishops also.
King said he had no use for a modern prelate. And then he made one of those false steps to which Americans are liable in English society.
" Have you had a Church pageant in York ? " asked he. " Yes ; then perhaps you could bring it over to America when I have acquired some of your local scenery, and you could give us the show and it would be the real thing. We could never get it right ourselves."
The temperature went down several degrees and moisture congealed on the bishop's brow, but no answer was given. Then King, to make matters worse, asked whether York were not merely a mediaeval monument which the people had long since outlived, the fitting background of a historical show, but without present signifi- cance. Could he not have the Seven Sisters window from the Cathedral and permission to purchase and remove in its entirety the glass of the little mediaeval church in North Street ?
" My dear sir," said the bishop, very con- centratedly, " that is the most beautiful and precious thing in York. If you want to acquire things we have outlived, take the red-brick Methodist chapels."
King rejoiced rather at this outburst, and was much tickled at having roused the British lion slumbering in the bishop's breast.
:' I had some luck to-day," said he. " I bought a bit of mediaeval Yorkshire for a guinea,"
xvii GOLLIWOG 187
and he recounted how he had bought the gargoyle and had brought it home roped to the back of the car, the mascot in front and the devil in stone behind.
;< A new idea for the futurists," said Hampden. " A gargoyle at the back of the car and the motto ' Devil take the hindmost.* '
" Or, ' Needs must when the devil drives,' " said the bishop.
* What is the spiritual value of the gargoyle ? >: asked Hampden.
:< Oh, simply part of the scenery," said King. ' Your Hambleton taught me a great deal. I must not despise even the smallest stone that was part of the England of the Pilgrim Fathers."
The conversation turned to mascots. Hamp- den claimed that the mascot habit came from America. King held that the mascot habit came to America from Europe. The gargoyle itself was a mascot put on the Gothic cathedral to frighten evil spirits away. " No," said the bishop, " the gargoyles are the evil spirits actually in flight from the cathedral. The whole archi- tecture symbolises crucifixion, pain, and aspira- tion. The fleeing gargoyles outside symbolise the purification of the kneeling soul within."
But Hampden turned to the bishop and said :
"The Church should work against mascots. They are put on the front of motor-cars as a sort of pride in speed and science. The aviator will not go up unless he has his mascot, or if he goes up he loses nerve at the idea that his luck is against him. Yes, I know it is play-
1 88 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
ful and with some does not mean much, but the true meaning of the mascot is really allegiance to Lucifer."
At this Oppenheimer and Cosmo joined in the conversation and warmly expostulated against Hampden's vehemence. Even the bishop thought he was going too far.
" It is especially sad how the mascot habit ravages girls' schools," said Hampden. :< Every bed in the dormitory has its ugly black cat or little devil to protect the girl while she sleeps, and it is no more —
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Guard the bed that I lie on.
The girl wears her mascot in the tennis tourna- ment and in the hockey field. During her examinations it may be seen on her desk by the inkstand. It is playful, yes, and does not mean much. It is certainly superstition. And I sup- pose if the girls carried little figures of the saints, that also would be superstition. But ordinary people cannot get on without being superstitious. The important point is that the superstitions should be good ones."
The bishop doubted if mascots were as wide- spread as Hampden alleged. But Oppenheimer, who owned a department store and was among other things a sort of Selfridge's of York, was able to confirm his words. Oppenheimer supplied what the public wanted, and he ordered larger and larger supplies of mascots. Cosmo thought that since neither mascots nor saints could help a stupid girl to pass an examination, it was safer
xvn GOLLIWOG 189
that she should stake her luck upon the mascot, for then the saints would not be to blame. The bishop shook his head. King thought it a very charming and innocent habit. " Well, then," said Cosmo, " let us refer it to the ladies."
So they rejoined the brighter spirits in the drawing-room. The ladies seemed to be waiting attentively when the gentlemen came in, and had perhaps been rather bored with one another's company.
Cosmo, raising his voice, proclaimed the subject of their conversation : ' We've been having a hot discussion on the subject of mascots," and he recounted what Hampden had just said in the dining-room.
King sat next to Celia, Hampden to Mrs. Leverdale. But Mrs. Cosmo made the conversa- tion general by appealing to Hampden to tell them what he thought.
* We were talking of the Church and the low state of mind of the people," said Hampden. " The bishop wants to know what can be done to give the English people the spiritual vision that they had in the Middle Ages. He is sending his clergy into retreat, hoping they may have a vision; he wonders if it would not be well to send a great mass of our clergy to Russian monasteries for a year. But my point is that the Church has good spiritual work to its hands at home. The people want miracles : the healing of the sick, the opening of the eyes of the blind, the moistening of the lips of the mute, the casting out of devils, and so forth. All these things are to hand. I instance
i9o PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
mascots. Why does not the Church cast them out ? "
The liquid voice of Cynthia replied malici- ously :
" The Church knows it is only on sufferance. If it began interfering with our life, it would soon be disestablished, as in France."
But Celia stepped in and warmly defended mascots. There was something in them. They stood for something the Church had forgotten — certainly not the sort of mascots Oppenheimer sold. But she had one which was bought in Bond Street, and it was fully charged with personality.
Mrs. Leverdale called her a silly girl, and Hampden stepped in again :
" My complaint is that they take the place of vital and beautiful things. The characteristic idea of the mascot is ugliness. It must be a little devil, or a pig, or a cat with hideous eyes, or an Egyptian beetle — something of that sort. If you have an ugly mascot in which you believe, you are not likely, for instance, to have a picture of the Virgin and Child. We want to know how to start to make England more beautiful. The garden is full of weeds ; where to begin. Begin anywhere ; cast out the weeds and plant good seeds. Now I think it would be a good idea to introduce into England little baptism crosses to be given at the baptism of each child, to be worn round the neck all one's life — out of sight of course. The cross should not be used as an ornament or a decoration. And boys and girls
xvii GOLLIWOG 191
might be given their special rooms and taught to express themselves in the arrangement of them, as sometimes they are given little plots in the garden and allowed to plant them as they like. The bedroom of the boy and girl ought to be the beginning of the child's church life. There he says his prayers, there he lies and thinks, and in the sunny mornings before getting up he stares at the pattern of the wall-paper and the pictures on the walls till these things are reflected in his soul. Wall-paper is an abomination ; ornamental vases and cheap pictures with heavily gilt frames abominations also. In any case, there should be some sort of altar in the room, a mother's portrait, or a figure of the Virgin with flowers, or a good text. There is a great means of grace in the home. . . ."
There was a general agreement with Hampden here, and the ladies showed a tendency to admire him unduly, so it is perhaps doubtful whether his words fell on to soil that was altogether fruitful. But Celia was touched. She rather disagreed with him than otherwise, but his power and certainty and faith fascinated her. She was pleased with what she had said to him at dinner, and the idea that she might be queen flattered something in her soul. When she had put her hand on his arm to go down to dinner she had felt mute ; now she felt that if she were with him by herself she could talk for hours, she would tell him everything about herself. So Hampden had wrought one of those spiritual miracles which he was now beginning to perform without know-
192 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
ing that he was exercising miraculous powers, the same which were to attract all manner of men and women to him in London later on and become the most powerful characteristic of his mission.
How prosily King was talking. The question had arisen, could children be trusted to express themselves in their rooms. The bishop was nodding. Hampden was talking to the " daughter of the vine," and she was looking at him with eyes that caused Celia to be annoyed. Though why should she be annoyed since she was in love with King ? Yes, she loved this rich American, did she not ? No, and yet perhaps.
The impressive timepieces of the house of Cosmo began to strike eleven, first the pilot grandfather on the stairs, and then one by one eleven or twelve lugubrious or melancholy chimes began and ceased — Cosmo was a great lover of clocks. The bishop rose at the same moment as Mrs. Leverdale. The company broke up, and the long day was over.
Celia and her mother retired very quickly. King and Cosmo drank a last glass of whisky and soda together, and then they also parted for their respective rooms.
King, undressed by the pompous valet, soon fell asleep, and he dreamed that the gargoyle came to him and said, " What wouldst thou, master ? " And King answered, " Give me Celia to be my wife." And the gargoyle replied, " Master, she shall be yours."
Celia, for her part, did not fall asleep so soon.
xvn GOLLIWOG 193
She was not tired. But her mind and soul were in a pleasant warm condition, and it was delicious just to think and be. She had more liberty than the guest of the house. No maid was waiting to disturb her, and she lay in her beautiful gown and read poems, or tried to read, for a good hour after the house had fallen asleep. Then she stood in front of the picture " A Daughter of Eve " and undressed, beautiful as God made her, and in the vague light of one shaded lamp it was almost as if she stood in front of a mirror. Beautiful, perfect Celia. Even at the close of the day she was fresh and felt no stiffness or disinclination in any limb. She turned to the pedestal on which her golliwog sat, and, going over to him according to custom, she fell on her knees and began a mock prayer :
:< Dear Shim-Rah, send me a nice husband. He must be rich, must be tall, must be a col- lector, must ride, must adore me, and love me too, must be clever, must make me queen. May many men write poetry to me and send me flowers. ..."
Celia ceased to pray and began thinking of Hampden and King, and continued musing in this somewhat irrelevant posture before her idol. She forgot Shim-Rah for a moment, and looking up with intense yearning she cried, " O God, make me good, make my soul beautiful ! >! And as she did so she caught sight of Shim- Rah's eyes, and for a moment thought she saw King's gargoyle staring at her awfully and menacingly, as if about to pounce on her like an
o
i94 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xvn
eagle and carry her away to the top of some cathedral wall, there to devour.
Celia gave a little scream and ran to her bed.
But before she lay down she went to the cabinet where the picture of the Madonna and Child was lying face downwards in the dust, brought it out, and put it on the table by her bed. Then she put out her light and composed herself to sleep.
But if one could have felt her soft pillow under her warm face ten minutes later, he would have found it moist with tears, and might have kissed moist eyes.
CHAPTER XV111.
YORK MINSTER.
AT TWELVE PRAY FOR ALL THOSE WHO ARE FIGHTING.
THE day before leaving York Hampden knelt at noon in the great spacious Minster and brought into the presence of God his problems and his passion.
Glastonbury is our " in the beginning," lona the pale dawning, Lindisfarne the morning of England ; at Durham it may be said to be eleven by the clock, and York is full midday. York is broad and spacious and splendid. There is space in it, and height. The light diffusing through the mighty windows is matured and rich. What vastness ! Aloft the atmosphere is divided into storeys of light and shadow. And the stone of the walls is old, square, deep, un- crumbling.
Through the great doorway whence the pon- derous anciently riveted door has been drawn back, men on horseback might ride without stooping, banners might be brought in without abasement, phalanxes of men on foot might march in without modifying their formation or
196 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
getting out of step. Yet to get into a modern church, or indeed a modern house, a man has often to squirm, and if he be careless may injure his brow.
A simple doorway. Outside, the abundant light of the everyday floods the streets and squares, and is reflected in dazzling duplicity from the walls even of the Cathedral, and the eyes are made careless by it ; and sound so abounds and vibrates that the ear is made careless. But entering the Cathedral the eyes adjust them- selves to the new light, or rather a new pair of eyes rise to the eye-sockets and see spiritual things. And the ears become attentive in a new way, hear vague whispers, and are aware of all manner of strange echoes and far-away indeter- minate sounds and movements. The steps of the feet are audible on the grey stone. A cool- ness is felt on the eyes and on the bared head, and as the faculties rearrange themselves in the soul for spiritual use, there is a thrill and a creeping and a changing in the brain.
It is indeed a different country this side of the portal, a more majestic, more real, and at the same time more unreal country. It has become unexpectedly natural to kneel and to be reverent, the hands seek one another and the eyes wish to close — O Thou who art above all, who knowest me in all and through all, Father . . .
Some one is walking in measured steps down the great aisle, an incautious cough repeats itself in the galleries and is even magnified in its echoes ;
xvm IN YORK MINSTER 197
there is shuffling of feet and of knees among the chairs, and the priest behind the stone screen murmurs, murmurs, murmurs, and remotely many treble voices suddenly respond. The organ is sad, reflective, cogitative, wrapped in its own low music. As some lamps ever burn, so it seems the music of the organ should never cease — it should go on when the priest has gone, it should go on when the organist has gone, it should go on when all the people have gone and night has taken the place of day and only the watchman with his lantern infrequently enters or stares down from aloft. In the intense stillness breathes and heaves the music of the Cathedral of York. O Lord, it breathes, it exhales, it inhales, it watches, it suffers. O Lord, it is in pain, in anguish, it kneels and implores, it is human, it is loving, it is prostrate. O Lord, it must die, it must live. O Lord, Thou hast dwelt in it, Thou hast died in it ; arise, then, O Lord, and live !
It is the House of God and He dwells there still. He has not forsaken it — that every man may know who comes in. Here is not simply curious or wonderful building. It were quite possible for this edifice of stone to be prosaic and secular as a fine station or hotel. But it is not so because England still lives in communion with God.
The old archbishops are dead, some of them fought in chain-mail in Palestine, the new arch- bishops have ruled in their place. The old families have passed away, and the new families worship in the spaces between the old tombs.
198 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
The gaze has soared upward and the heart has yearned, year after year, century after century — through war after war and peace after peace.
At twelve each day some one, some few, pause and pray, and remember those who are fighting the great fight. And Hampden is kneeling —
Reclaim . . .
Re-interpret . . .
Come again upon the earth, be born in some one again, be in me . . .
Work the miracles again ...
Redeem once more . . .
England . . .
All of us ...
and he dreams the great Cathedral dream of the Kingdom and the coming of love. On the mystical ground plan the great walls, the towers and the spires, the columns and the gateways. The spiritual masons at work and every stone being put into its true and fitting place. All nations and all men at one. Love in the midst of them outspread, -and understanding in all men's eyes. The great joy and the great glory which descried even afar cause the mortal fancy to dissolve and fade in perfect satisfaction. And the tones of the organ blending with the spiritual unheard music of the heart of the kneeler give the motion of the transcendent heavenly melody, the music to which the City is being built.
Then, anon, the service is over, and Hampden rises. As he turns he sees, three rows of chairs
xviii IN YORK MINSTER 199
behind him, a figure of whose presence he had been vaguely aware whilst he was kneeling. It was Celia Cosmo.
She rose and came to him, and there was a.n extraordinary beauty in her face. Either he had not previously observed how beautiful she was, or the Cathedral unexpectedly set off her grace and youth. As she put her hand in Hampden's, she said :
" It is a miracle that you are here. I wanted to find you and say good-bye, that was all, and I came into the Cathedral quite by chance, though I had a sort of feeling you might be here. And I was sitting here five minutes before I recognised you. How astonished I was to see you ! I only wanted to say good-bye. I am so glad to have met you. Life is going to be different for me because of you."
Hampden took her hand to say good-bye, but he walked with her to the Cathedral door. Celia felt anguished at being unable to say more. She turned to him as if to speak, but she said naught. Thus they stood a moment on the threshold of the house of God, he in the dim light of the Cathedral doorway ; she in the light of the everyday ; the silence and the music of the temple behind him, the noise of the streets and the world beyond her ; above him the strong tower and the wall of the city, at her feet the pavement sloping away from the Sanctuary.
:< I believe that now I shall always associate you with this hour in York Cathedral," said Hampden. And it was so. They were not by
200 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xvm
any means in love, but had found the other relationship, and were " two together in the presence of Christ."
He kissed her hand, and she walked hastily and nervously away.
CHATTER X1X-
:< SOME places seem to have mystical names, or at least second and more sacred names. The mystic name of Durham may be said to be Dunholm, and of York Ebor, and of Salisbury Sarum, but what is the mystic name of Charing Cross ? " propounded Hampden.
King thought he was joking, but Hampden answered seriously :
'' In the midst of the bustle and turmoil of Charing Cross station take off your hat and remember Chere Reine, Queen Eleanor, whose body last rested there."
They had agreed that after York they would make the journey of the Eleanor crosses, that is, from Harby where the Queen died, to Lincoln Cathedral where the body was embalmed, and thence following the bier to Northampton and Dunstable and Waltham to Charing Cross. As King was deeply in love with Celia he felt a sort of felicity in making this sentimental journey ; he would write Celia about it later. To Hampden it was part of the mysterious tracery of England.
20 1
202 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
As the monks, following the body of St. Cuthbert in and out and round about in the north country wrote as it were on the earth a letter or a cypher, so King Edward and his knights following the body of the Queen wrote another letter in the beautiful and ideal name of England. For that reason Hampden had asked what was the mystical name of Charing Cross. Such a question is a shock. Is it possible that there can be anything religious or mystical about that swirl of traffic called Charing Cross — it is brazen, cocksure, tumultuous, self-insistent, and yet self-forgetful in its rush forward. Charing Cross and England ! Ask the desperate passenger who with the aid of a taxi-cab has missed his train by three seconds ; ask the lady conductors of the buses with their black-tipped fingers sticking through their worn- out gloves, or the slatternly newspaper-vendors, or the clerk in Charing Cross Post Office handing out clouds of postage stamps, or the sedate manager of Coutts' Bank — has Charing Cross or England or have they mystical and holy names to which an ideal side of their nature could give answer. They will not have time to consider the point. In order to obtain an answer it will be necessary to go down Whitehall . . . pass the War Office, pass Downing Street, the roadway becomes more and more spacious, do not enter the Houses of Parliament though the tower with the great clock in the heights is impressive, but with calmer soul enter the Abbey. How happy that the Abbey is so near — otherwise no assurance could have been obtained.
xix MYSTICAL NAMES 203
:< All places and all people have mystical names," said Hampden. " If we only knew the mystical name of this Harby we are going to, the place where the Queen died, we could no doubt see it as it was then."
King objected that if he called York Ebor it made no difference. York remained the same.
' You do not pronounce it correctly," said Hampden, with a smile. " But I have called it Ebor, and the spirit of York has come to me."
4 Well, now," said King, " I have a straight- forward type of mind, and believe in calling a spade a spade."
' Do you dig ? " asked Hampden.
:< No, I cannot dig, and to beg I am ashamed," said the American, with a smile.
' Well, there you are," said Hampden. ' You have not learned the secret. For you no flowers are coming. I often wonder at Americans. They manage to live so successfully on the surface. There seem to be no mysteries there except those of criminals, and the police. America does not seem to have a spiritual side to her nature."
King demurred. Hampden ought to go to the United States and he would see. The spiritual side was strong.
" Well, then," asked Hampden, " has America a mystical name ? "
:< No," said King, with conviction and some contempt, " she has not."
" England has," Hampden said.
" Now, that is interesting," said King. " Tell me what it is."
204 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
" Impossible," said Hampden emphatically.
" Why ? " asked King.
" You could not hear it, or having heard it you could not repeat it. Whilst this earthly vesture of decay (Hampden touched King's hand) doth grossly close it in, you cannot hear it. But if you could hear it (Hampden wagged his head in emphasis), if you could hear //, how your task would be lightened. You could divine every secret spot and every buried treasure in the land — only then I am convinced you would want to leave them where they were."
The express train bearing them southward from York rattled and shook and lurched sug- gestively, the shimmering metal rails faded into, one another and branched again and joined, the hedgerowed country with its villages and farms passed like a mist, the telegraph poles like one- legged giants jumped after one another. King's eyes fluttered over the persistently altered notice — " In the night-time when the blind passengers alight . . ."
" And the Great Northern Railway ? " he asked facetiously, c< would you say it has a mystical name ? >!
:< Certainly," said Hampden.
;< Oh, now . . ."
' You do not know it ? " asked Hampden, laughing. " Aren't you afraid of accidents, then ? "
' I am heavily insured," said King. ' You see," said Hampden, " it's quite ex- pensive not knowing the word."
xix MYSTICAL NAMES 205
King would have liked to know it, but Hamp- den said it could not be communicated. Every- thing in heaven had two names, one that was of the everyday, the other a mystical name. If God in heaven called Washington King by his mystical name, his heart would stop as the spirit left the house. When Christ stilled the waves, saying " Peace, be still," He really said another word which could not be remembered by the apostles when they told the story afterwards, and that was the name He called the waves, the name they recognised. When he raised Jairus' daughter, He called her by her soul's name, that is why it is written that He said to her Talitha cumi ; the translator felt that something was lacking, perhaps that the maid's mystical name had been left out, and therefore he added the original words used. If you saw in front of you a dead girl with waxen face, bitter red lips and lovely faded eyes, and could call the name which none knows but God — even you could bring her back. When Christ groaned for Lazarus He called his name. When He called the disciples it was to their hearts, not to their ears, and he who was Simon answered to the name of Peter, which is one of the overlooked miracles of Christ's life.
King wagged his head sententiously and repeated :
' That is all Greek to me. I'm a straight- forward man. When I see a thing I see it and go straight for it and grab it. No mysteries for me. Every man's true name in the post-office directory. Thank God if he be on the telephone.
206 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
If a man will do a thing, he'll do it. If he won't, then bid higher. The cheque-book is the intermediary between man. I want you to back my cause. You're not willing ? What is the difference — a thousand dollars, ten thousand ? This is a big job. I'm going to run here as the long-expected Messiah and save the Jews. What is ten thousand dollars in such a scheme ? So I sign on Simon Peter and the rest. Christ was a genius, but He started without a good financial backing, and He finished where we all know. It was a muddle. He ought to have saved Judah, the sacred nation, but instead He brought a curse on them and raised up nation after nation against them, from the Normans to the Russians. But America is doing what Christ could not do."
;< Saving itself?" asked Hampden cheerfully.
" No, saving the Jews."
At this point a third person in the railway carriage, overhearing the conversation, began to hum very felicitously that song which Grossman sings : " I — do — not — belie — ve you, I — do — not — believe — you," and Hampden leaned across to the American and whispered, " You see, he does not believe you ! "
Then Hampden went on aloud : " All that you have just said is nonsense, and you know it. You speak as if Christ were a sort of Dr. Cook who slipped into a long-vacant berth in history. You know Christ never needed money. If a blind man meets you in the street he asks a copper, but meeting Christ he asks for sight, and no number of dollars can work that miracle.
xix MYSTICAL NAMES 207
Christ knew every one and everything by their mystical names, and that was how He was God as well as man. That is our Christianity — trying to find these names."
Hampden was taking the education of King seriously in hand. King was coming to the con- clusion that for Hampden he had no use. He had in fact decided to take Cosmo's advice and get clear of him. Hampden had proposed to walk the way of the crosses. King had decided in his heart that he would motor it. He must get to London quickly, see Poldu, set the Press moving in his favour, let the Cosmos know he was in town, especially Celia.
:< If you love a woman, you whisper her real name, and you are in her presence," Hampden was saying. " Or if you wish anything beautiful, such as the new America or the new England that is to be, you must learn its true spiritual name and breathe it to God. Then it will certainly come to be."
" What would you say was Miss Cosmo's mystical name ? " asked King.
" That is for you to divine," said Hampden. " Perhaps Queen Eleanor will give it to you if you follow her body humbly to Chere Reine."
" I've decided to motor it," said King abruptly. " I cannot walk, and I cannot spare the time."
" You surely do not mean to do it in a car ? "
King said humorously that he would be damned if he walked.
Hampden said seriously that he certainly stood a chance of being damned if he went in a car.
208 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xix
" Queen Eleanor will not whisper the name to you," he said knowingly. ' You want to arrive at Chere Reine, which is really a wonderful place to get to in life, but if you go in a car, you won't hear any whisper, and you'll only get to Charing Cross in the end of ends."
At Harby, therefore, they parted, and the American, with a sigh of satisfaction, got ahead.
CM-' XX. M T0
FROM KKfl CHARIWG
HARBY WJ CROSS
ENGLAND'S transfiguration day is in May when the hawthorn is in bloom. Richard Hampden certainly walked the English roads, following the way that Queen Eleanor had been borne, and he breathed the scented air wafted from the hedge- rows. Hampden in his tweeds, with his lined brow, with his measured steps and cogitative bent — walked the grey-brown undulating road, himself grey -brown, not remarkable, not dis- tinguishable from the road itself. And that story might be told — how you or I or any one might walk from Harby to London and what adventures we might have on the way. But instead let us tell of the soul.
The ideal Hampden, white, pearly, like the angel who announced the mystery to the Virgin, passes along the English road ; and England whispers her beautiful name to him. He is wearing such raiment as the hawthorn wears, and the dark thorny tree rejoices as much to see him as the real Hampden, grey-brown and
209 p
210 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
cogitative, plodding along the road, rejoices to see her. It must be that if Nature sees us she sees our hidden beauty, sees us as we really are. Nature also loves us as we love her, hence the great harmony of the vast beautiful morning where all is varying and yet all beautiful. Every flower spoke to Hampden from the banks and bushes of the road, and those that loved most asked to be picked, to be worn ; the trees leaned down to him ; the birds singing on the branches were singing almost on his shoulders ; the broad sky rejoiced over him ; the earth was more gentle because she bore him as he went.
There were the long low lands of Lincolnshire and the dykes, the Midland with its towns, the happier South with woods and uplands, great commons, lovely English villages. All manner of fields, dank green meadows with the wandering line of hedges where the thrush and the chaffinch were at home ; great ploughed fields climbing over hills ; gentle forests of pines or of oaks or of beeches, graceful and clean as kept parks ; noble gardens and lawns ; merry land, sad land ; regions of success and industry and economy, regions that were all failure, bankruptcy, and debt ; rich farms, poor farms — and the road meandered through them all.
Hampden stood at Harby new church, and his gaze was a long ladder to where in the distance gleams the great tower of Lincoln Cathedral — and for him angels were ascending and descend- ing. " We live in the sight of Lincoln tower," said the old vicar, " we feel we ought to do
xx HARBY TO CHARING CROSS 211
something here. For many years there seemed to be no spiritual life whatever. But the fact that we are within sight of the great tower has been a reminder."
:< Angels have visited you," said Hampden, and he whispered to himself favourite lines :
" And is there care in heaven ? and is there love ? There is : else much more wretched were the case Of men than beasts."
Nothing of the old Harby stands. The Harby of these days is ugly, red brick, Victorian. The sense of its architecture is — we are nothing and mean nothing. No splendour, no glory to God, but groups of servile dwelling-barracks of red brick. The spiritual gaze, which is a sort of X-ray, would look through this Harby as if there were nothing between the eyes and the spiritual realities farther back in time. One can imagine that the ghost of King Edward the First, revisiting to-day the spot where his queen died, would pass right through these red-brick tene- ments as if they were merely smoke or dust. ;< Strange that we are not building," murmured Hampden ; " when are we going to begin building again — to the glory of God ? J!
He walked to the tall squared Cathedral on Lincoln Hill, that great erect warrior of God standing so high that all men may see. He knelt within the church and saw the inner beauty of the Cathedral's soul. Outwardly like a rugged fortress, or a strong man, or a citadel difficult to be taken, inwardly all loveliness and aspiration ;
212 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
outwardly defiant, inwardly calm ; outwardly a champion, inwardly the bride of Christ — a joy for all time. Durham is also a great fortress on a hill, but inwardly it is not feminine — therefore, perhaps, Lincoln is more perfect.
Up those steep approaches how oft in time past rode Crusaders in arms. The Saracen's Head is now an inn — perhaps in those days an actual Saracen's Head was stuck on a pole, and sightseers and pilgrims thronged to see it and abuse it. What a day in Lincoln when King Edward brought his dead Queen to St. Catharine's, when again in solemn state of mourning he followed the embalmed body down and out of the city and passed into the fair English country !
The Cathedral remains, the country remains, but of all the villages and stones that this cortege passed by, how little remains ! Even the crosses have been pulled down, or taken away, or put to other uses. But what remains is fair to see, and the view of sweet nature that it blots out we do not grudge as we grudge the blot that the factory and the factory chimney make.
Hampden passed all manner of buildings on his way to Northampton, from horrible " Jubilee Cottages " to sweet Elizabethan dwellings. A strange feeling was his that buildings are things which builders have left behind when they died, for the builder is prophetic in his work. He dies, but what he built remains behind. His tombstone is in the churchyard, but there along the winding village lane are the wan houses that he built, that he watched coming into
xx HARBY TO CHARING CROSS 213
shape, that he knew as his in after years when the first tenants used them. He dies and the houses remain, and that bit of nature he blotted out with his house remains blotted out.
When we kill that we may eat, it is in the faith that lower life may be sacrificed to higher life, to the greater glory of God. But the builder putting up bad houses does not understand the sin he commits in sacrificing nature in order to cause something to exist which glorifies God less. The builders of the Cathedrals of Durham and York and Lincoln, and many another wonderful church and house, were justified in their faith, for what they built is more beautiful than nature. No one would pull down Lincoln Cathedral that a forest might grow on the hill, or that the hill might better be seen. But how much of con- temporary England might profitably be pulled down in favour of better things !
At the village of N , on the day after
leaving Lincoln, Hampden called at a little house for tea. In the window beside the statement that teas were given was the red, white, and blue ticket with the notice that the father, the bread- winner, was fighting for his King and country. White-haired grandfather had been a mason in his time ; the father was a builder, but owing to the War the family had descended to hard days. Hampden talked about houses. Why did they build such pokey ugly places for noble- hearted men and women to live in. But " granfer," with his quavering voice, said he thought the houses were " good enough for the
2i4 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
likes o' they." Yet on the wall of the house was an old sampler which had been done by granfer's mother when she was a girl, and on it was worked in old lettering :
Jesus, permit Thy gracious name to stand As the first efforts of an infant hand ; And while her fingers on the canvas move. Engage her tender heart to seek Thy love. With Thy dear children let her have a part, And write Thy Name Thyself upon her heart.
" If they would only build in that spirit ! " said Hampden to himself.
And Northampton Cross was worthy.
A wonderful feeling towards woman, that of Edward and his knights. Eleanor was a wise and beautiful and beloved queen. And so many women are wise and beautiful and beloved, and yet occupy a secondary place in life, play an insignificant role, and, whether queens or merely wives, they are private persons, housekeepers, not to be exalted, not to be worshipped. The Age of Chivalry placed woman higher. It made of womeri queens of love and beauty ; women were prayed to, lived for. The Age of Chivalry gave way to the Age of Gallantry, and the two are sometimes confused. We need to remember that before we were merely gallant we were chivalrous, and it was in the Age of Chivalry that Dante had his Beatrice and Edward his Eleanor.
Now in 1916 Hampden had his Vera. To pass in thought to her was as going from the outside of Lincoln Cathedral to the inside. In walking this way he worshipped her. And the
xx HARBY TO CHARING CROSS 215
people he met by the way he loved and honoured for her sake. When the first star of evening came out in the pale lovely sky he called it Vera, and on that star his hope was set. As Richard III., looking about him with unfixed gaze, cried out that " I have set my life upon a cast," so this other Richard might say, " I have set my hope upon a star " — and that star was Vera, she who bore his spiritual body, who put a cross upon his neck. Not that he, Hampden, said aught of this to any one — for that was Hampden's secret.
The brightening sun shone warmly on his way, and ever bluer skies rolled above him. The earth lifted him as he went, the hawthorn in bloom enchanted the air he breathed. Beauty warmed his soul to passion.
Verdant Waltham ! The cross in the midst of the town ; the noble Abbey of Waltham ; the rich forest on the ridges above ; then the smoky pall of London, queen of cities. Exactly, queen ! And that is what we seek, the dear Queen in London. For in London lives the Queen.
Hampden got into a brake full of wounded country soldiers and old folk going to London sight-seeing.
" And off we go to London town,"
they sang,
" See the King with a golden crown."
But the great thing is not that the King lives there, but the Queen.
Before the outbreak of war, writers to The
216 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xx
Times were seeking a suitable motto for London, and some invented :
Let London lead ! Let London live ! Let London linger on !
and some more stilted :
Let London still lead on ! May Mighty London prosper J
and some with boyish cheerfulness :
London for ever ! Good old London !
all forgetting that before you have a motto you need an emblem or device. Some one wrote, " Queen of Cities." Why not, then, a figure of a queen and under it the words " Chere Reine " ?
Thundering and triumphant Charing Cross ! The money-changer's office ; the gloomy plat- forms 5, 6, 7, 8 ; St. Martin's Church on the rise of the hill, the roaring lions of Trafalgar Square and Nelson perched so high, like Simon Stylites in stone ; pompous Northumberland Avenue going to the river ; Pall Mall that proceeds ; the roadway that slips round into Whitehall, the swirl of people. Where is the Queen ? Queen Victoria is at St. Paul's, Queen Anne's address is now 15 Queen Anne's Gate,
outside the house of Mr. H . But where
is Eleanor, where is your Queen, where is she whom the King delighteth to honour ?
She is in the heart. But we have missed Hampden whilst we were asking these questions. He is kneeling in the Abbey.
ST'
CH-YY1 t/^8SW^T\9
\^ri-A.yvi. IrmslTOiB M FAITH
aw
IT often happens that in order to find out a secret you have to go back. Hampden is kneeling in the Abbey, and in his mind is his memory, that long emblazoned roll of impressions we call past life. He has come into the Abbey trailing clouds of glory. And if he brings the glory of the past into it, he brings also the calm of the past.
One day Hampden went to the little church in Compton in Surrey, and he kneeled in the anchorite's cell there.
It is advice frequently given to those who must be taught to understand in the heart what they dimly perceive by the mind — " Put yourself in his place ! " Say it to the curious, who, with history book in hand, raise their glasses to look at the anchorite's apartment in the old wall of the church — " Put yourself in his place, do not be afraid ! "
Between every tenth stone of the Cathedral of Saint Sophia human dust was placed ; at the
217
218 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
coming of Mahomet the walls opened and en- closed the priest who was serving at the altar. Hence the wall is living, there is flesh and blood in it — spirit, life. How else could the Church be the Bride of Christ except she were alive.
In the sacred pictures of the East they show all the saints as if they were in the wall of a cathedral or a city. It is the same idea ; the church wall is holy, the church wall is alive, it is the Sacred Body.
At Yately there is an anchorite cell in the wall of the fine old church, and in the porch of the same church, beside the names of those who are serving in France, is written :
Ever the faith endures, England, my England !
and that is true. That faith is the Saint Faith.
The cell at Compton has its window asquint so that the kneeling hermit may have his eyes on the altar. When you kneel in the cell you kneel low and your arms stretch upward toward a cross of light — for the shape of the window is a cross. The elbows are on the worn ledge, worn by the elbows of the hermits. You notice the throb of your bosom, rising and falling upon the wall, and you ask : " Is it my bosom, or the bosom of the church ? "
You look towards the Cross and aspire. It is low to kneel and high to look, and the angle is the angle of exaltation, the seeing into the other world through the cleft or rent in heaven — the Cross.
Thus Hampden knelt, as it was said of the
xxi ST. FAITH 219
hermit Wulfric of old, without any benediction or appointment, but by the authority of the Holy Spirit who dwelt within, he buried himself in Christ — he knelt in the wall.
I suppose the holiest spot in England is where the original anchorite had his cell, on that island in the marshes of the Thames where Westminster Abbey is now built. Before London existed the Christian consciousness of England had begun, and for all of us the old hermit knelt by the Thames. His cell, they say, is now the Chapel of St. Faith, in Westminster Abbey, which is the sacred beating heart of England.
There are many chairs with low seats and high backs ; the backs are to the large vague fresco of a virgin saint, St. Bride the Sacred Mother or St. Faith. Obviously you do not sit down — no, you kneel on the seats and look over the backs ; low seats with high backs on which you can put your elbows as you look upward — low to kneel and high to look, the angle of aspiration and yearning.
A cathedral within the Cathedral. In the outer Cathedral all manner of people are tramping about, and numbers of Australian and Canadian soldiers are being shown round. Or, anon, the people settle down into the pews and a public service begins. But all the while in the little chapel kneel four or five.
Four or five are kneeling in absolute silence, they are praying without words, without heart's word, in the inner sanctuary. It is still, still. . . .
220 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xxi
Throb, throb, throb, throb — it is the pulse — throb, throb, throb — the pulse of England — throb, throb, throb — the steady beating heart of the dweller in our Innermost — throb, throb, throb. . . . It ever goes on. Even when the chapel is closed and the worshippers are turned away by the officials of the abbey, and the sanctuary be presumed to be empty by the policeman and the watchman, and not even a lamp is burning, there is something happening. Kings arise from their tombs, warriors from the vaults, poets out of the poets' corner, and dwell therein. They ever kneel, they ever watch. Throb, throb, throb, throb, they look up to the vague Virgin on the wall, and their hearts beat as one, all their indi- viduality merged in one beating heart — England.
CH-XX11. POLDU
HELP ME BROTHER To BEAR AWAY THIS CARRION.
" I NEED the aid of your invaluable Press to help solve this international problem," said Washington King. ' I see that here, as in America, nothing can be effected without the co-operation of the Press. And your Press especially is what I need. You do not simply give the public what the public wants, you manufacture public opinion and prompt the national impulse. I once met your rival, X., in America. ' How is it,' I asked, ' that you issue both the Salon of the Nude and For Shame, Victoria ? ' He replied, 4 1 only give the public what it wants ; if they want oranges I give them oranges, if they want lemons I give them lemons.' But you can make them take lemons whether they want them or not, and you're the man for me."
" My dear Washington King," purred Poldu, taking him by the arm and walking him from room to room in Sydney's Abode, " you flatter me : my power is limited. But all that you have said interests me deeply. You must not think,
221
222 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
however, that it takes me by surprise. I knew that this was coming, I felt it in the air, and I was waiting, waiting, believe me, for you. I needed you to make the story. For I suppose, coming from America, you know that no news is news till it is focused in a personality."
" What I ask of you I well might ask simply on patriotic grounds, for love of country," said King. :< It will be good for England to sell off all her old stock. She will feel infinitely freer when she has got rid of the old and then she will have the money to construct a new England. You, for your part, will have the glory, the in- creased prestige of having, as it were, initiated the scheme, and that will help your papers no end. But, apart from that, I'd like my gratitude to you to take a material shape."
Poldu waved his hand.
" When the public interest is stirred I would like to place a hundred thousand pounds' worth of advertisements in your papers. I suppose I could buy the space now and use it as I thought fit during our campaign, or after."
' That would help considerably," said Poldu. " You must see the central agency's advertise- ment manager to-morrow and settle that with him. And as for talking of showing your gratitude to me you must not mention it. The gratitude is all on my side. I look on all such matters from the news point of view, and what you have said and what you are going to do is simply invaluable. If you don't mind my interrupting the conversa- tion, I'll send for one of my bulldogs, who will
xxii POLDU 223
get at this scheme of yours at close quarters. He'll tear it to bits and show you what's really in it.
Poldu went to the table.
!* Centre double one double nine," he cried. " I must have Snorgum at once to make a com- plete record of what you have said. Ask Mr. Snorgum to come at once, Poldu speaking."
And he had hardly put the receiver on its stand again when a car came bounding up the narrow close, and out jumped little Mr. Snorgum, with ruddy face, bright eyes, and brilliant teeth, and he came like an arrow from the hall into the presence of his chief.
:< Good old Snorgum — always ready," cried Poldu, and then to the American, " Mr. Snorgum, one of my bulldogs, the smartest men in London. You couldn't touch 'em in New York."
Washington King reserved his private opinion as to whether there were smarter men in New York. But whilst he was advancing to shake hands Snorgum had whipped out a tablet and sketched his face. He then tore off the page with the sketch and put it on the table and began scribbling on another page as Poldu began to give him the points. King thought it would take twenty minutes, but in five Snorgum had grasped the whole matter, put his papers together, and, smiling all the time, nodded at King and was off.
;< Now," said Poldu sweetly, " let me show you some of the rooms of this beautiful house. You know Sir Philip Sydney lived here for some years. It's a wonderful old place, a bit of real
224 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
England. Some people laughed at my taking it, and thought I ought to have built myself something up to date, but my heart is here. I go all over the world, and always sigh to be back among these now familiar walls."
" I shouldn't have thought you'd have cared for a place of this sort at all," said King. " If you'll pardon my saying so, I should say this house was a weak spot in your armour. A great newspaper boss cannot afford to be sentimental. Now that reporter was a smart up-to-date man, and I understand him as Poldu's man, but I can't understand your living in an old ram- shackle place like this."
" You'd like to buy it ? " asked Poldu.
" Yes, I would."
" How much would you give ? "
" I'd take it at your own figure."
" Five millions ? " asked Poldu, with a smile.
" Oh ! " cried King. " That's a war in- demnity. You don't mean that."
" Five pounds, then."
;< Oh, now you are joking."
:< Five hundred thousand," said Poldu.
" It's a bargain," cried King, trying to grasp Poldu's hand.
" No, I could never part with it," the latter cried. " I should feel homeless if I lost it."
' You might as well say you'd feel homeless if you lost Westminster Abbey," said King.
" So I should, so I should," said Poldu senti- mentally. * You're not thinking of buying the Abbey, are you ? "
xxn POLDU 225
King supposed not.
' You know," said Poldu, " if you take away a man's house, he's bound to feel homeless. With the proceeds of this house I might build myself a mammoth hotel "
:* Not that," said King, " but the cosiest, most comfortable, convenient, modern house, with every device that civilisation can supply "
' But I should not feel I walked where Sydney walked ; no, no, I wouldn't think of it."
King was surprised. He could have under- stood the present heir of Sir Philip Sydney making trouble over fixing a price for his ancestral home, but not another Englishman, one who had no part or share in the glory of Sydney's name. It was staggering. Fortunately this great senti- mental Poldu was not logical. He would back his cause.
So King stood silently thinking in the presence of Poldu. The latter looked him up and down. Then the telephone, which had rung several times, attracted his attention, and he went to. it and began certain barely intelligible remarks — * Let Phillipson take leader. . . . Cut out baby correspondence. . . . Let loose lions on shirkers. . . . Double on Asquith. Prod War Office. . . . Get a move on the Admiralty. . . . Tell Snorgum hold American stuff. ..."
" Well," said he, turning to King, " I must see you to-morrow. We shall give full publicity to your idea and write it up. You give me the signal and I'll let off the gun. Good-bye."
" It has been extremely interesting meeting
Q
226 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xxn
you," said King. ' Your name has always been familiar to me ! "
' Yes," said Poldu, showing him out, " wire- less operators all over the world rejoice to hear Poldu. There are three great disseminators of news, and the greatest of all is Poldu."
CHOCXHl.
BOQ)1
ONE of King's mottoes was not to pull the plum, or even feel it, till it was ripe. Consequently he would never have proposed to Celia if it had not been for an awkward mistake. Perhaps, however, he did no harm by asking. He remained on the best of terms with Celia, and she was prospectively his wife. History takes us back to York, to the day after Cosmo's dinner-party. It was then the curious mistake arose which caused him to ask Celia to be his wife, and all through an ignor- ance of dialect. Cosmo had been on the warmest of terms with King at breakfast ; he had wakened up in a sort of happy after-dinner mood, and treated King as if he had known him all his life. It was a cheery breakfast. Cosmo regretted that he must go off to business so soon, and as he left the house he waved adieu from the door of his car, crying to King in a meaning sort of way the letters S.Y.L.
"S.Y.L., S.Y.L.," said he, and waved his hands. And King had interpreted these letters
227
228 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
to mean, " Say you love." He did not feel that the time was ripe for such a declaration, but he trusted that Cosmo knew. Probably he wanted the matter settled quickly, and that was the English way. It was, in any case, gratifying to his pride to think that he had only to put out his hands and she would fall into them like ripe fruit.
He walked with her along the walls of the city the afternoon before leaving York, that is, on the afternoon after she had parted with Hampden at the Minster. King felt that the occasion was critical. He must make the possession clearly his. He said to himself as he considered her, ;' I will fling my arms round her and kiss her. She will not object. I will press my lips to hers and take her heart by storm. She will sweetly give way, and I will ask my questions one by one — be mine, be Mrs. King, soon, to America, happiness, yes, yes, yes."
But instead of doing that brave deed he suddenly knelt before her, and with tears in his eyes cried out, " Celia, my queen, my goddess, I love you," and tears streamed down his cheeks.
Her face at that took a strange sulky ex- pression. She was clearly surprised — a little annoyed. The American knelt there in front of her quite two minutes, his hands together, as a child prays.
!< Nonsense, nonsense," said Celia, and stamped her foot.
:c But answer," said King.
Celia put down a lovely hand to his wet cheeks, and suddenly there was a twinkle in her eye.
xxiii BOOM 229
" Come, Washy," said she. " Get up, dear, we can't stay here like this."
King got up brusquely, and at once. Sud- denly he had ceased to love and was angry. The two walked home together silently.
;< All is over," said King to himself ; " she
called me Washy, that's enough. What a fool I
am ! I came to this country to find dead
j
architectural curiosities and spiritual treasure, and I am wasting my time trying to procure live goods. I am crazy. I am a renegade. I am untrue to our American women. Think, if I married that brazen girl what a fool I should appear. And she calling me . . ."
That evening Washington King played cards and lost elegantly to Cosmo and his friends Oppenheimer and Jimpson, but he craved to retire early and allowed a certain Mr. Mirfleet, who had been occupying himself with Celia, to take his hand.
Before he reached his room, however, light steps tripped after him and a feminine arm wreathed itself in his, and Celia led him away to the recesses of a shadowy palm-room.
" I am sorry if I hurt you," said she. ' You took me completely by surprise. Forgive me and don't feel vexed." She put her hand in his, lifted it a little and looked into his eyes. He took it delicately to his lips and kissed it. Then she led him back. They said no more, and King went off to his room to sleep.
" She has me feeding out of her hand," said King to himself. But he was not displeased, and soon slept sweetly without chagrin.
230 FKlfcbl UJf IHJb, ILJfcAL CH.
Next day he had asked Cosmo what he meant byS.Y.L.
" Why," said Cosmo, " it means, See you later, that's all. What did you think it meant ? "
But King would not tell him, and he thought to himself, "They say a test of whether you know a foreign language is whether you can make love in it. Now I see how I got wrong."
Nevertheless he had left York feeling that his affair with Celia was in a good way. His interest in her certainly gilded life and all the future for him.
So when he got to London he at once let Mrs. Cosmo know. And Mrs. Cosmo, who was intent on disposing of her daughter to a rich man, soon arranged to come and stay with her relatives, the Cosmos of Park Lane.
At these other Cosmos King fell in again with Charles Trevor, the young courier whom he had met on the boat coming over from America, the young man who had introduced him to Hampden.
W7hen King called, Celia was in lively con- versation with Trevor.
" I am to be combed out and go to the Front," he was saying.
" Mr. Trevor is coming out from underneath the big Foreign Office umbrella," said Celia, laughing.
King was equally surprised to meet Trevor and to find that Trevor knew Celia.
" We've just met," said Trevor. " I'm an old school friend of Geoffrey Cosmo, Miss Cosmo's cousin, and I called to find out whether there
xxiii BOOM 231
were news of him. He has been serving in France and I find he is invalided home."
;* I'm only a country cousin of his," said Celia naively. " But how is it you know Mr. Trevor ? "
King explained.
" He has got to give up everything and become a private soldier," said Celia, " got to be sworn at and kicked by sergeants, got to march long marches with blistered feet and sleep in wet pools, dig trenches at three in the morning, and then go to France and leap over parapets."
" Hard luck," said the American ; " can't you
J
pull the wires and get out of it. Perhaps I could do something to get you out."
" No," said Trevor, " there's nothing to be done, I've got to do it ; I've foreseen it for a long time, but I'm not downhearted. It's really very exciting. Fortunately I shan't have to do so much training as those who joined earlier had to do. They are in such need of men that we are bound to be hurried to the real thing.
" Isn't it splendid," said Celia. " But I hope you won't come to any harm."
Then she turned to King maliciously and asked :
" How many cathedrals have you bought ? "
King said seriously that she'd never guess what he had just bought.
' I paid a hundred thousand pounds for it," said he. " But you'd never guess, so I'll tell you — just space. I've bought a hundred thousand pounds' worth of space."
232 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
" Not land ? " queried Trevor, who thought perhaps it was land reclamation.
" No, space."
" Air ? "
" No, advertisement space, space in news- papers, and I can fill it with what I like. I can fill endless columns with my signature, or with nines, or with advertisements of American goods, or with appeals for bits of old England."
;< Space of that kind is easily bought," said Trevor. " I've no doubt you could purchase double that quantity in London if you liked — whole Tube stations, sides of buses, hoardings, rail- way arches, sites in English meadows, and so on."
'* Oh, all in newspapers, in Poldu's news- papers," said King, " and I'm going to make my appeal."
" Now tell us all you've done, Washy. Let's hear all about it. How do things stand ? "
King winced a moment at the name, but then suddenly, as he looked at Celia's bright face and Trevor's sympathetic eagerness, he warmed im- pulsively and exclaimed :
* Joy, joy ! All is going well, so well. Poldu is taking up my quest. He's going to fire the gun on Thursday."
" What's he going to do ? Poldu ? " cried Trevor and Celia at once.
" He's going to launch my appeal in all his papers on Thursday. Then everything will come rolling. Everything will come to me to be sold. Britannia will bestir herself on her old tricar."
King explained to them at length what he had
xxiii BOOM 233
done and what he expected. Mrs. Cosmo and the other Mrs. Cosmo joined them and looked like twin old ladies. Both were evidently much impressed by King's success, now and then holding up their hands in wonder.
" And how is Mr. Hampden ? " asked Celia.
' Oh, I've parted with him. I told you I should. He's too slow. Wanted to walk from Lincoln to London. Said I'd meet you sooner that way, I believe. I'd learn your mysterious name. I think that was it."
King laughed.
4 Oh, you were talking of me," said Celia curiously.
Trevor thought Hampden a safer man than Poldu. But King got up from his seat and began to dance.
;* I'm off my head with joy," said he. ;< Now can't we run out between tea and dinner and look at some of the old houses. You know I'd like to make an improvement in one of your main thoroughfares and transport these old houses at Holborn Bars. But they're rather ricketty to stand an ocean journey. Ancient lights. Yes, I know. Ancient lights are the joy of my heart. I shall advertise for them presently — Lights wanted, must be ancient. To me the notice, * Ancient Lights,' means ' Saved for America, saved for me.' Now we must arrange, arrange. Thursday will be Poldu's day, and everything will come toppling in. Let's run into Ipswich to-morrow — ah, Mrs. Cosmo, will you make up a party for me? — and then on to Stratford — the
234 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
glorious swan. Gap-toothed Ipswich and then perfect Stratford."
" Why gap-toothed ? "
* You'll see when you get there. It is an ancient city. Thomas Wolsey hailed from there and the buildings are all of his date. Many a Pilgrim Father of East Anglian blood came from that little English town. And some have come back and bought the old homes again. Whole houses have been transported with success, and where the houses have been withdrawn there are gaps. Voila, gap-toothed."
They arranged a party to go to Stratford on Wednesday. It was Mrs. Cosmo and her Celia, Geoffrey Cosmo, Trevor, and Washington King. Celia and Trevor only regretted that no one knew for the moment where Hampden was and he could not be asked. But the American was not sorry. King sent his car ahead and they all went down by train. Not knowing the habits of Stratford, they got there about four in the afternoon, that is, about the time when all the watchmen go home to their tea and there is no more " showing " of anything for the day. Placid Stratford with its old red houses, magnet of artists — Stratford with its broad streets and authentic antique houses presenting an unspoiled picture of country Eng- land as she was, the little shops with chickens for sale, with substantial pies like jack-in-the-boxes of pastry, the crockery-shops with old pottery and presents from the Avon, the black and gloomy tower of the Priory church with its decayed gargoyles, the fine old grammar-school where
xxiii BOOM 235
succeeding generations of boys have carved their names since Shakespeare himself was a boy there — ' Wasn't it lucky there was the grammar-school so near for William," says an old dame — Bullen's press and his shop full of dust and leaves of books, the quiet river, the gardens alongside, and in them the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre new and staring, Shakespeare's birthplace now a humble butcher's shop with red joints on the wood and carcases hanging from hooks.
Our gay travellers found shelter in a large old English inn, which in itself made King's mouth water. * Just the sort of place where the towns- people must have discussed the new promise of America in the days of James the First." But now the rooms were named each after a play of Shakespeare. Thus King was put in " King Henry VIII.," but, being self-conscious as to the character of that monarch, was given ' c The Tempest " instead. Mrs. Cosmo insisted on being comfortable and was put in " The Merry Wives of Windsor." Celia was put in " Twelfth Night ; or, What You Will." Geoffrey Cosmo was put in " Much Ado about Nothing " and was much chaffed because of that and his wound. Trevor was put in " Henry V.," and was evi- dently intended by destiny to be a hero. All this was very felicitous and might have been thought to have been arranged by some fairy. But King was rash to go voluntarily into " The Tempest."
As they were sitting at dinner and mirthfully chattering, King suddenly put his first finger to his brow and said :
236 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
" Hst ! did you not hear it ? " No. What ? What was it ? " asked the
« rest.
" A noise, a detonation — boom"
" Yes, there certainly was something."
" Now don't be alarmed, Mrs. Cosmo. It's not the Zeppelins, nor an invasion or an explosion. It was Poldu firing his gun. To-morrow you'll read the news in the papers," said Mr. King, and then plunged boisterously into conversation about Poldu and his scheme and his hopes, and soon every one was laughing again.
Next morning all Poldu's papers published accounts of King's mission, and King was crazy with delight. It would be unfair to him to describe his antics. But imagine the joy of the Kaiser if suddenly some impossible victory on the sea had presented a prospect of his con- quering England, and you have something like the state of King's mind and soul. It would not be pleasant to English hearts to consider it, and we should do the American wrong if we laboured to tell all.
As the little party wandered about the old English streets King had all the elation of an heir whose claims have been recognised ; but the others were somewhat depressed as if having the consciousness of the dispossessed.
When they were at Ann Hathaway's Cottage and saw the old carved wedding-bed, the attend- ant said that an American had once offered him fifty thousand dollars for it.
" What did you reply ? " asked King.
xxiii BOOM 237
" I answered that the bed was not for sale," said the attendant proudly.
When King heard that Barnum had practically concluded the purchase of Shakespeare's birth- place when a certain Mr. F. stepped in and saved it, he remarked that the story was not yet complete, implying that Mr. F. was Providence in disguise saving it for him.
The sight-seeing was somewhat of a failure. By the first train came a crowd of women jour- nalists crying, ' Where is Washington King ? We must have King. I say, don't snapshot the wrong man ! What does it matter so we have a photograph. There he is, there he is ! '
They chased King from the old grammar-school, which the American was intent on buying, back to the hotel and to the room called " Tempest," and there King, with gratified and swelling pride, told them his family history, gave the number of noughts to his fortune — " oughts " he called them — gave his estimated prices to lists of priceless art treasures, many of which he knew nothing of personally ! One clever blue - stocking had brought with her the sale catalogue of the art treasures in a famous English castle in 1785 with the prices obtained then, and though there was no question of these things being resold now, she put down the new prices in contrast — to make a feature for her paper. Thus :
then now
£5 15 6 Portrait of Sir Thomas More, 10,000 guineas
— a change there in price. Another journalist
238 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xxm
obtained a list of the properties which King had earmarked in Stratford, and saw a good story in that. King was in a jocular mood and gave answers at random. To him " publicity " was not a spiritual matter, but a solid substance with definite values and utilities. The interviewers purred softly and humoured him to the top of his bent. They flattered him, but that was to get their copy. Once they had got what they wanted they disappeared and went off to scratch with their pens. Then they sharpened their wits against him. But King did not know what a storm he had raised.
CH-'XXIV
BY WHAT RIGHT DO YE ENTER?
CRITER-
-icrjs.
IN the afternoon Trevor and Geoffrey called on Trevor's friends, Sir Edward and Lady Flight, to tea, and Celia accompanied them. King, in a happy flurry and expectant of more journalists, remained at the inn and made calculations. Mrs. Cosmo rested. So about half-past four the young people in King's car swung along the road to the mansion of Kilverhive, and the chauffeur tooted upon the horn so that the man who lives in the lodge and opens the gate to gentry might come out.
A rather worn-looking grey-beard came out of the little lodge and surveyed the people in the car. Trevor recognised him.
" Why, Smart, how do you come to be here ? " said he. " Has old Sir Robert died ? "
The old man assented that Sir Robert had " passed away."
" I'm sorry to hear that," said Trevor.
" Yes, he was a real gentleman," said Smart, laboriously pulling back the gate.
239
24o PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
:< He was, you don't see many of them about now, do you ? " said Trevor.
" No. He never tipped me less than a sovereign in his life," said Smart, and as he stood holding back the gate the motor on its plump tyres rolled forward on the gravel of the drive.
Sir Edward and his lady were delighted to have their surprise visitors, and only sorry that they had not brought King, of whom they had already heard through Poldu's Primer, which they received every day in addition to the Morning Post. Lady Flight was a charming English lady in her prime, and she at once made Geoffrey and Celia Cosmo at home, so that they did not sit stiffly outside the bounds of profitable intimacy. Lady Flight in her matured woman- hood made Celia seem younger and more girlish than before. Celia was aware of this, and did not quite care to exchange the young lady in herself for the slight and pretty girl which she appeared in comparison with Lady Flight, but she bore up and was intent not to be a mere girl. Sir Edward Flight was a hard modern English- man of decided opinions, sure of himself, clear- minded and definite, but, though successful, often in the wrong unknown to himself.
They all began to speak of King's quest and the motive which had brought him to Stratford-on- Avon. Sir Edward was not at all scandalised. He held that England would flourish the more if the dead wood were cut out of the trees. " Our sap goes into the old dead branches and returns to the centre full of the odour of decay, making
xxiv CRITERIONS 241
our body feverish. I think he is doing good work."
Trevor hoped he wouldn't take too much away. Geoffrey Cosmo, who had been very slowly making up his mind about King, began to evince some dislike of him. He was slack in mind with the languor of the convalescent, but the realities of France and Belgium lay deep in his soul, and he had little patience for any American, and less for one who was using the money advantage of inglorious peace to despoil those who had fought. Sir Edward Flight thought him sentimental. The question we ought to ask was, Was Mr. Washington King likely to be of any use to us or was he not? He, Sir Edward, found that he was of use. Mr. Washington King was helping in the great clean-up. After the War we should have an ordered England, people would know their stations, for they would have learned the value of discipline and we could start afresh with a clean slate. There was a great deal of lumber, and Mr. King could profitably take it away.
Lady Flight was sympathetically interested in King's problem. It would be good for England to be free of some of the ancient cemeteries. She recalled what Marinetti the Futurist had said of Italy :. "It is one vast cemetery or museum of things which were once alive, and we hate the tourists who come to stare at these things as if dead Italy were the real Italy.'' But if these things really had spiritual power could they be bought, could prices be given them, and would
242 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
they not be more burden to the people who bought them than to the old lands in the long run ?
Celia shyly suggested that old pictures had been bought, prices had been given, and they had inspired foreign peoples — witness the Louvre and the National Gallery, full of foreign works of art.
Sir Edward agreed with Celia. Trevor, it seemed, had nothing to say. But Geoffrey Cosmo disagreed. ;< Shakespeare's birthplace," said he, " for instance, is a sort of shrine here, but in America it would be only a side-show in an exhibition ! "
' Then would you say that our Italian rooms and so on in the National Gallery were also side-shows for us ? " asked Celia, laughing.
' Well, I haven't much taste for art," said Geoffrey, seemingly bored by having to express himself, '* but Venus admiring herself in the glass, by the Spanish painter, the Choice of Paris, by the Dutchman, and the crowds of Italian Madonnas we possess, are obviously side-shows in London. But the real English pictures, the ' Fighting Temeraire ' and the rest, are worth something to us. And for that reason the Tate Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery are more precious than the National Gallery. The foreign pictures have a price, but the national ones could not be decently sold for any money."
* Well, I don't suppose we could ever sell the ' Fighting Temeraire,' " said Trevor.
" No," said Celia and Lady Flight.
Sir Edward said " No."
xxiv CRITERIONS 243
And then Sir Edward said, with a twinkle in his eye, " But how about faded and redundant Turners and the sculptured groups in West- minster Abbey and St. Paul's — would it not be well to clear some of them out ? "
But tea was brought in at that moment, and it happened the question fell through and no answer was given.
:< Do you expect to have to return to the Front soon ? " asked Lady Flight of Geoffrey.
;< Soon as I recover," he replied.
" Isn't it terrible ? " asked Lady Flight of Celia. :< No respite. The young men are driven back again and again. A wound is now a sort of lucky chance that brings them home for a while."
Celia expressed by her eyes what she felt. " Every one has to go," said she.
" There seems no prospect of its ever being over," she added.
Geoffrey thought it might be over soon. Trevor explained that he was being conscripted also.
" Good man ! " said Sir Edward. " No con- scientious objector you."
Trevor smiled.
" Conscientious objectors ought to lose their votes after the War," Sir Edward went on ; " it's only fair, if a man won't defend his country, he should have no voice in the government."
" Oh, Edward, how hard you are," said his wife. " You know very well they are mostly very nice people. I'm glad they'll be saved any-
244 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
way. I am sure I don't know why the Govern- ment is so anxious to send all our fine young men to be killed or maimed. It's splendid of them to go, but it's a terrible loss all the time. ..."
She said she was sorry Trevor would have to go. Why couldn't Mr. Lloyd George bring over a few million Russians and arm them and clothe them. A few Russian peasants more or less didn't matter, but these men of ours whom we were sacrificing had many of them been carefully trained and educated, at great expense and with much loving care ; and then on the verge of real life, before any fruit or blossom had come, they were put to " stop a bullet," as the Tommies say.
" Ah, Betty," said Sir Edward sadly, " there you are wrong. In this great conflict our old values fall to nothing ; a Russian properly trained and equipped is 'one effective,' and an Englishman trained and equipped is ' one effective ' also, and equals are equals — that is the whole arithmetic of to-day."
" Still, I had rather go than see a man like Richard Hampden taken ! " said Trevor.
" What, the speaker ? " asked Sir Edward.
" Do you know him also ? " asked Celia, look- ing at Sir Edward. :< Isn't he wonderful ? "
" Even he will have to go in time," said he. " The War drags on, and we must have more men. Why, I'm not at all sure that I shan't have to go myself before we're through with it. All up to fifty will be taken. And our fortunes will go also."
" What do you think will be left ? " asked
xxiv CRITERIONS 245
Trevor, and Sir Edward replied, " Some old men, a mass of women, and a Business Government."
;< Some of the cream of the nation are still left," said Trevor. " I think they ought to be saved somehow. I feel that young men in my position ought to go first. I certainly have been useful to the Foreign Office, but I'm quite willing to be sacrificed if men like Hampden can be spared."
:< No cream for me," said Sir Edward, with a crackling laugh. He was receiving a second cup of tea from his wife. '' I don't believe in it. Who is the cream ? How do you judge ? There is very little means of adjudging national merit or importance. On the railways we have * ist class,' ' 2nd class,' ' 3rd class.' Does your Hampden travel ist ? — no, as like as not he travels 3rd. In the hotels rooms are of various prices. Your poor poet is not conducted to one of the best apartments. In the theatre, even in the theatre of Bernard Shaw and Arnold Bennet, the public is marshalled into classes quickly differ- entiated by the amount of money they can afford to pay. But you do not plead that they who sit in the stalls should be saved as being more precious than those who are standing in the gallery."
Lady Flight held that compulsion was wrong and that in adopting It we took a wrong step. It put the whole nation in a false position and it made every man a judge of his neighbour. Sir Edward said that he would have liked it carried further, and that wealth also should be overhauled and conscripted, which was at least an unselfish
246 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xxiv
opinion on his part, for he had considerable riches. Trevor remarked that if wealth were conscripted a national register of it would first become necessary, a new domesday book. Probably much that was private wealth would be found to be in no way national wealth.
" And then it could be sold out," said Sir Edward. ;< Our art treasures would also be numbered and valued nationally, and, as I was suggesting, the old sculptured groups in our abbeys and suchlike worthless things might be sold. But the * Fighting Temeraire ' would remain, and our precious Turners and Burne-Jones and Watts and Millais, Reynolds and Gainsboroughs — but some of the side-shows might be sold."
' That is where Mr. King would come in," said Celia solemnly, and then she whispered to Trevor and laughed — " Poor Washy, much thanks he'd give us for the side-shows ! "
Certainly, if one may judge by this chance conversation at tea, King's quest and Poldu's advertisement of it were already causing English people to think and question, to consider what was national, what not ; what could be sold, what could never be sold, and why. If this conversa- tion was in any way symptomatic of what every one was thinking on reading the columns of Poldu's papers, then certainly King was providing a touchstone for real things, and his mission might be a blessing in disguise.
CHAPTER ^£^C THE
XXV
HE RANGES IN THE MIGHT FOR HIS PREY.
^ ge-wumpf, ge-ivumpf, ge-woo-oo, ge- wumpf, the lions are coming. Can you tell how old they are by their teeth ? My goodness, how red their gums are ! They will not look at us in the eyes. To one side or the other they look. Do not forget that in essentio they are cats. Stroke them, stroke down the rough fur the right way on their proud heads. Ugh, ugh, ugh^ they are pleased.
To London there are several gates — Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Aldersgate, Moorgate — old gates these, no one can get in by them now. But there are certain gates, narrow as the eye of a needle, and by them you must enter. The lions have the right-of-way. Pompous^ pompo, pompt^ the proud lions proceed ; they pass through the gate, and they put on a different aspect when they pass through the gate. O wise parents, put your pretty daughters away ere the lion begins to prance.
Washington King is wrapped up in himself 247
248 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
as he proceeds, as the car which bears him halts and then proceeds. All London is at his feet and he has an infinite appetite.
Only because he knows that he can have what he wants he pretends to himself that he is sated and indifferent.
Wrapped up in himself he proceeds. The car halts again, and pedestrians peep at him through the open windows, and then once more he proceeds.
And then the gate, the crimson carpet as for a wedding from the door over the mud to the road — the doorstep of my Lord and Lady Daniel, and by that narrow wicket lies the road to the lion's pagan paradise.
How-ow, how-ow ! he is conducted up the stairs; his tail is comme il jaut and his crown of hair seems to have been carefully greased and brushed. How-ow ! How-ow ! Every one is shaking his paw.
King looks right and left and squints about him, barely controlling the impulse to look straight and take and eat. All is unfamiliar and joyful. Lady Daniel never asks a lion without giving him a worthy spread and delightful human tid-bits whom he may devour. They will take almost any sort of pretty young woman, and also upon occasion the right sort of young man. There was young Lady Lucy, with gently heaving sweet white breasts barely restrained from showing the full beauty of a goddess, and a lovely maid of Antrim with waist no bigger round than the proud head of the attendant lion.
xxv THE LION 249
He would fain have taken her down. But only on Lady Daniel was King able to give a direct gaze as yet. She was an experienced hostess and knew all the ways of lions.
Twenty-four sat down to dinner, and King knew his turn was coming. Still all was make- believe as the lackeys pottered about with oysters and fish, and King snorted and whispered ir- relevant asides to the fair girl he had brought down from above.
On Lady Daniel's left was a scaly old crocodile in durance who had had his fill in his time at this lady's festal board, and now in days of restraint told affecting stories to his neighbour and tried at least to keep one fair morsel out of the greedy lion's maw. But his efforts this night were in vain.
King's neighbour was saying, ' ' What keen eyes you have, Mr. King ! "
" You need them if you are to see what you want," the lion replied.
" What a nose you have for the real thing," said she.
" The better to smell out old England," said the lion.
His neighbour tittered nervously and then went on :
" What an appetite you have," said she meaningly.
Then King turned his eyes on her and answered :
" Yes, I have a tremendous appetite, I have a tre "
250 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
And he looked like pouncing at that moment. And Lady Daniel knew she had kept him back long enough, and she raised both her knife and her fork at once, which was a sort of signal to the lion and to the company. Every one paused in their eating and looked to King.
" Do tell us, Mr. King," said Lady Daniel, " for what have you such a tremendous appetite — is it for our cathedrals ? "
:< Grr," said the American. The lion was showing his teeth. The proud lion knew that his turn had come. Lady Lucy opposite him got her eyes fixed on him and could not take them off. She lisped something half audibly, and then suddenly the lion jumped bodily from his chair, tail and all, over the table, and devoured her. The first event of the evening. Then he turned along that side of the table, pushed back a feebly sparring fellow of honourable name, took the Maid of Antrim in his teeth, and she also was his prey. Stout Lady Dubbins said her prayers to him, but a younger son of the Marquis of Malt was crumpled in the lion's mouth and left in a very limp state. The lion leapt over Lady Daniel's head and back again, and leapt again and yet could not, dare not touch her, and she laughed cynically at the lion's quandary. Then King went on and completed his joyous work of going through the party. He roved the whole long length of that festal board with brutal colonial strength, making havoc of fair women and brave men.
And the lackeys behind, who watched, said
xxv THE LION 251
nought, were mute, unmoved, inscrutable. Often in the season had they seen such sights before. They liked to see a proper massacre of this sort, but they showed no gleam of interest in their faces.
King at last was sated and almost alone. What a scene of desolation and glory was about him ! And to think that every evening for a fortnight in some new palace of the gay and glittering west he would lay the loveliest English company low and eat and be filled ! Joy possessed him utterly, and he would have been ready to resurrect those whom he had slain and let them speak and smile, and then slay them and eat them again.
He stood head and shoulders taller than Lady Daniel. His eyes and his brow and his mane were imperious.
" I am a lion," said he. " Rex Africanus sum."
:< I know, I know," said Lady Daniel faintly. :< Are you sure you've had enough ? "
After dinner, in order to make the banquet fuller, in came six young curates from fashionable London churches, delicious men in black, as edible as ever was white mushroom in a meadow, and King toyed with them and then laid them one by one playfully low. They were beguiled to speak to him by the innocent encouragement of their hostess. They made up to him and lay at his feet, and one by one King took them lying down. One by one, but all but one. To the great astonishment of the lion, and the pleasant mirth of Lord and Lady Daniel, the sixth curate absolutely defied the lion. King
252 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
bounded at him, the curate faced him with strange mild eyes, and King fell back. King struck with a paw, but the blow did not reach. The lion roared, the curate turned to Lady Daniel with a smile.
At this the crocodile showed signs of animation, and thinking that the lion was in truth surfeited and could not take the extra curate, he applied himself to the latter and opened wide his jaws, but the curate shut him up and went forward aggressively towards the lion.
Washington King was a bit frightened and tried to hide in the voluminous superfluity of Lady Daniel's skirt, but she shook herself free and the lion and the curate were face to face, the lion crouching and retreating.
Lord Daniel interposed.
" My dear St. George," whispered he to the curate, " you know it is bad taste to be enthusi- astic, do keep a sense of humour."
" A F entrance" said the curate.
" Tow, yow ! " cried the lion, looking at him furtively, " yow — yow ! " and jumped in a staccato way, first to one side then to another. His eyes grew smaller and redder, his whiskers bristled. He struck at St. George's feet and hopped back, lashed his tail a bit, but went back. And the curate chased him twice round the room, holding a cross in his hand, and then suddenly the lion surrendered piteously.
:' I and the evening are yours," said he, and he allowed himself to be muzzled and bound and put down beside old Mr. Hasbin the crocodile.
xxv THE LION 253
Lady Daniel was delighted. All the time she had been on the qui vive, which French phrase means — " Have you seen any lions knocking about ? " One of her pet sayings was that in the company of present lions you may sometimes find the germ of lions to be ; and she was intent on flattering and enchanting and paganising this young St. George so as to have him next Tuesday week for the lion of the succeeding fortnight.
But young St. George was busy consummating his victory, and he walked over the whole scene of desolation, sprinkling holy water and bringing back to life those who had been destroyed by the wicked lion. Lovely Lady Lucy threw her arms round his neck and almost kissed him. The Maid of Antrim sprang up once more like a lily of the valley magically produced. Restored Lady Dubbins said, <;< But how wonderful ! I
never dreamed you had the power " 'Well
now, really," said the Marquis of Malt, — " Yes, really. Dear me ! I feel a trifle dazed." The five companions, those other curates, returned into being, returned out of nonentity into smiling matter. They all knew and recognised St. George, knew his past when they had been in classic haunts together. All the life and the beauty and the gaiety came back, and round about the victor was a court as about a prince.
So the evening ended most joyously, and once more, How-ow Haw-owl all said good-bye, and the lion looked on patiently and remained in his heart exceedingly puzzled by the power of this silly weak curate who had bound and muzzled
254 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xxv
him and sat him with the crocodile. He heard some one whisper " He did it by faith," but that was beyond him. It remained an enigma. How- ever, no one seemed to bear him any malice, and he cheerfully said good-night to all and each, and shook their hands. How-ow, how-ow !
WHAT 15
For Her.
LONDON can be astir with many things at the same time, and whilst it was all a-buzz with talk of King's project and Poldu's propaganda, it was also intent on what was called the Bishop's Campaign against Vice. The direct War interest bulked largely, the Parliamentary interest ob- sessed some, the religious revival others, spiritual- ism others still. Hampden was in London, and not a few men and women were thinking of him.
The Reverend H. St. George, who cowed the lion at Lady Daniel's, preached at Westminster on trial by ordeal ; the Bishop at St. Paul's on national ethics ; Hampden, at St. Martin's-in-the- Fields, on England.
King was far too preoccupied with his boom to concern himself with spiritual England. He slipped away into strange rich circles where men with great shadows beneath their eyes and non- Gentile noses congratulated him and made him think he had success. Not that there was not a good deal to trouble him in the noise that
255
256 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
Poldu's advertisement had created. There were unpleasant cries against him mingled with the cries that were for. How it was the curate over- rode his spirit at Lady Daniel's was still a mystery to him, and he did not know that St. George's victory was current society gossip and had made him an object of mirth among those he wished to take him seriously. True, many seemed to wish to entertain him, but they were only the rich commercial people. Still there was enough apparent success in which to walk self-deceived, and King walked. He was so much intoxicated by the boom that he forgot to pay necessary attention to Celia, and treated her as if she were already acquired. The consequence was that Celia, for her part, was left considerably more to Trevor to entertain than was fitting. In Celia's mind fluttered the thought which Hampden had suggested — " Who is queen in York, to whom are flowers sent and poems written ? " — and she had a vague desire to make a conquest of Trevor. But she did not need to desire it ; Trevor was deeply conscious of her beauty and charm, and missed no opportunity of showing her attention. Trevor, however, was taken, went off to do a term of drilling and training before being sent to the Front, and Celia learned from him a good deal of his life and his hope, and accepted flowers from him the day he went. She confided in him her admiration of Hampden, and Trevor loyally praised Hampden and shared this admiration of hers, and told her all he ever heard about Hampden amongst the people with whom he
xxvi WHAT IS ENGLAND ? 257
mixed. When Trevor was in camp he wrote regularly to Celia. It was the year One when he left the Foreign Office and put on khaki, and his new start in life was full of new significance and wonder because he wrote of it all and of every detail to a beautiful woman. He was a smart boy in a smart squad. All smart, all correct, all smiling, all perfect, these new com- panions of Trevor. Real jolly males, too, in their outward guise — hard, careless, certain, and gentlemanly. And each and every man of them had a woman behind him, a shining, or tear- laden, or calm, or beautiful, or achingly lovely face of a woman, of a lady of personal dreams and adoration. That is why they were so smart, why they would make such good soldiers in France, so fearless, splendid, English — at least so Trevor thought. But no man divulged the secret of his real love. In fact many spoke vaguely of " girls," and some spoke a little ribaldly at times as if to mask reality.
So Trevor and his companions formed fours on Salisbury Plain, and wrote long letters by dim candle-light in huts and canteens and re- creation rooms. Meanwhile the pot of London simmered, simmered, and lifted the lid.
The Bishop was crusading against Drink and Lust. Drink and Lust found an ally in Mr. Worldly Wiseman. The Bishop found an ally in the General Staff of the Army. Against the Bishop, but not on the side of Mr. Worldly Wiseman, tilted glorious young Henry St. George who had flouted King in the drawing-room, and he
258 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
said that the Bishop had missed the open secret of faith and was running the great religious revival on the rocks. Owing to lack of paper Poldu erected a news siren in the purlieus of Fleet Street, and hooted his special messages morning and evening free to all who had ears to hear. King sorted his terrific correspondence on the subject of sales.
London might have seemed an inferno to one who could see all and realise all that was going on. And yet out of chaos life was issuing, and much that seemed disheartening might reason- ably be disregarded once the discovery of new life had been made.
The halo of new life was certainly about Hampden and Henry St. George. Even Poldu had observed one or two spiritual phenomena, and had commercialised them, for instance, the touching and lovely idea of war-shrines. Now Oppenheimer had a showroom of " shrines " in his department store. Happily Poldu was occu- pied greatly with affairs of state and could not continually be success-maker of popular impulses.
A first star came out when St. Martin's decided to keep a lamp burning all night and her doors open. Then we had the consciousness that the Church was watching. All manner of unlikely persons began to use St. Martin's for prayer — even in the strange and silent hours of the morning.
The second Mrs. Cosmo held a fashionable meeting in her drawing-room, when Miss Amelia Amalia told what her spiritual guides had given
xxvi WHAT IS ENGLAND ? 259
her from the other world. She combined the illiterate and the profound in her spiritualistic talk, and a lively discussion arose.
Miss Amalia held that great spiritual power was now coming into the world because of the death in France of tens of thousands of young men aflame with idealism. But it was asked in an objecting way, " Could spiritual power come from the death of those who had been compelled to serve against their will ? " Amelia seemed in difficulty as to her answer, but was helped by a stranger in the audience who asked : Does not the Crucifixion answer that question ? The Crucifixion was both compelled and voluntary, but from it flooded forth to the world all the spiritual life of our religion.
It was therefore agreed that the sacrifice even of the unwilling gave spiritual life to the world.
Then the medium announced that although we were all profiting by it spiritually war was wrong. The War could have been avoided. Somehow the Church was to blame.
A voice asked : " What do you mean by the Church ? do you mean the clergy ? "
Her spiritual guides meant the clergy, the general organisation.
" The clergy are what we make them," said the voice. " They are the servants of the Church. We, the laity, all of us, are the Church."
" Well," said Amelia Amalia, " I mean the clergy were to blame. If all priests of all de- nominations had stood out against the War at the beginning, it could have been prevented, and the
260 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
great spiritual inflow of life would have been obtained in another way."
But the voice interrupted again, and this time said :
;< If anything be wrong, it is a sign of weakness if we blame any one else but ourselves. Do you realise it is our privilege as men and women to take responsibility to ourselves. We — you, I, and each and every one were responsible for the War, and if anything be wrong about it let us take the blame to ourselves."
" But the clergy . . ." began the medium again haltingly.
" The clergy are on our side. We must stand by them and help them — not stand aloof and criticise, as if they possibly by themselves could make heaven and earth in six days and rest on the seventh."
" Many people do not recognise them," said the medium.
' Yes, we ought to find our true priests," said the voice. :< Not only those who are standing officially at the altar are ministers of God's grace."
Then a quite ordinary average man remarked that it was beginning to be recognised now that there were priests of all kinds beyond the official kind, and he called attention to the services at St. Martin's, where men like Mr. George Lans- bury and men like Hampden were speaking — which perhaps indicated the attitude of the new England which was coming into being.
Despite many enigmatical sights and un- pleasant corners in national life England was
xxvi WHAT IS ENGLAND? 261
showing herself full of a new vision. As the medium, whether guided from the astral plane or no had truly said, England had spiritual life welling up in her abundantly. A Bishop in chain mail was fighting with lion-hearts against the defilers of the sanctuary ; St. George was cowing lions, restoring maidens to life, and light- ing lamps before new shrines. The ordinary folk were discussing real things and getting new criterions. Perhaps what Hampden said at St. Martin's gives the spirit of the time and tells what England is and was :
:< It is said that out in the trenches the men feel more for England than at home. England becomes pure gold. Men who never thought twice about their native land, * the accident of their birth,' as they were wont to call it, now meditate lovingly on England, yearn passionately for her, think of her in their new-said prayers. And the man back with shock or invalided from the hospital cannot drink in sufficiently the loveliness of our country-sides. You hear hard prosaically-minded men exclaim, c How beauti- ful it is ! After all it is worth fighting for, dying for. We must keep it inviolate.' To such England has become a religion, a faith, the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
" England is the substance of poetry, and only in poetry may the spirit of England be discerned, poetry that is being written and poetry that is being lived. Not every man that goes to fight in France or Flanders is England, but one in
262 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xxvi
every ten or every twenty is St. George himself from top to toe. There is a crowd at the promenade of the music hall, there is a crush of khaki in the public-house, but England is not there. There is foul language and evil con- ceptions of manners and bad jokes all the way from Land's End to the Somme, and society gatherings in London where women gossip and pull reputations to bits ; and there are commercial rampages and profiteerings and tub-thumpers galore. But England is behind and beyond all these things, in the quiet country that the wounded soldier loves when he comes back, in the serene hearts of gentle men and gentle women, in the earth of Glastonbury where the Grail was buried, and in the holy walls which, whenever we have drooped, have called us to be straight and stalwart — have been for us a means of grace and hope of glory."
CHAPTER XXV11.
75 u/tom mu
t/ie time krtth much,.
MORALITY
UyVW -ALI1Y
HAMPDEN called on Mrs. Cosmo one afternoon when King was expected there, but the latter did not put in an appearance.
* Where is your friend Mr. King ? " asked the first Mrs. Cosmo ; " since he became famous he seems to have disappeared ; we never see him."
Hampden was not in touch with him.
;< Oh, let him be," said Celia, in pique. " He's busy buying. All sorts of people are bringing him art treasures, and he is bargaining with them."
" And probably getting properly swindled," put in Geoffrey Cosmo.
" I hope I'm not uncharitable, but I hope he does get swindled," said the second Mrs. Cosmo. " It makes me sick to see our young men going to be killed, and our fortunes being taxed so, whilst these Americans who stand by get richer and richer."
" I am sorry for them," said Hampden, " for we are gaining whilst they are losing."
263
264 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
" Oh, we are losing too," said Celia. " Did you know that your cousin Mr. Trevor has just been called to serve ? "
" I know," said Hampden. " I know how sad it is, and also of course how glorious it is."
c< He is taken away from the company of gentlemen and put among a lot of mere men," said Celia, " where they all swear and drink and carry on with women. I've heard it is just hell for the nice young man who leaves a good home to go into the Army, the tradition is so bad. They say the War is going to spoil life for lots of us, men and women."
' That is what my friend St. George called ' ordeal by fire ' at Westminster last Sunday morning," said Hampden. :' Every young man has to go through it. It is terrible. But you know, although I love the Bishop, I do not at all agree with him in his way of approach to the fire of life. I fear he pursues the wrong action and makes the fire more terrible by shout- ing out to those who have got to go through it."
Celia asked Hampden if it were not true that he believed in the highest, most idealistic relation- ship of men and women. He said that he did. * Well, then, don't you know how terribly our men are going wrong with women ? " asked she.
" I know," said Hampden ; ' but the Bishop is making it worse. He should bid the men have faith, instead of which he calls them back from this bonfire of Nebuchadnezzar, and they stand a chance of being burned up in it. W^e should never deny love on any terms, but accept it and
xxvii MORALITY OR IMMORALITY 265
spiritualise it, when the glory of having it offered to us comes. The way to conquer lust for ever is by letting tenderness transform it, not by inculcating restraint and fear."
The two Mrs. Cosmos were in solid opposition to Hampden and ranged on the Bishop's side. They represented the older England. Celia stood in between, wavering — enchanted by Hampden but held back by long white strings to the ladies behind.
" You doubt ? " said he, with a halcyon smile. " Consider, then, Christ and Mary Magdalene ! The Bishop would segregate them, keep them apart, for he fears the Lord who garners where He did not sow. The Bishop is Old Testament, thundering out * Thou shalt not sin ' ; but we know sin goes on and that only by Christ we can redeem. It is New Testament to accept sinning humanity, not leave them in outer darkness with the devil. We should never ask men to change their lives, their way of living, but pour grace into their hearts and their way of living would change of itself. Keep the impure and the drunken and the murderous and dishonest at least, in the Church. Not outside it. Don't try to reform them, but give them a heavenly Father who loves them however much they have suffered and sinned — and then all you wish will follow."
" All the same," said Celia, " there is another point of view which you forget, and that is the fear of the ordinary decent woman who wants to keep pure and clean and save her children."
" Her love will go a long way further than her
266 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xxvn
fear in saving and keeping pure," said Hampden. " I would say even to the most abased woman : ' Don't be afraid to be tender even to the brute who treats you like dirt. Love is the greatest saviour. Love solves all problems.' '
Celia wavered as she caught the gleam of the truth in Hampden's words, and whether it was his personality or his arguments which weighed more with her she certainly deserted mother and aunt, as this generation dwelling in new light does desert the generations ranged behind it. There was a snap and Celia fluttered over to Hampden, and stolid Victorianism holding back by white apron-strings fell heavily backward and relapsed.
A true saying has it : " When the initiate is ready, the hierophant speaks the word of power."
Hampden had spoken the word.
CH- m^M,m SALES.
AA Vlll.
WHAT DO YOV SAY M1? PREMIV/-V? WHAT DO YOV BID?
THE same voice that cried " We must have shells," " we must have guns," ' We must have men," " we must have numbers," " must have weight," " must be three to one in order to win," now cried * We must have money." The first priests of the calf cried " The silver bullet will win," the later priests cried " If we don't have money we shall lose." The hooters of Fleet Street brayed out their morning cry, " We must have money "
The sound of the War became audible in London like an unreal but nevertheless depressing whisper. Distant thunder rolled lugubriously and unceasingly in the dark clouds in the East. Days and weeks rolled by with promises un- fulfilled, with peace forecasts made ludicrous by time and fate. And yet patience had been found, lasting and unlimited. No matter how long the struggle should last we would not despair. The sacrifice of material things went on, perhaps not fast enough for some eager spirits, but it did go
267
268 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
on steadily, and there was no reason to suspect that the nation would not sacrifice all that it possessed for the new life which was going to be. It was commonly said we had not begun to feel the War, never were we better off. But that opinion only sprang up because men and women took their losses calmly and generally hid them from public gaze. Britannia looked with calm eyes into the face of her public men and said,
* Whatever be necessary I will give." Every family had risked its dearest, nearly every family had shed blood on the altar of the country. How then should they hold to lesser things such as material wealth and private or national possession ?
The men who organised and governed were a long way behind the rest of the nation in spiritual development. Most of them understood themselves as merely working for the nation for a salary and doing the nation's will as a clerk does that of a company, but they lacked the power to divine and lead. ' Take me and use me wholly," said Britannia ; but they came to her and said,
' We have a good commercial plan for winning the War, and for whatever we ask you to give we'll guarantee you five per cent profit " ; or they said, " Let us provide a little fun for you, so that you will not mind the parting with your money so much — let us have state lotteries." As Britannia had come offering men, as many as should be required, and they refused to take them, pre- ferring to seem to take them by force rather than receive them as a gift, so they would have preferred
xxvui SALES 269
to rob Britannia of the money they required, or take it from her as a 'just" percentage of so-called profits, to force her to give what her whole heart gave without constraint.
Poldu asked many questions in his papers, and one of the first was : " What of Washington King and the American millions ? Can we not sell certain superfluous treasures to America ? " " The old-clothes man has arrived/' wrote Snorgum, " the nation must look out all its old clothes and sell them for cash down."
Not that Poldu's papers were definitely self- committal. They boomed King, they re- ported fully the news-aspect of his mission, they wrote " as we foreshadowed yesterday." They wrote up his mission " day by day." They said it would be paying " a singularly poor compli- ment to our intelligence to belittle the significance of . . ." They visualised America's role in the war. " Humanity would acquit her as long as she provided, etc. etc." But they did not advise the nation to back Washington King — therein lay part of Poldu's genius. He knew how to get two coups from a news item of this kind.
King was in clover. He began to make an inventory of England, a new Domesday Book of the things which men possessed. He made a good many small and private purchases, and he hoped to bring the big thing off. The news of his success reached America and he was cabled in- finite credit. In the blaze of light around him he began to lose his head a little. Many people wished to sell their jewels in order to invest in
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war loan or start hospitals or purchase land, and King began purchasing precious stones at a great profit, and he was so taken up by the fascination of the gems pouring on to his table that he forgot, or partially forgot, his real quest. He obtained interviews with the Prime Minister and Lord X., and these clever men flattered him and asked for a private sight of the gems he had bought and gave him every facility for purchasing precious stones and transporting them to America, but they managed to shelve in smiles and bows the prospect of buying the old buildings and the spiritual background that King was really after. King thought they had blessed his quest. He had told them of his desire to purchase the petting-stone of Holy Isle and of his readiness to satisfy the villagers. He hinted at Bemerton Church and the tower on Glastonbury Tor, the Kings' Graveyard at lona, Shakespeare's birth- place, but Lord X. laughed and said to the Prime Minister in a whisper, ' What an original ! " though King thought he said, " We must see to that. Perhaps you could draft a Bill."
Trevor, after a short space of drilling, went to the Front. Geoffrey Cosmo also went back to France. Celia and her mother returned to York. Brother John wrote to Hampden in hope that the life of Christ showing that " I and My brothers are one " was ready, but Hampden had not been able to start it, though, as he said, he had thought much. Griffiths, the man with the historical mind, wrote that he had found his way ; we must all work for the
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" league of peace," which he found to be the germ of the superstate.
Poldu openly backed King's purchase of jewels and set to work to organise a great national sale of jewellery. People began to consider jewels from the ideal point of view. The high wages of munitioners had expressed itself in jewellery, the luck of contractors was evident in the diamonds they wore. At the revue and the music-hall, ringers flashed when women moved. Vulgar display had been a pitiful characteristic of the bourgeois. But in the great period of sacrifice the noisy and vulgar were curbed ; some shed their jewels into King's open hands and with them shed a world of artificiality. Dress became simple once more, as if a sumptuary law had been enacted.
The change to simplicity was no doubt partly brought about by public censure. Those who showed extravagance in dress were openly con- demned. Posters everywhere reminded the passer-by that it was unpatriotic and therefore the worst possible taste. Hampden made an appeal that the wearing of jewels should not be regarded as unconditionally wrong. " One of our national and individual weaknesses is a will to condemn whole classes and individuals. If the clergy are going to preach against wearing jewels, let them see also the positive side of wearing them. No one should buy jewels for himself and wear them for show ; they should be given, and given with a definite meaning, as the marriage- ring is given. It is barbarous to wear jewellery as ornament, to heap it on one's person, to use it
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to indicate one's wealth. That is what savages do. It is sometimes good to wear a jewel, but only as a token, a wonderful token of some love or forgiveness, adoration or devotion."
Love is a pearl, one pearl, but a rope of pearls, pearls sold by the dozen, is a spoiling of true graciousness. A single diamond is a suggestion of admiration, but to be " be- diamonded " is not to be admired except finan- cially. An emerald may commemorate some natal day when you really lived again, but more than one emerald means nought. So England for sacrifice prepared to divest herself of superfluous and meaningless gems, to wear those things which meant and expressed spiritual things, but to drop those which had previously been merely orna- ment.
Many anxious economisers went further. Why not sell our art treasures, our Italian and Spanish and Dutch masters, since they also were in the nature of ornament ? The art critics wrote considerably about the loss of these " educative objects." Others held that if they were educative they could be copied. From the point of view of education the copy was as good as the picture, since nowadays it was difficult for experts to decide sometimes which was copy, which original. The trustees of the National Gallery proposed to sell the redundant Turners. Was not King somehow in their minds prompting them in their deliberations ? But to the astonishment of the American the trustees proposed to buy Titians with the proceeds of the sales. " Why should
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not I buy the Titians as well ? " he asked. And he went in to add Titians to his collection. He was led off from his original quest by the glamour of this new development, would have liked to buy, among other famous pictures, " The Rape of the Sabine Women," which many friends thought would be good to sell. If powers could be obtained, King was ready to offer a consider- able sum. But he made enquiries among dealers and soon found that there would be much competition for it — rich English wanted it as well as rich foreigners. The man who was keenest on having it was a millionaire Dutchman, and that was fitting since a Dutchman had painted it.
Lovers of Italy put forward the plea that if Italian masters were offered the pictures ought to be bought by some one and presented to Italy. It was thought by some that it might be an offence to our Italian allies to sell off their pictures, but the Italians quickly testified their equanimity. They were proud of their classical and Christian art, but had enough of it. It would be nothing to them if we sold the pictures to whomsoever we could, for the common cause. King bought some fine Italian paintings, though it was felt to be unfitting that portraits of the Madonna should be put up to auction. If these were spiritual faces, they had no money value ; if they were not spiritual, where did their true significance and value lie ?
King made good progress. His first ship of treasures sailed for America, and as an American paper put it, the first of the ships of the Plate
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Fleet had returned from Europe. Many of his purchases were first heard of when the Americans began to discuss the new acquisitions in their journals. From the Sunday editions of the New York Sun and Times and stray copies of the Journal and the Globe^ English journalists copied out snippets and offered them for discussion. The old conundrum of the baby and the picture was again stated in our Press. If the house were on fire, which would you save ?
CHAPTER NOT fOR
XXIX. V.T?L^ SALE.
WHEN Christ said to the rich young man, " Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven," He did not mean, Sell thy daughter to the Pharisee who wishes her to wife, sell from off thy finger that jewel which thy aged father bequeathed thee dying, sell the Holy Book in which the names of thy generation are written, sell thy freedom. For these things were already heavenly treasure. There are certain things one must not sell because they are already treasure in heaven.
In our ordinary everyday life there is always something which we will not sell. Even the man who would sell himself will be unwilling to sell his wife. And Esau did an unnatural thing selling his birthright for a mess of pottage. Eastern tribes generally are too much inclined to buy and sell, and their commercial spirit betrays them sometimes to unnatural bargains. Washing- ton King was no Jew, but he nourished illusions
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as to the limits of buying and selling. And the shattering of these illusions was a terrible moment for him. He was coming in as the prospective purchaser of heavenly treasure, pushing himself in as such.
As soon as it was known what King was want- ing to buy, floods of letters came to Poldu's offices. Some were helpful in that they contained offers of property, others were congratulatory or appro- bative of King. But it must be said that a great number were in opposition. As time went on Poldu realised that there would be a bigger boom for his papers in exposing King and running against him than in openly supporting him. The scare would be the bigger news-seller in the long run. For that reason he had never advocated King's policy in the leading columns of his Press. Only when King was led off into purchasing jewels did he openly support him, and then indeed there appeared striking articles on how America could help us — by buying our gems. He supported him in the purchase of foreign pictures, and only when King wanted to buy national art did he utter a warning note and then become ominously silent. This surprised King.
He at last paused in the excitement of purchase to consider what exactly he was buying. And he saw that he was making a mistake, going off his true lines, and in order to correct public opinion he wrote a long letter to Poldu's Press explaining his new plans, quoted the number of dollars he had already spent, and set down his future budget and what he wanted. Poldu tried
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to persuade him to recall this letter, but King was obstinate. The letter was printed, adverse editorial comments accompanied it. The worst possible other letters from other correspondents attacking King were also printed, and, as the Primer said, ' the situation was developing." Next day a whole sheaf of adverse letters were printed, the day after more still. The headlines grew bigger, the editorial comments more adverse. King was cartooned adversely in the Emerald Recorder and Satire. He was heckled by strangers in Piccadilly and Bond Street, received letters from half the clergy, and then, as must be sup- posed, Poldu sent for Brittanicus, who wrote those anonymous popular articles called Saturday Brand, and said unto him : " Curse this American for me."
And Brittanicus, whose pen was mightier than the sword, cursed him thoroughly, with bell, book, and candle ; with laughter and raillery, in provoking challenges ; with holy writ in the name of our spiritual inheritance, in the name of our covenants, and all that we keep holy ; with light beams and fire of prophetic rage, in the name of our hopes, of our visions, in the name of the gleam for which our sons have died. So the bell jangled, the Bible lay open with its impressive witness — Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My word shall not pass away — and the candle of 1917 shed its strange sufficient ray.
A million readers read the curse and agreed.
There appeared a long list of ;< things we will never sell," names of old houses, historic
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stones, fragments of old ships, pictures, holy grounds, the empyreal and eternal substance of England.
Unfortunately it was assumed that King was scheming to buy all the things which had been set down whether we wished to sell or no. It was forgotten that he only desired to purchase those things whose significance we had outlived. King wrote one or two letters pointing this out, and asked, if English men and women prized all their little old churches so much, why were they not full of worshippers ; and if they cared for old buildings, why had they pulled so many down in order to build horrors on their sites ; and if we cared so much for our national pictures, why were they not reproduced and put in places of honour in English homes ? "
But this only stirred up the middle classes against King. ' The impertinence of the man," they cried. Our great sob-raiser who persist- ently pleads in the Primer for all causes which obviously evoke pity and rage, wrote against him in words of gall and bitterness. He was harangued in the week-end papers, became a comic figure at the Coliseum, and as such was laughed at much.
And shall the American buy, And shall the American buy ; There's twenty thousand Englishmen Will know the reason why.
There was a moment of frenzy. King was pursued, persecuted, besieged. He was mortified, he got angry, then, losing his cheery American
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serenity, he suddenly fell into a state bordering on fright. He felt his life might be in danger, asked for special police safeguards and plain-men from Scotland Yard to keep their eyes on those who sent him threatening letters. He was asked in the politest possible way by his new English acquaintances to refrain from paying calls till the storm had blown past, and suddenly found the doors of all our rich and vulgar, as well as all our noble and cultured, shut against him.
He rushed to his ambassador and told him his plight, told him again what he really wanted to buy in England and how he was being treated.
The ambassador answered : " To put it briefly, Mr. King, you are a fool. What you want can never come about, and if you had consulted some one who knew England you might have been spared the journey over,"
King flared up in a rage.
" You are not paid by the United States to call U.S.A. citizens fools," cried he.
" Your pardon," said the urbane ambassador quizzically. :< I should have spoken at more length. You are an idealist, you are an optim- ist, you are Ali Baba's brother, you are what Solomon was not, you have nothing more precious than rubies . . ."
King stared at him.
" What do you mean — Ali Baba's brother ? Am I to take that from you ? "
" What I mean is that like Cassim you'll be hanged, drawn, and quartered if you stay here.
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You have come to a mediaeval country. Have you ever considered the Tower ? "
" You don't mean to say there is any chance of my being locked up in it ? " asked King in a more sobered and serious mood.
" Have you read your Richard Third ? " asked the ambassador. ;< No ? Then I advise you to do so if you want to know the temper of this people. You get your England straight from Bernard Shaw, no doubt. But you should go to the original :
Off with his head ! — now, by Saint Paul I swear, I will not dine until I see the same."
CH-XXX
Thoughts of<t
fAiny-udid year.
I WASTE 50 | SHEW THE FACE OF CHRIST.
THE time when these things happened was in Richard Hampden's life the sacred year ; he was thirty-two. He allowed his life to be guided from day to day by inspiration and did not make long plans, for he expected to be shown what he should do. He wished to feel reins from the Ideal and to live truly and mystically, looking on no event as ordinary, on nothing that happened as " of course " or common. All was worth while : as for the illuminator of the Gospel, not only the great words and splendid utterances are worthy of particular love, but the little words and letters and all that comes. In this his sacred year God had sent him, among other mysterious fellow-travellers, Brother John and Washington King. He had foreseen neither Brother John's demand that he should write the brotherly life of Christ, nor the coming of King with his quest of spiritual treasure. He obeyed the Christian admonition that we should take no heed what we should do or what we should say, for at the
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time when it is necessary God will show us what should be said and what should be done. He did not prepare, did not plan out in advance. The sermons which he gave were all simple and personal. A younger man once came to him and asked, " How can I become a public speaker. I have a great message in my heart but I cannot get it out." Hampden replied, " Stand up and speak ; have faith that God will help you ; be simple ; do not be afraid of what seems failure, or that men may laugh at you." Hampden had attained that position in spiritual life when he expected the wonderful, the marvellous, the miraculous. But then he had a secret — he had given himself unreservedly to God.
He could certainly have escaped from the difficult problem of living, in the imbroglio of civilisation and the world, the life of a man of God. He could have obtained in a more easy way a greater peace. The ordinary world is a great noise and the War of to-day a greater noise — an ugliness and a greater ugliness. It is pos- sible to go away and even good to go away, and find the silence and the beauty of creation. As Stevenson beautifully expressed the prayer, for those who sit in gloom —
Lord, Thy most poignant pleasure take, And stab my spirit broad awake.
But few can breathe that prayer, few can escape, and often the noblest must remain without the refreshment of the most poignant pleasure. Richard Hampden could not put a knapsack on
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his back and disappear among the Cumberland lakes or trip off and vanish in the Pyrenees. Out there, he knew, all day and every day was peace and loveliness for ever and ever. He knew the world was vain and that even the War bore not the fruits which men expect, but he did not think of fleeing from it to be " at rest." His work was in the world. He brought a new message and a revelation of redeeming power. He was destined to be a priest rather than a hermit ; a prophet, a preacher, and even a healer of the sick and miracle-worker among blind and deaf, rather than an ascetic or recluse. He was con- scious of a divine power in him to touch his fellow- man. He could touch the sordid and the everyday thing, and then straightway men would see it as the living and glowing garment of God. In a world where our noblest men show forth the beauty, the mildness, the mercy, or the sternness of God, Hampden showed power. God's power to change spoke in his heart and was to express itself through him.
Such was his talent, his glory. His secret was that he hadput his life unreservedly upon the altar.
The great hard, levelling, grinding, and beating world of which it was said, " It hated me before it hated you," strove against Richard Hampden as it does against each of us. It nearly overbore him and carried him away. His problem was, '' How to keep young (that is, ready to hear God's voice) among whatever circumstances and among whatever people."
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Success had come to him long before unasked. Multitudes of more worldly people now strove to use his time and his life. Spiritual and material interests were often mingled in such a way that it was difficult to make a choice. Even material possessions and worldly cares were his. He found himself frequently among worldly people and in spiritual deserts where the streams from God are parched at length. He went about doing good, but many an evening after a glorious day he had felt in himself the sadness of the world, the gloom of it, sordidness of it, and wept, or wished to weep, hopelessly, senselessly, not because of some one thing, but for the whole totality of misery.
Before the advent of his sacred year Hampden had been tempted once or twice to cast himself down from the temple, to say No to life and be quit of .his harness betimes. At such moments the War specially called him.
" But what shall I do ? " asked Richard in answer to the call. " If I let myself become a soldier, would that not be denial of my mission ? "
!< It would be freedom and peace and release," some alter ego answered in his soul. :< Go to France, go to France."
His sacred year was in the midst of the War. And when he saw the long casualty lists of England he used to say, " England and I are thirty-two together. England is on the cross." Then he would add wistfully, " England is on the cross, but where am I ? " Still he knew it would be wrong to go to those Golgotha hills of
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France before his time. One night after a good day he wrote :
" I did to-day what I set out to do. And in life generally I have done what I wanted to do, what I was inspired to do. But I am sad. The holy year is coming. If I survive it and live on, do I not join the mass of prosaic humanity ? Why not offer myself now on the altar ? Oh that there were some one who needed the com- plete sacrifice ! some beautiful woman or young genius with inspiration on his brow who would be saved from death if I could die for him ! I should carry on the sacrifice of Him who died for us all. But what foolishness ! To live, not to die, is the great sacrifice. How sinful is my thought seeing how glorious is my life. But the world is too much. I am cumbered with material things."
Hampden fought out a lonely battle and made two great decisions. The first was to go to the War if he were called : the second was to give his life unreservedly to God and accept inspiration as to how he should use it, whether called upon to fight in France or left in England to carry on his mission.
" Thank God that thou art ! " — such was Richard Hampden's thought when he waked on the morrow after deciding so. He saw himself in the glass and was surprised that instead of looking older he looked younger. * This is one of my resurrection mornings," said he. And his face had that gleaming grave-clothes look which
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betokens a new consciousness and the radiance of newly obtained spiritual peace.
Not that a great question did not arise. How would the last year of Jesus' life express itself in this era ?
The answer was — I must wait and watch, at all times be ready to hear the voice both from the skies and in the secret inmost heart.
He read in a weekly review that day the following paragraph :
If Christ came again in these days. He would be crucified or shot too soon to exercise much influence. Or He would be utterly disregarded by all, and fail through lack of interest in His Gospel. Or He would be laughed to silence.
" Is that possible ? " asked Hampden of his heart. " Could He be disregarded ? There must have been something about Christ that made it impossible for Him to be disregarded — His manner, His bearing, the light in His eyes, the accent of His words, the sense conveyed when He touched you with His hand or when you brushed against His garments as it were by chance. And then the miracles? What were these miracles ? Tolstoy wanted a Christ with- out miracles. That Tolstoyan Christ would be the disregarded Christ "
On the morning of his birthday he looked at his limbs and he saw the naked body at thirty- two, the age when it is fittest to be sacrificed, the age of the Body on the Cross. A holy, silent morning. He consecrated himself, and his being
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was hushed in the presence of his Maker. He knelt in the Abbey, and prayed without words ; no sentence, no thoughts formed themselves in his mind as he offered his soul on the altar.
That day Vera met him at noon. Flowers were sent him and he wore them. Light came to his face from the faces of strangers as he passed them in the streets — all day the unexpected, the un- precedented, the strange. And Hampden walked on air and was filled by the air, the air of God.
For the first time that day he put on a little cross which he wore next his body, a secret from the world, but the token of his allegiance — Hampden's secret. The reason why there was something about him which you could not solve, could not away with ; the reason why his touch thrilled you more than ordinary, and why his word remained in the heart and seemed to have some extra meaning that was not on the surface, needing to be kept by you, was in the spiritual secret which he had with God.
Vera Middleton was the mother of this spiritual child, though no historians and theorists will deny the circumstances of Hampden's Virgin-birth.
She sustained him, sent him forth, gloried in him, and knew in her heart the path of his destiny. She had a certain quiet sadness which pertains to motherhood, a knowledge of the world, welling up in her soul, but she did not whisper her sadness — it found expression only in tenderness. Both had faith, but her faith was calm whilst his was vision.
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What did Mary feel when the year of destiny arrived in Jesus' life ? She knew, she foresaw, knew all. She had also the sadness which can only be expressed in tenderness. It is nowhere written that she warned Him, or called Him back, or that she was anguished at His death. He that was born spiritually of her was not lost in the same way as one born simply humanly. She received Him by miracle, so it could not be the same to her as to mothers of the flesh when He died humanly. At His death the halo came about her head. Up till then He had been her halo. Thus also Richard Hampden was Vera's halo as she was his.
Hampden took no vow of poverty, but he did not get anxious about money. He was not rich, but he always found he could give what men asked. His was such a personality that whenever you met him you had, as it were, three wishes which you could express, and whatever they were you would obtain them.
A rich personality ! How unfair God seems making one man a genius, a prophet, a poet, and another man a self-satisfied millionaire ; one man with a heart and spirit that can rise above any extent of sordidness and misery, and another man whose spirit never .can peep forth from poverty and misery ; one man with a perfect body born in the country, another with a broken diseased body born in a slum ; who makes one man a Pontius Pilate and another a St. John. " You believe in the immortality of the soul,"
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says some one, " and immortality is very pleasant for your cultured men and women with their triumphant spirit, but what of giving an eternity to the man who was born mean, lived mean, and died mean ? Every merciful man has abandoned the idea of eternal punishment, but what of an eternity of meanness in which some dull ego is perpetuated. That idea ought also to be abandoned." But God is not unfair. In giving Hampden imagination and vision and glorious spiritual power He really gives these things to all mankind. It is a delusion to think that we are all separate individuals with separate destinies. We are all ultimately one flesh and one spirit. Hell has gone forever unless hell is that condition in which individuals persist in wishing to have separate destinies. Hampden often thought how terrible it would have been if he had missed knowledge of truth and had been born the man who could not understand a word of any thought he said. He used to hope he was going on after death to fuller and fuller personal realisation of God, and, believing in reincarnation, feared the chance that after he died he would reappear in this world as some one mean or miserable, or very dull and ordinary.
But he wrote at the beginning of his sacred year in his diary of thoughts : " Now I know that the chances are all the human race to one man that if I am born again I shall reappear as one of the least in the kingdom. I do not ask to go on in myself, and when I die I hope to lay myself down humbly and sweetly, without a
u
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special prayer to God that my rich life, my special ego, may be saved. I may reappear as some one whom it might be possible for me to despise now.
" I may return to this world after death as a wretched and unhappy man. But I love my fate, whate'er it be. We are all one. I cannot go on by myself. We are all going somewhere together, somehow — perhaps to heaven in the end of ends. I love my mean neighbour, because he and I are one. I am another aspect of him, he of me, flesh of my flesh, spirit of my spirit ; Christ lived and died to show us one, not to show us to be an infinite series of ambitious personalities. Man- kind adds up to unity, that is why we should be tender, one of the reasons why I feel tender — to flesh of my flesh, spirit of my spirit, Man."
The proud emperor takes the crown from the archbishop's hand and places it on his brow himself. But it would probably have been a truer glory to have been crowned by another. Many, however, become kings without the willingness of archbishops to crown. And some become priests without the willingness of bishops to con- secrate. There are lay orders invisibly ordained. Many are priests without visible consecration, priests after the order of Melchizedek. Hampden became thus invisibly consecrated by his act of giving himself to God, and united in his life the power of priest and prophet. A priest who is not partly a prophet hardly lives to the full, and a prophet who is not also a priest is not perfected.
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Christ was the supreme lay - prophet - priest ; Hampden followed humbly. There are many at all times and in all lands ; for the company is innumerable. Some have been great religious alchemists seeking and finding the philosopher's stone which changes all metals into spiritual gold, the living water which turns all death to life, and the miraculous balsam which heals all wounds and brings all that is separate to unity. Others in their humbler way have been simply idealists and lovers of their brothers, humbly ministering to the spiritual needs of humanity about them. Hampden dwelt on both planes and was at once a seeker of the great spiritual potencies and a simple loving human priest ready to efface him- self for love of those around him. But his particular grace was to bring celestial light into the darkness of his world and let the ideal trans- figure what is called the real. Hampden was a priest of the Ideal.
The illuminator does one tiny square of his beautiful gospel in one hour. So Hampden re- solved to live hour by hour and day by day in his sacred year. It is a worldly ambition to wish to live " twenty-four hours a day," but an ideal ambition to glorify God for twenty-four hours a day, to live a life of miracle hour by hour.
'Tis the wish of all the earth, at fleeting moments, to live perfectly, to live to the utter glory of God, a mood in church, in the presence of a beautiful picture or of one's beloved, at con- firmation, at first Communion, or at marriage,
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at the consciousness of forgiveness after forget- fulness or sin, or at the moment of flood-con- sciousness of love toward God. But how often does the evil one, in the shape of the everyday, snatch the thought out of the heart !
The everyday, the sordid and prosaic, wears us all down. There were moments also when Hampden cried, :< Oh that I might hear the voice clearly, were it only once every day, and that I might simply obey ! "
But there were no regulations sent from God for the illumination of His Word ; it is illumined through imagination and at the inspiration of love. In vain we seek to give simple obedience. We are not slaves, and God will not have us slaves. His service is freedom. He grants us a miraculous providence, and it is ours to divine the most glorious use to which to put it.
:< I do not make so many plans as formerly, nor for so long ahead," wrote Hampden to Vera. " For at the next turning of the road, or in the next hour or day, something may come into my life to do — something specially beautiful and marvel- lous. I hold myself free for Divine adventures."
Thus it was that in the midst of the everyday had come to Hampden the gift of Washington King and his quest. He had not foreseen it. But because he was free he could take King as he did, and show him England : take him to Glastonbury, to lona and Holy Island, Durham and York and Lincoln. And whilst it seemed that Hampden was the servant of King, King was in truth his servant, and all the while they
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journeyed together Hampden was learning about England and in his heart a sacred seed was maturing.
The journey was to Hampden like illuminating a history of England. To enjoy the mystic sense of our history it is necessary to realise it in an emblematic chronicle. Dead print is shorn of mystery and wonder, and cannot easily reflect the grace of God. But history can be shown in emblems ; the splendour of it can be built up in the reverent heart of an Englishman visiting our historic places and remaining receptive in the presence of their ruins and their beauty.
Hampden illuminated the page of history for King and for himself. They saw the antique man of the East, Joseph of Arimathea, coming with the sacred Grail and his twelve hermits to Glastonbury, — the Celtic Christian world blossom- ing, as it were out of season, like St. Joseph's staff on Holy Thorn Hill ; Christian Britain grow- ing through degenerate Rome, like an age of vision eclipsing an age of darkness.
On the illuminated page Hengist and Horsa appear. The heathen rage. The British are driven to the west, and over the sea. St. Patrick, born in Glastonbury, has his mission in Ireland, and works the miracle there that Joseph of Arimathea worked earlier in Britain. Then Columba, born in Ireland, sails to Scotland, is to her what Joseph was to the south and St. Patrick to the west — the Christ of the Highlands and the Isles. St. Columba on lona, and the island
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speaking with the voice of his singing. The primitive monk Aidan crossing the wild border to the sister isle of Lindisfarne. The Saxons con- verted, the Normans following, and building an aristocracy over the Saxons' heads ; the mighty cathedrals springing into being. St. Cuthbert in the north. The monks of Holy Isle carrying his dead body all over the north country, and where rested at last the building of the sanctuary of Durham Cathedral. The age of crusades, when English bishops fought in chain-mail in Palestine, when every village built its beautiful parish church, when there were anchorites in the church-walls and hermits at bridges, when the lamps on the dangerous rocks of the sea were kept burning by pious recluses. The age of chivalry, when the ideal of a knight was to be like Bayard, sans peur et sans reproche ; when men honoured women, honouring the Virgin first of all. The age when King Edward mourned his queen, and followed her bier in true piety with all his knights. The clash of national England and international Christianity, Pope and King. The farming of religion for money. The coming of the friars, who were to remedy the bad state of organised religion by a sort of consecrated lay movement ; the failure of the friars ; Wycliffe and his Bible as the refuge of those who were disgusted with the Church ; the invention of printing, the manufacture of books, of Bibles. Bible versus Church, and the victory of the Bible. The Reformation. Puritanism, and the failure of the triumphant printed Bible without the pictorial
xxx THOUGHTS 295
and emblematical Church to help it out. The making of the ruins of England.
These things took due form and just propor- tion in Hampden's mind. He viewed Britain as a whole. He saw thus the beginning, the pro- gress, the failure, and the problem of the Church organised as such ; saw the first education of England in her history, that education as of a child at the mother's knee. He saw also the new life which began with Chaucer, continued in Shakespeare, was matured in Milton, classified and conventionalised in Pope and Dryden, break- ing away again in Gray, and again in Byron and again in Browning, but promising a condition of eternal youth in Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats. He saw the new life, the third strain, in Pym, in his namesake Hampden, in Cromwell, in Carlyle, John Bright, and Gladstone ; saw militant England all the way from Agincourt to Neuve Chapelle ; saw also, alas ! commercial England, the nation of shopkeepers, and saw, as had been prophesied, the draper's lad striking with his yard-wand not simply to defend England but to defend an ideal. He had followed the glorious illuminated Chronicle from the Bethle- hem of Glastonbury to the Golgotha hills of France. He had carried the whole in his heart into our most holy place, Westminster Abbey, and into the holy of holies within that, the inner sanctuary. Thus England and the priest of the ideal had been born together, lived together, and were both together of the year of sacrifice, the sacred year.
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There are a few quiet places in England that are in a national sense holy ground, and one of these is Stoke Poges Churchyard, among whose yews and graves Gray wrote the beautiful " Elegy." It is a point for pilgrimage ; though the pilgrim must not allow himself to be shown round. A place in which to sit and rest and be calm, and not one in which to use the eyes " to botanise," as it were, upon a mother's grave. There once sat the poet Gray and forgot that he was Gray, and spoke for England — let the rich earth speak for him.
Hampden came to the church one wet Saturday afternoon. To him the "Elegy" was specially dear. It had become for him a precious personal possession. He had never learned it by heart, but one gentle afternoon long since he had set himself the sweet task of recalling it verse by verse — and he recalled nearly all, saying those lines which he knew over and over again till they called to memory all the rest. And he found its marching music and walked to the rhythm of it. After that discovery, every day when he walked at twilight time he would whisper that purely English beginning :
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.
He lived with the poem, and not only walked to it in the evening but often said himself to sleep with it at night. He carried it wherever he went, like a singing bird in his bosom. And having that knowledge of boundless power in his spirit and of eternal and tempestuous music in his
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soul which each and every man may find, he once chose for epitaph these gentle and consoling lines :
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ;
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.
The great faith in the human being, above all in the English human being, is what that poem breathes. It is written to anonymous England, to the Hampdens, Cromwells, Miltons, hidden under the common life and ordinary aspect of the people who never come to the front. All that is noble in the annals of England has been done not simply by accidental people that the race threw up, but by the race itself, by " the happy breed " of England.
This Hampden pondered as he sat in the actual Stoke Poges yard in the rain on the firmer end of an old green mouldering wooden grave- sign, under the voluminous many-branching yews. There were not so many neglected spots as of yore, but there were some, and he sat in one of them. No one was about but England, and there was a deep peace over all. Hampden sat, wrapped in his overcoat, his heavy boots resting gently on the wet earth, and he knew that all Gray said was true.
Whatever be the noisy exterior of England, the cosmopolitan clangor of its audible voice, the shames of its commercial rampages, the sad contrast of our present-day expression compared with our splendid history, there is another and
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more real being behind, and that is anonymous England, the quiet fount of the true English people. Under cover of society gossip, the noise of the Mme. Candids and Lady Sneerwells, and of the lions and lion-entertainers, behind the malevolence of jealous newspapers and the triumphs of Poldu, silent in the presence of the self-advertisement of those strident un-English public men who have made up their minds to keep at the front of our life, behind the bitter partisanship of those who cling to one set of political ideas rather than to another, behind those who gibe or sneer at the English people, stands the serene and quiet English race, the true men and women of England — our people.
There is a vague idea that the " Elegy " is great because it is beautiful, melodious. That is a mistake ; it is great because it is national, because it was written by England for England. And because of that General Wolfe said he would rather have written it than take Quebec. It is part of our national religion.
The rain ceases, and in the deep peace, above the dripping trees, the birds are singing, glad even in the autumn of the year. The door of the old church stands open, as is meet, and Hampden goes in and sits down in a pew. Next day, Sunday, he comes again and sings with rustic maids and men our liturgy, sung for so many generations, Sunday after Sunday, within the hallowed walls. And he looks around at the congregation and thinks — " Hampdens, Crom- wells, Miltons, Shakespeares, Nelsons, Welling-
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tons, Grays, Tennysons, Brookes. Oh, England ! art thou not beautiful and pure and noble and brave and full of genius ? Naught of evil ever really pertains to thee ! "
Gray saw the Hampden potential in the rustic youth who at noontide stretched under yonder nodding beech,
And pored upon the brook that babbled by.
Behold the Hampden had come. So prophetic are poets in their vision.
Perhaps, however, the poet did not dare to think so much, and therein lies the reason why some are disappointed with the tone of the " Elegy." It is an evening poem and looks back. It does not look forward. It sees what might have been, not what may be in time to come.
The call of incense-breathing morn
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn.
It needs a counterpart to balance, a poem of the morning, written to the strain of cow-bells and the angelus rather than to the tolling of the curfew. Then the poet would have sung that though they lived and died they live for ever. " The breezy call of incense-breathing morn " is ever theirs. In proof of this immortality Hampden had come.
Some one at some far-distant date will moralise again, sitting in some place of graves, and say
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of our Hampden what Gray said of the political Hampden :
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire.
Some heart like Hampden's, priest of the ideal.
A question in Hampden's mind was : " Has the last word been spoken ? Is all our poetry necessarily elegiac and retrospective and not prophetic ? Is our philosophy merely criticism and not creative thought ? Is our showing forth all shown ? In short, is it the sunset of our day, or sunrise after sunset ? "
Hampden, by grace, knew there was some- thing in him to show forth, and that among the graves he was a resurrection from the dead. As his sacred year went on, and the consciousness deepened that he did not belong to himself but to God, he became gradually pregnant with a message for England and every man and woman in it.
CttXXXl n SACRIFICE
THEIR SORROW SHALL BE 7VRNED INTO JOY.
ONE day Hampden received an anonymous letter :
Forgive me the liberty I take in writing you. I cannot tell you my name. I write because I am unhappy. Perhaps it was your words made me so. I am what would be called enviable, am rich. I should be thought beautiful, at least good-looking. I am almost engaged to some one I do not love. I do love some one who cannot care for me. I feel out of love with myself. I am idle and waste. I ought to be humiliated and trampled under foot. Why should there be all the sacrifice of men, the suffering, the agony, the fatigue and the dirt and the hardness, whilst I play at living, white, well-fed, well-dressed, secure ? No one knows except myself how I hate myself, what a fury I am in secretly. I want to starve myself and grow thin, to be beaten, to lie in the mud and be trampled on, to grow grey hairs and have no more flattery and admiration from men. It is unbearable to be what I am. Pray for me, speak to me — I know you can, though you know not my name.
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And one evening when Hampden was speaking, he saw in the midst of his audience a white face with eyes intent on him as were no other eyes in the audience. And he knew that it was she who had written the letter. From the moment his eyes met hers he seemed to begin to speak to her, to create in her soul. It was so with Hamp- den. He was a spiritual treasury. The people in front of him, drew from him, each according to his needs, spiritual comfort. He was pulled at on all hands, and after speaking for some time, he had the strained passive look of one who has been giving of himself and from himself as much and as quickly as he can. The girl with the white face saw him, drew him, and when at last, Hampden ceased speaking, and the audience had dispersed he went to her, rinding her com- paratively easily.
He started, however, when she spoke, for the voice was one which he knew. Only then did he recognise her as one whom he had met before. It was Celia Cosmo, changed somewhat, but nevertheless she.
They walked some way in silence, and then Hampden said : ;< It was you who wrote to me ? "
There was no answer except a movement as if to hurry on Celia's part. But after a prolonged silence she whispered unexpectedly and somewhat unjustly :
" You have come to me, therefore you love me."
Hampden in turn was silent.
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As they went along together through the London streets it began to rain. Celia bent her head and walked resolutely on. Then Hampden broke silence :
' You wish to suffer as the rest ; you must also love as the rest."
" I do love," she said. And then she half- turned towards him. :< Forgive me, I love you," she added impetuously, scarcely knowing what she said.
;< I am so glad," said Hampden joyfully and with an accent of relief. ;' So glad, dear Celia ; I rejoice in your love. And you will give me power to live more beautifully."
" Don't you reject me and despise me ? " asked Celia, moving a little way apart from him. :< I take back what I said. It was taking an unfair advantage. I am ashamed of myself, utterly. You are everything to me, and have been ever since I met you at York. But I know you love another "
" I do love another. I love many others. But I shall love no one as I love you," said Hampden stopping abruptly. " Believe me, you are very dear to me ; you think it strange and unlikely and impossible. But since you love me you must know me, know that I do love, and that if I touch you with my hand or my life, love comes to you from me."
Celia came close to him ; there were tears in her half-shut eyes. She did not look at him, but paused and became more gentle arid childlike. She was comforted.
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As they moved once more through the rain she dried her wet cheeks and walked intimately with him, beginning to whisper and talk, to talk hurriedly and sweetly and volubly to him. She told him many things about her life, many secrets ; told him many things she did not herself know till then.
She gave him many illustrations of the empti- ness of her life and compared real and unreal happiness, compared the York of her home and the York of the Cathedral, would have compared Washington King and Hampden but dared not because it was too personal, compared him with Trevor instead. She said much of Trevor and of her new friendship with the young soldier.
She told him how Trevor wrote to her daily from France, though it was not always possible to post daily. For Celia had become his spiritual letter-box, and if the angels collected his hopes and fears and aspirations, they must have done so from the bottom of Celia's sometimes empty soul. Celia averred she did not write to him often. He wrote because he must have some one to write to regularly in a special way. Why did he not write to his mother or to one of his brothers ? Celia was glad to help as she could, and so she wrote. Poor boy, she often felt anxious for him and hated herself because she was safe and he constantly in dreadful danger. Then sometimes she felt cross with him for things he wrote in his letters. But she forgave him, and remembered him in her prayers. It would be strange when he came back. She felt he had
xxxi SACRIFICE 305
changed so much whilst he was in France. Then he had said so much to her that she knew him much more intimately. It would be a little awkward at first, perhaps. But she supposed he could never talk to her as he wrote. She felt very motherly towards him. No doubt that was because he could come to her and confide, and ask her to do things for him, and because she was constantly afraid he was going to hurt himself, or be hurt. " I feel just like a silly mother," cried Celia gaily.
They were walking joyfully now, though the London rain did not abate and both were rather wet. Afar off they descried a faint light on a wall, and presently they came to a street shrine where the names of soldiers who had died were inscribed and flowers were offered by the passers-by and the poor who love their dead. Hampden and Celia paused in front of it and were silent before the vague and wonderful lilies that seemed to breathe themselves into existence in the dark ugliness and sordidness of a slum. There was in the midst of the flowers what is called a Calvary, a figure of Jesus, Our Lord, nailed to the wooden cross, and under it a scroll written in a girl's hand :
If our feeble prayer can reach Thee,
O our Saviour, we beseech Thee,
Even as Thou hast died for us,
Let us follow where Thou leadest,
Let us, bleeding as Thou bleedest,
Die, if dying we may give
Life to those who ask to live ;
And more nearly,
Dying thus, resemble Thee !
X
306 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
To Hampden always came wonderful adven- tures. For him, as for the young and beautiful Novalis, only the ordinary was strange. This evening was no exception. Mystery reigned about him and over him and lurked in his ways — else why was he walking this strange walk with Celia through the rain ? Presently, after they had passed the shrine, they came to the open doorway of a little slum cottage, and the light poured from it into the dark street. A woman stood at the door, and directly Hampden and Celia approached she went to meet them and asked them in.
A good fire was burning. A table was spread with food. There was no one else in the room but a little boy with bright eyes. The polished grate glimmered, the fire was ruddy, the com- fortable grandfather clock ticked and tocked temperamentally. On the wall was an oleograph of Britannia with her sceptre and the lighthouse on the rocks, a vase of flowers was under it, and a por- trait of a soldier. On a side table was a heavy family Bible open at the page where names are written in.
Hampden and Celia accepted the proffered hospitality and took off their cloaks to dry. To Celia the woman gave a shawl, to Hampden a soldier's wrap. They sat down to a meal, and the joyful woman began to talk to them of the exploits of her husband in the War : how he had rescued his wounded comrade under fire, how he had been in the great July offensive on the Somme, and had been wounded and then wounded again — and killed.
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" And only this evening did I know that he was not really dead, and all my weeping was changed into joy," she said.
The two strangers did not dare to ask many questions. The woman's face was holy with the miracle of suffering and joy. They would have liked to have asked to see him. But they could not be sure, could not be sure. He was dead, but he is alive. They looked at her intently before they left her and turned home.
" How beautiful for you, how wonderful ! " said Hampden as he took her hand. And then he stooped down and kissed the boy with the bright eyes.
" When did you hear he was not dead ? >: asked Celia.
" He came here this evening for a space," said the woman with a look of radiant peace.
" It is happening to many just now," said Hampden to Celia when they were outside and walking home. ;< News comes that husband or sweetheart is dead, and then after or in the midst of the grief comes an understanding that he is alive. What happened to her I could not say. Perhaps he did suddenly come home and is now at the War Office reporting himself, and she in her joy prepared this meal and for Christ's sake called in the first who passed her home to share with her her new-found happiness — as did the woman who had lost the silver piece. Or she may have realised her husband in another way."
" Oh," said Celia, " who could have thought that would happen to us, or that we should come
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to this when we set out ? Now even the rain has ceased."
" The stars are overhead," added Hampden. " The night has become serene and beautiful once more."
So with a new calm in their hearts they turned back, and Hampden saw her home.
CHAPTER, XXX11.
PREPARING THE WAX
BROTHER JOHN of York wrote again to Hampden: " Do not forget you promised to write me a life of Christ for the working men, to show that * I and My brothers are one.' Try and make time in your busy life to write it."
" I do not forget it ; I will try and write it," wrote Hampden.
But in his heart he knew he must live it before he could write it. His life was much more the spoken than the written word. He was blamed sometimes for not making better provision for the future of his message by writing it down. But he felt it truer to speak than to write.
The words of the mouth are more precious than the words of the pen, though they seem more ephemeral. And Hampden used to say that he did not believe very much in books. The man standing up and the word coming visibly forth from his lips was the great dynamic. He believed that the spoken word meant more than the written one. Perhaps he saw truth. Christ, let
309
3 io PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
us remember, did not write the Sermon on the Mount and He did not write His life, He lived it. The seed which He sowed might seem to be lost, scattered into such a haphazard tangle as the hearts of men. But long after He had gone, generation after generation, the young green beautiful life has waved and the golden grain has hung.
The word which you drop into the human heart goes deepest when it comes from the actual lips. By faith you know it is not lost.
So Hampden ever put off writing the life of Christ, for he was continually asked to give forth from his lips the message that was in him. He spoke, and many loved to hear him. If you asked them what he had said they seldom could give a good account of it. But often, though the mind could not see it nor watch its development, the seed had found a home.
How different the outward details of Hamp- den's ministry from that of his Master. We love the Eastern setting, the street teaching, Zacchseus in the tree, the sick and the crippled in the open, the going up into the mountains to meditate and to pray, — do not love the modern scene, the church, the club, the hall, the theatre, the drawing-room, the postman who brings the messages, the telephones by which the sick and the possessed communicate to-day, the newspaper report. But no doubt even our way will seem sweet and touching when a little time has passed.
Imagine Christ to-day being asked to speak, at the Conservative or the Liberal Club, imagine Him with a full diary of meetings. It is rather
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a shock. It is garish. But we should overcome that purely local judgment and taste, that accent derived from being provincial dwellers in time.
Hampden lived his life and did his best in this latest year of grace. He spoke in modern ways, in churches, in clubs and halls, on a pair of steps in the East End, at social gatherings. .One often heard it said : * There is something new in the air ; he has it. A voice is speaking to-day ; it seems to be more through him than others." That was true, and many must have heard what is not set down here by his evangelist. Others will fill in what has been left unsaid.
He was an able and eloquent speaker, though that does not necessarily mean much. There are many who are able and eloquent. Mere ability and eloquence do not save. Moreover, the merely able and eloquent speaker is not sought by the right sort of people. His success is relatively barren. But when the Christ life has been born in the priest, when the gleam of another world is seen in his garments, there come out of the dull depths of voiceless humanity, new types of listeners, the carriers of the Divine message.
In an audience of a hundred, listening to the able and eloquent, there are eighty-eight more or less happy, and they feel they are spending time pleasantly and profitably. But listening to the priest who has some power to manifest miraculous truth, the eighty-eight, though perhaps they do not rejoice so much, are touched in various ways and stirred. But the other twelve, to whom the
3 12 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
former speaker's words meant nought, are sud- denly made alive and eager, light has come into their eyes, and there is as it were a whisper — " We have found the Messiah."
So it was with Hampden. When he broke silence after his consecration he became conscious of a new power in himself and manifesting itself through him. The outside world recognised it also. Tidings of him spread from man to man, as it were miraculously. He recognised in his audiences faces he had seen time after time, true listening faces. Young men drank in his message, and it would have been difficult to have shown the measure or limit of their spiritual thirst. After his lay sermons men and women pressed up to see him more nearly or to touch him.
It is always difficult to record in a photographic way what a man of this kind says. It is the personality behind the words, and the delicateness or strength behind them, the light that is about them that make them living power. There are gaps in the record in order that you and I and every one may fill in messages for ourselves alone, and problems, perhaps even obscure sayings, — and there is this advantage in them, they are not passed over swiftly ; by our pause we are enabled the more deeply to possess.
Hampden gave a lay sermon on Giving. It was one of the first-fruits of his sacred year. Most people about him were bent on receiving ; he pronounced the Gospel of eliminating and giving. Many were devising new means for obtaining money for the carrying on of our
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national Government, so impoverished did we seem to be by the War. Hampden's message to all was to give.
1 The pool that is stagnant is dead. The river that flows is alive. The pool is he who receives but gives not. The river is he who though he always gives, yet does not dry up and is fed miraculously from above."
:< How miraculously ? " asked some one. :< Is it not fed simply by springs ? "
;< From springs of living water," Hampden replied. ;< About the pool the world becomes a poisonous marsh ; about the river it becomes verdant and fruitful country. Be rivers ; be not pools. Give life, more life ; do not breed death by taking and receiving things and keeping them."
He was asked : What was the best thing to do with money.
" Pay it away," he replied. " It ought to have printed on one side, ' / am for paying away.' It is fatal to be under the impression that money is something which ought to be received. When men die leaving large sums in cash in coffers or at the bank it shows how stagnant their life had become. A poet died last week ; he left only five pounds, and his life was a beautiful river, giving happiness as it flowed."
" But thrift," said some one, — " is not thrift the great virtue, the one to be praised above all others just now ? "
" I do not think so. If you save in order to
3 H PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
buy or to give, it may be a virtue. But to save without a definite object is death. Thrift is not necessarily true economy. True economy is spending on the right things. You should obey your impulses to give and to spend. So we should all feel the flow in the body politic. Happy he in whose pockets money burns a hole ; better to burn a hole in the pocket than to turn one into stone.
" The true thing is to make life the condition of everything we do. The spirit is more than raiment, the love that flows is more than the meat which makes heavy, the word of God than bread.
" The first words of the teaching of Jesus in the Gospel of St. Matthew are these : * Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.' Every man gives assent to the truth, but few make it their own personal possession. Our relation to truth is not completed when we have read it or heard it and given assent to it. It is necessary to carry it into our life and express it hour by hour and act by act.
:< If the Spirit of truth feels and cares it glories in being expressed in our daily life, in giving shape and beauty to our daily words, in eliminat- ing this or that garment from our daily wardrobe, and finding this or that new garment which felicitously clothes our thoughts. It delights in the change of touch in the human being, the grasping more delicately and at the same time more firmly, in the new tenderness which it begets in the fingers and in the quickness which
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it gives to the eye. It rejoices whenever a man refuses to accept outward shows, and when the exterior and obvious falls from popular esteem, and when the inner beauty is sought out by the heart.
" Make life the condition of all your existence. You business men working to receive more money, more power, bethink you — work to have more life ! You working men toiling to obtain your daily bread, why should you toil so for bread and miss every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God ?
' You makers of homes, makers of children's minds, makers of books and of churches, makers of England, — is it for life you are working, or is it for style, for form, for standards and examina- tions and competitions, for efficiency ? Are you working for life, more life ? Do you ask of God — What must I do to inherit eternal life ? Or do you ask : What does one do in this case ? What is the accepted way ? What will pass muster ? What will call least attention to itself ?
" How to redeem our stagnant life ?
" By making a channel to it and letting it pour itself away. The superfluity must truly flow over and go.
" When some dear old grandmother dies and her body has been laid to rest, the living take over the rooms that were especially hers. Prob- ably she hoarded things, collected things, held on to things. The living revise the furniture of her over-full stufFy rooms and turn out, distribute,
316 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
sell, burn. She has in the depths of her crammed drawers the beautiful hand-woven shirts of her husband who died thirty years ago. In the neighbouring street all those thirty years have been men who had not decent shirts to their backs. She has a dozen chairs in the room where no more than three have ever sat. She has pictures that mean naught, and never will mean anything again however many times they may be numbered in lots and knocked down at sales. She has mantel-shelves crowded with accidental rubbish. She has books of sermons of a bygone age, rubbish, rubbish, rubbish, the despair of second-hand booksellers and the obstruction of the seeker — they had better be burned. Poor old grandmother, it can be done easily now she is dead and gone. But it would have been murder to attempt to do it a year before she died. We would not interfere with her. But many younger men and women are beginning to collect and accumulate and stagnate as she has done through thirty years.
:< An operation is needed. The channel must be cut. Spiritual stone is impeding or obstruct- ing the generous flow of the life spirit. It is forming a bank in the gateway of your existence. Deal with it whilst you can, for when you are old it may be fatal to interfere with you !
;< Strip away the tawdry wallpapers and let your backgrounds be simple. Break down those unnecessary partitions and let the rooms be spacious. Away with the what-nots, music-racks, card-tables, superfluous chesterfields and per-
xxxii PREPARING THE WAY 317
doniums, divans, sofas. Do not keep those impos- ing and massive clocks ; Time is not so important. And those things which accumulate on mantel- shelves attendant on the absurd clock ? And the mantel-shelves themselves ? If you are thinking of buying a bookcase buy one without doors ! Do not imprison the word, nor make yourself a gaoler of books with a key in your pocket. Prize the worn condition of books, not their spotlessness and newness ; that worn condition is the channel which the word makes when it flows from your library to the wilderness without. Turn out and burn the books no one will ever read again ! Give away those you will never handle profitably ! Books love to be made, they love to be possessed, but love most of all to be handed on from one human being to another. Their deepest sorrow is to stand for long in one place and collect dust.
" Many pictures can be turned out. The home is your living outer form and should grow about you. It is the savage who hangs all manner of tinsel and bead and possession on his person. Your walls, as your dress, represent personal choice and taste. That which hangs on your walls is reflected in your souls. If you would make life the condition of existence you must not hang up pictures that mean nought. They are extra weight to carry, and every child and every man and woman carries his home on his back. What a burden on some children ! If you have the ' Madonna and Child ' on a wall you cannot easily have Venus as well. The one
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or the other must go. Surely also one of your wasted extra rooms can be cleared and recon- secrated as a chapel, with an altar and a Bible and place to kneel. In any case, to live as old bedridden grandmother lived is to be in a state of death.
" Collecting is the beginning of decay ; self- expression the beginning of new life. If you .love collecting, collect into a museum or gallery, not into your home. If you are a rich merchant and you have developed a taste for collecting, and have in your abode a collection valued at several hundred thousand pounds, besides being in a state of death you are the robber of the commonweal and have stolen from humanity. Invite not art experts so much as human experts, and let them tell you to whom to give your treasures. No easy task !
" It is more blessed to give than to receive. Giving is a condition of life. All noble natures are able to give, and human nature is noble. The cursed tree was that which did not give. The problem is to give ever more. By giving I mean true giving, not dumping on people. Better to burn or to sell than to dump.
' The same state of affairs exists in our big national home as in the private one. Grand- mother has been enthroned for some time and dust is settling on half-forgotten treasures. We have pictures, furniture, ornaments, memorials, books, busts, statues, and old houses and even old churches, out of use, out of repute. A government department might well be formed,
xxxii PREPARING THE WAY 319
or the Office of Works itself might be changed into such a department whose whole object might be to save what has spiritual value and to let go what has not ; to put things into their right places ; to break down obstructions in our national life and let stagnancy flow away. Many rules of death would then give way to rules of life. There is, for instance, a cathedral rule : gifts may be made to a cathedral — but nothing may be given out of it. The very condition of stagnation. Durham Cathedral and West- minster Abbey and St. Paul's are clogged up with things which ought to be given away or taken outside ! But tradition is strong.
" Not only do we thus heap up treasures upon earth, but we have not the grace to accept the right sort of gifts. Our national collections become more and more heavy. A poor woman wished to give flowers one day for the altar of St. Faith's. They were refused. But a sub- stantial gift, such as, for instance, on some special occasion, a gold cross or a candlestick, or a font, or a cup would not so readily have been refused. Death-conditioning acquisitiveness ! Why should cathedrals have substantial gifts and locked-up treasures but not votive flowers or candles ? In God's house, at least, life should be the condition of all that is done. It should not be the place where moth and rust doth corrupt, or where thieves break through and steal.
" And in our picture galleries and museums and great libraries much is out of the way of giving life. Good things everywhere are lying
320 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xxxn
on the shelf, — on the high shelf out of reach, on the low shelf beneath our notice, — and the dust is on them. There are foreign paintings to be given back to the nations that painted them and marbles for Greece and mummies for Egypt. And there are life-conditioning British things to bring forward.
' What you do in the home and in the nation, do also in the words of your mouth and in the heart. ' Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight ! '"
CHAPTER XXX11I.
second ttafr/l of tkt To the gentk /tir of/x&c
THESE words had been spoken one afternoon in a hall in the midst of London. You entered from a tumultuously noisy city street into a quiet area within walls, and heard the still but beautiful and penetrating voice of the poet. You opened the door to go out, and once more the tumult of London. Innumerable bright wares offered for sale ; above the shops office after office to the sky. Miscellaneous crowds of strangers coming towards one another, passing, re-forming, in approaching crowds, passing again. Red omni- buses pound past the shops, past the blue glass porticoes of theatres, past enormous hoardings where old houses are being pulled down in order that new houses may be built, past churches and hotels and banks, past would-be passengers — pulled up at last at cross-streets and caused to halt in a throbbing mass of other buses, cabs, motor drays, removing vans and waggons ; anon at the waving of a policeman's hand surging forward once more.
321 Y
322 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
Cheap newspapers give voice to mob opinion in lurid announcements on placards. Coarseness and brutality stare from the windows of the picture shops, and the roadway is blocked by men considering, curiously, pictures of naked or half -naked Eve interspersed with tinted portraits of the Redeemer. Porters stand in false pomp outside cinema " palaces " and music " halls " and " palladiums " and " empires," and some are empowered to cry to the youth nock- ing by — " Walk up ; walk up for the Salome Dance, now showing ; plenty of good seats to- day." In public - houses, in an atmosphere of sawdust and stale smoke, poor men and women are dandling beer flagons in their hands and discussing the signs of the times. In Bond Street the miracle-workers are working miracles for cash down. Fleet Street is agog with portents and warnings, and the heart of Poldu throbs as he senses things to come. The great railway stations are thronged, and towards evening ever more thronged. Each man and woman going home carries news, tidings.
Night comes on and the lights are screened. The human beings on the streets become more shadowy and mysterious. They walk more slowly and are in twos, whilst by day they were in hurrying ones. Men and women have found partners. They see no pictures, no placards ; they are whispering to themselves, telling sad stories, making vows, laughing at the serious day past. Under cover of the darkness men are holding women's hands ; they turn down de-
xxxni A CHILD IS BORN 323
serted side streets and kiss ; they walk gently with arm round each until they emerge again on the populous thoroughfare.
Cars are waiting outside gilded public-houses, and there are lights behind the veils of upper windows. The red blinds of foreign cafes are a light-flooded crimson, and shadow forms go to and fro, whilst a strident electric pianola or barrel-organ pours forth the everlasting music of humanity. Even at a late hour crowds of little-cared-for children are playing " hide-and- seek " and '" wall-flowers," the boys' heels re- sounding on the tin-can "home" when the hider has been found, and the girls in chorus yowling their street rhyme. Behind the doors and the walls tailors are sewing ; seamstresses are stitch- ing ; sedentary cobblers are staring at leather whilst they dream and work at the same time ; children are making artificial flowers and mothers tending a huddled home. Offices have become empty and remain with their litter, in a watching state, until the charwoman comes early next morning to put all straight. Above all, in the murky sky, vague stars are peeping, or a search-light comes blindingly across them. The search-lights go seeking in the uttermost parts of the heavens, tirelessly examining the stars, now from this side, now from that, and staring into abysses of dark space. Then they cease searching also, and only glints of their radiance lodge far away in patches of cloud or obscure sky-distance. It grows danker and colder and sleepier down below, and the policeman passes
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along empty streets trying the locks of doors to see that all is well.
Midnight passes without chimes, and the after- midnight hush of forgiveness and sleep settles down upon the great city. It is as if all men had been watching, expecting some such thing as the great longed-for peace, or the fulfilment in the heavens of some great promise, and then had come to the conclusion it would not be to-night, and had turned in to slumber till another day.
So, day after day, evening after evening, night after night. Expectancy reigned where one would have expected despair, and sweet sleep was vouchsafed whilst calamity almost universal was burning and destroying. This was because human nature is still sweet and our manger-like hearts still wait to be the cradle of the Babe. It was in the midst of this despairing and yet hoping world that Hampden spoke of preparing the way, in the midst of the same that a little later he said to others in a large room shut off by quieting walls — " Behold, a Child is Born ! " Even in the midst of all this sordid London.
THE
CHAPTER #HRACVLOVS
XWV. JJFE
WHAT is our life worth if it be not miraculous ? " If Christ be not risen, then is our faith vain'," saith the epistle ; we are yet in our sins, that is, in our heaviness, in our dreary sloth and earthi- ness. As the Child was miraculously born and the whole life of Him miraculous, so the Christ Child in us is miraculously born and has power, as had the seventy chosen ones, to heal each of the sick and say, "The Kingdom of God has come nigh unto you"
So spake Hampden in the East End, at or near St. Columba's in the Kingsland Road, preaching on miracles. Wonderful that St. Columba of lona in the north should have a shrine in the Kingsland Road — that in itself is miraculous.
" An age that did not believe in miracles is passing ; an age that does is at hand.
" The child that is promising to-day is the child who has the look of wonder in his eyes.
" A little while ago the clever child was the one who said, ' Perhaps I do not understand,
325
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but somebody else does and I must ask him. Or there are books in which it is explained and I must read them up.' But the promising child of to-day is the one whose first feeling is one of wonder at that which is beyond explanation.
" We are passing from the notion that every- thing has an explanation to the understanding that nothing has. Science betrayed us to self- satisfaction, but life has forced us to rebellion, and out of rebellion has come the new birth — wonder."
This was the introduction which Hampden gave to his thought. It was sufficient illustration to point to the new attitude of teachers towards their children even in the sordid East End, where they endeavour to beget the attitude of wonder in the child's mind and soul. Nature study, which is really wonder, has displaced a consider- able quantity of saying tables in chorus. The child who does wrong is not so often caned or expelled as before. He is looked upon by the teacher as more of an individual, as having his own soul and something of utter loveliness in his being. Hampden told the story of the Little Commonwealth in Dorsetshire, the children's democracy, where all the rules and laws and punishments are enacted by the children them- selves. Then he spoke of the new relationship of the children to the soldiers ; the pausing from work at twelve to pray ; the children in the country parish, when they come out of school at twelve, going to the little church, ringing the bell, and then settling into the pews
xxxiv THE MIRACULOUS LIFE 327
to say their little prayers. All this showed the increased significance of the child in our midst. The child was being encouraged to love, to pity, to grasp more delicately, not to rush to con- clusions, not to hurt people's feelings by rash utterances, not to be cock-sure.
The little Child Jesus is growing up in the midst of us — the Child of wonder and of faith. He is unutterably beautiful and lovely. The time will come when people will say, " He worked miracles " — and later, " His life was miraculous from its birth to its death and birth again." If He came and lived our limited and conditioned life as a man, He also came to show that limited and conditioned man could live the immortal life of God. He was like us, we can be like Him.
Nothing is usual, nothing is ordinary, nothing is of course. That child which you have at your knee, which you have in your keeping, is the Christ Child. You are the Sacred Mother. He is a miraculous being.
What is a miracle? Is it merely a Scriptural statement which we agree against reason to accept ? Is it merely an infringement of natural law, the interposition of a capricious God ? Is it merely a secret process ? Or is it an act of personal faith ? Who dares to think that Jesus, when He turned water into wine, conjured it ; or that He merely did it once ? He did it all His life. But if an outsider, one of those who believe that all things have definite explanation, had strayed into the marriage-feast at Cana and
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tasted the best wine, which had been kept until now, he would have cried, " But this is water."
The common desire for miracles is vulgar. The vulgar crowd makes of the Master a showman.
It has sometimes been asked : How many miracles did our Lord perform ? and children have been set making lists from the Gospels, as if there were a number and a limit. We must not think of a series of exceptional and accidental occurrences in the life of Jesus. He did not do miracles so much as live miraculously. The angels had charge over Him. He opened His lips and the Divine 'word came forth. The world about Him was different because of Him. Those who touched Him as well as those whom He consciously touched received a virtue flowing out of Him. How well He taught us to live ! Because of Him we can live as He did if we will.
Christ did so much because He loved so much, cared so much, He was so tender. How much do we love, do we care, are we tender ?
We cannot be tender by acts of will. The eyes must see something that makes us tender. Such eyes are being begotten nowadays, for we have the Christ Child in our keeping ; the Superman, the Frankenstein of Science, is dead. Love is the unconditioned force in our nature ; and all that Jesus did, love can do. That is the real meaning of the text, " God is Love."
Be born and be a little child once more at the Virgin's knee and obtain those wonder eyes and those gentle fingers and that sad and glorious destiny. Live the miraculous life.
xxxiv THE MIRACULOUS LIFE 329
Amongst the audience to which Hampden was speaking was Griffiths, the man with the historical mind. He had fled from his own Church, like some modern Mark Rutherford, and was now trying to operate on Christian bodies from without, for he had come to feel that the cloth even when cut congregationally was a serious handicap on a man of God. The laity only gave half an ear to what official ministers said, because they knew the ministers were paid to say it. And even when the congregation itself paid directly, as had been the case in Griffiths' church, the full value of the word was lost. Nevertheless Griffiths had not become a mystic. He still sought comfort in the historical process. " What is the use of living miraculously if England is going to be lost ? " said he. " And, despite all the talk, England is being lost. We are losing all our men, all our money, our health, our freedom. Where the great explosion took place, do you think they will build more stately mansions ? No, rather more wretched slums, more Kingsland Road, so to speak. After the War we shall all be building slums over the ruins of our national life. We shall go on toiling in gloom and poverty and degeneration. One thing is clear, that unless industrialism that does not care for man's life comes to an end, England must come to an end."
" One must live," cried a voice. * We only hope that trade will be good. It is no use crying against industrialism."
This was the voice of the factory owner.
" We shall have a series of good Liberal
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Governments, they'll put things right," said another voice. " More old age pensions and a better system of insurance."
This was the voice of the agent of the Liberal party in the district.
" No, no," said the man with the historical mind, "I'm a Liberal and my father was a business man. But I put England before business and before politics. I see there is no chance to live in a district such as this within which we are gathered. Do you know the miles upon miles of streets in London where no one has a chance to know anything, enjoy anything, or come to anything ? Every year sees a new square mile of degradation added to it. It's not only London, but England. It is not Germany, but England, which is being destroyed. There is no good reason why people should remain here. It is easier to live in foreign lands. Let the labour contractors of South America come and buy our populations and take them away into commercial bondage like Chinamen. Let the rich collectors of America buy our churches, and old houses, and art treasures, and claim to be the English race, the more glorious branch of it, and let the decent people go across the Atlantic and find life in hospitable America. Let our history since 1 78 1 become a curious and abortive page."
Father Minns, in the chair, put up his hand in warning that Griffiths had spoken sin, had gone too far.
' England cannot perish in that way," said
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Hampden ; " too many have shed their blood for her. She can be saved, and will, through the Holy Spirit. Not by reason and judgment can she be saved, but by miracle — miracle in the War, in the sordid life of London, in our business, in the greater England. That is why my lips are unsealed and I say, ' Live miraculously.' We can escape from all prisons, from bondages, from all inextricable plights in wretched laby- rinths, even from execution after the ninth hour has passed.
' You have sad faces. Now, look, I see a child in front of me, sitting with his mother."
Hampden went down among the people, spoke to the child, then picked him up and carried him, smiling, to the platform.
" How can you be pessimistic in the sight of such an one ? " said Hampden. ' You fear you cannot save this child. Have more faith, the child will save you. In my heart burns an unconquerable and radiant optimism. That is why I speak, why I even want to sing my message. I know the sordid facts of our life. I was myself born in the midst of a sordid London suburb, I am a child of it, I suffered in it and from it. I know what it is to live in Bow and Shadwell and Limehouse, and I say there is a star of hope shining on the babe of these parts."
Hampden restored the boy to his mother.
:' Christ's life was miraculous from the manger to the sepulchre. We are Christians, let us then live miraculously," he concluded. :< All the power of God is behind each one of us to change
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from water into wine, from baser metal into gold, to bless and to redeem."
— But why does he not speak more directly, more explicitly ? Why this five miraculously ? Let him say what he means. The same objection was made to the teaching of the Master. It is not possible to speak explicitly. That is why teaching is given in metaphors, parables, and emblematic stories. Thus the message " Live miraculously " was given in the story of the men to whom talents were given. It is embodied in our life of to-day, and the question may be asked, Which of the churches of Britain, the church of the men of one talent, or of two, or of five, is more acceptable to God, which promises England deliverance in the hour of danger ? —
There were three churches of St. George in the city, and Hampden entered into each. The first church had a narrow doorway, and it rang one bell with doleful chime which some inter- preted as :
Come to church,
and others as :
Stay away,
It's all the same.
The living was the property of the Never- Young family, and the present vicar was an old man who could not be removed. Here morning service and evening service were gone through, as they are often gone through by those who feel it a duty which they owe to God. The vicar held
xxxiv THE MIRACULOUS LIFE 333
one ought to go to church ; but the church depressed people, so they did not come. The choir came because they were paid. Some children came to be out of mother's way whilst she cooked Sunday dinner. A few depressed grown-ups also attended, because they felt it their duty, and it gave them a calmer conscience if they could feel that if they died on Tuesday, they had at least been to church on Sunday. The church had been well supported, as might be understood by the substantial gravestones and memorial tablets on the wall. The Ten Com- mandments were heavily inscribed on the eastern wall. The altar was small, but the pulpit was large and high. The vicar considered that the sermon was the most precious thing in the service, though his sermons were dull academic disquisi- tions, a burying and a digging up again every Sunday morning. The choir came from varying parts of London and sang pretentiously without reference to the congregation. On this Sunday Hampden seemed to hear them singing the following set of words set to music :
Lord, I knew Thee
That Thou art an hard man,
Reaping where Thou hast not sown,
Gathering where Thou hast not strawed :
And I was afraid, . . .
and Hampden said to himself as he went out, " Can this be our church ? "
Then he went into the second Church of St. George and was much rejoiced to escape from the atmosphere of the first. Over the broader
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portal was written : " Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord," and the service within was one of praise ; it was warm and creative. The pulpit was lower, the altar higher ; there were flowers before the altar. The choir did not sing by themselves, but their gifts begot the gift of song in the congregation. There were pictures on the walls. The sermon was not a digging and a burying and a digging out again, but the work of the good sower sowing in the hearts of men.
" This is better," said Hampden. " They are doing things here. The vicar is a true and faithful servant."
Then he went to the third Church of St. George, and it was a beautiful and spacious temple, with many bells above and many altars within, splendid, glowing, living. It had started poorly, it was among poor men, but it had had the faith that multiplies tenfold. The church was full with worshippers who had been eager to come, and they remained still eager within, their hearts full of faith, their eyes adoringly seeking. Here on the eastern wall was written, not the Ten Commandments, but :
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Here were altars to the Virgin and Child and to the saints, and frescoed walls, and a great altar, but a pulpit that was little used. All sang, all was triumphal and processional, all came to the
xxxiv THE MIRACULOUS LIFE 335
Communion table, all received the blessing and carried it out of the church to the country round about. The priest, when he preached, did not mount stairs and enthrone himself above his fellows, but stepped down from the altar to the aisle and was as a little child set in the midst of the disciples of Jesus. And he was so beloved that people put their arms out to him as he passed to touch his raiment for a blessing.
Hampden, seeing this, greatly rejoiced, and said, " Let the first church pass away and be forgotten. And take from it the wealth and the sacred chance and opportunity that it had and give it to this newer, better church.
;< For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance ; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."
The three priests were asked : Who is St. George ? The first replied he was in reality a mean fellow, a butcher's boy of Cappadocia. The second said St. George was a hero of the early Church who killed a dragon and saved a maiden. The third said, "The maiden is Britannia, the dragon is sloth, and St. George is the spirit of deliverance embodied and in arms to-day. St. George for England ! "
Hampden was taken into the great work- shops and shown the guns being forged, tens of thousands of men tending steel at white heat, great hammers and drills ; in an infernal glow of fire and noise of immense machinery, saw the
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made guns mounted, raised and fired — guns of all calibres, monsters of sinister look, death-dealers and men-devourers. These are to obtain justice between nation and nation, and man and man.
" Well, I do not believe in these," said Hampden. " They make a fine show and they glorify man — but they are not even dedicated to justice truly, though, if they were, justice is not particularly important."
" Not important," said his companion in horror. " Then what is important ? "
" Love," said Hampden simply.
They took him to the peace workshops and showed him things which they thought would be more to his mind. Here were reapers, and binders, and harrows, and tractors of all kinds.
" When the labourers are few there is need for machinery," said they. ' You agree that the labourers are few ? >!
" Yes, few," said Hampden.
They took him to the Whitehall factories and showed him several cunningly contrived machines; the C.O.S. collector and distributor that collected its own fuel and oiled itself and fed .itself and kept in working order, distributing the while a driblet here and a dole there.
" These save men a lot of care. They are very popular and are well subscribed," said Hampden's guide.
They passed to the steam-helper, and the lot- improver, and the grape-picker, and the re- plenisher, and the universal salver and moisture remover, and great levers for raising masses and
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pressure systems for keeping them down. He was shown the State service, Argus eye, and the Corrector and Standardiser and many accessories.
:< If the guns destroy, these at least will build when we get peace," he was told.
" What will they build ? " he asked, and they quoted a line of that verse of Blake which every Labour member and Socialist loves to quote :
the New Jerusalem In all this green and pleasant land.
They showed him various specialised systems of machinery which could be tended by War cripples — this that could be worked by the legless ; this for those who had no arms, no eyes, those suffering from shock, those without intelligence, those without hearts ; and then the complete apparatus for a paralysed man.
' Your paralysed man, sitting at peace in the midst of these accessories, can do a great deal more than the unparalysed. A cripple is, on the whole, a safer person to have tending machinery, he has fewer temptations to play than a man with all his limbs, though, as a matter of fact, most of the machines are fool-proof."
" I suppose the Germans also have this machinery," said Hampden.
' Yes, a good deal was copied from them."
' Their cripples also will have the necessary accessories ? "
' Yes, of course."
' The guns do justice and make the cripples, and then the cripples make a better world."
' Exactly ; you have it."
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" You have no particular need for hand and heart ? "
" No. It's organisation that counts, and the assembly of standardised parts. That is the creed of the workshops."
" I am sorry to say I do not think this ela- borate machinery is necessary. It's not what will save the world. It will not redeem the sordid and the ordinary."
" What will, then ? " asked the machinist.
" Love," said Hampden simply. !< Human tenderness from man to man, shown on the impulse, the human impulse."
" All impulses must be saved and converted into political power, into the good horse-power that will work these machines," said the machinist.
" No," said Hampden, " impulses should be obeyed when they come ; they are miraculous promptings, and from them come the miracles necessary to give us all light and happiness. I have no use for this machinery."
The machinist spat on the ground and walked away.
" Tolstoyan ! " he hissed as he went.
" Dedicate your life to men and women, to personal relationships. You will find that the causes look after themselves," said Hampden. " Causes always disappoint, human beings seldom disappoint."
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Votes are not of so great value as some think. But if you vote, do not vote for causes and principles, vote for men. No dozen persons are agreed as to what a cause is, or what are their principles. Liberalism, Socialism, Conser- vatism have never had their principles properly formulated and established. It is open to any one to give his own definition, and no one can gainsay a man who insists on calling himself a Liberal or a Socialist or Conservative. But if you elect an Englishman good and true to represent you, you will be able to trust him in Parliament whichever side he be on.
Get to know personally these men who want your votes, hear them, watch their actions, and you will know whom to trust more. You know that in the long run a gentleman will behave like a gentleman and you will not be surprised when a cad behaves like a cad, no matter what principles they profess or to what party they belong. You would trust the heart of a man whom you know much more readily than you would trust Liber- alism or Conservatism or Socialism.
Our body politic is stopped up at the pores with official stupidities, principles, conventions, and it needs the spiritual power of personality and personal choice.
On the other hand do not give undue worship to the plain man, the sort of man who says, " Strike me pink ! " At least do not worship the plainness in him. There is a hero in every man, a Christ in every man. See one there. Choose your meeting-ground with your fellow-
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man. Do not meet him on his plain side but on his least plain most beautiful side. Worship the Christ in him. Give your vote and your allegiance and your faith to the man who has a tender heart and a hand of power, one who from the fount of love can produce the miracle of life. But what is the miracle of life ? It is the in- terpretation of dull fact into bright sense, the transformation of barren metal into gold, the ray of sunshine through the poor window, the picking up of the despised piece of creation whether human being, animal, flower, or thing, and putting it where it gives glory to God.
Contempt of persons is hate and hate is death. We are all dying, death fights with us in our constitution all day and every day. And we all despise at times, hate at times. But according to our triumph over these tendencies is our spiritual life more abundant. Love is always creative, hate always destructive. But the truth of our being is more with love than with hate.
Contempt of individuals springs often from attachment to principles and parties. The more true knowledge of the fellow-being, the less possible is it to be contemptuous. The best possible education for a human being is that of learning who and what his fellows are. Our out- look on history is, alas, full of contempt and hate. The history teacher dismisses or disparages his Edward II., Edward VI., Charles I., James II., William II. of Germany, Nicholas Il.iof Russia and the like. His attitude is one of judgment.
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His criterion is some special notion of progress. That condemnatory attitude must go if love and charity are to reign. He must try and show the handiwork of God, the common suffering substance of mankind, the oneness with our- selves in all the characters of recorded life. This is the best possible education, for it gives the fullest life. The life of the individual enough unto himself is narrow, the life of communion with the just and great is still too narrow, the life which we could live with all humanity in love and wonder is alone worth begetting. From that life in the long run comes the humility which is ready to say, " If my neighbour, my near one, is at fault, I must be also ; if he ail, then am I also unwell."
Beware of the cheap ; seek rather the worthy. There is an unfittingness about cheap clothes, as also there is an inevitable inadequacy in cheap words — there is an unfair reflection from them, a cheap ego, a cheap empire. One of the wickedest punishments ever devised was the pillory. A man was put in the pillory as some one publicly despicable, and men spat on him as they passed and felt themselves superior. To-day we in- voluntarily put our labouring folk in the pillory of cheap clothes, and the richly dressed feel a contempt for those dressed in shoddy.
Love is a public virtue. The ballot is " secret as the grave," but we are not ashamed to show whom we love. Politics are somewhat private, business is private — they are of shut rooms, committee-rooms, club-rooms, secret sessions. A
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condition of being that gave more fresh air in our life would be preferable.
" Mind your own business " is one of the most potent of our modern maxims. Blake might have made of it a proverb of hell. It seems a crushing retort to one who loves.
But what do we mean by " business," " good business," " business is business," " I must be about My Father's business." By business we do not mean " duty." " Mind your own duty >: would be a comparatively ineffectual retort. " Mind your own business," means generally, " It doesn't affect your pocket." There is a notion of material gain about it. It is one of the unpleasant maxims of our selfish modern life.
The Levite who passed by on the other side " minded his own business " ; so did Pilate when he washed his hands in the bowl. And both were " irreproachable persons." Christ went every- where in the most unwonted way — and did not mind His supposed business, which was carpenter- ing, being intent upon His Father's business. He was not irreproachable. But He healed the sick, and raised the dead, and consoled the thief, and saved us all.
Are you living miraculously ? You say, if anything went wrong, " It was not my fault, I was minding my own business." But the nobler human accepts the fault, even the remote fault, and complains against no one unless it be against himself, that he did not foresee, did not care sufficiently, did not pray.
It is a sign of weakness to ascribe fault to any
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one else but one's self, and it is a true glory to take fault upon oneself. It is also a sign of weak- ness to fear inconsistency. If love be the guiding motive, there must be a higher consistency in outward action. God sees it. It does not matter if for moments man misses it. When you are dead you may be systematised and classified, but whilst you are alive there is always the danger that you may stray into other compartments. The deeper the love in the heart the more diversified and marvellous the life springing therefrom.
As Hampden was out walking one day he saw an old man with faded eyes trying to read a letter which he had just received, and evidently finding great difficulty in doing so.
" Will you let me be eyes to you," he asked of the old man, and he took the letter from him and read it to him.
So Hampden was eyes to the blind.
When this was told of Hampden, some one said, " Well, if that's the sort of miracle he per- forms, we can all do them."
Exactly.
We do not, however. The poor old tottering fellow is standing in the full motor-bus, and only one in twenty has the impulse to stand up for him.
" What," says another, " is it a miracle to stand up and let an old man sit down ? "
" It is the beginning of miracles," said Hampden, " but not the act of getting up ; it is the eye that sees Christ in the old man that is miraculous."
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It is only through love that you can under- stand (give sight to the blind), and only through love that you can truly live (live miraculously).
All day long and life long you can live mira- culously. If you understand a picture and see something wonderful in it, or a poem, knowing how to read out its hidden music, or a person and his especial glory to God, and can communi- cate this to another who would otherwise pass by, despise or disparage, you are eyes to the blind. If, like Philip, you can say to the man in the car, " Understandest thou what thou regardest ? " and canst make him understand through your tender- ness toward him, you are eyes to the blind and are living miraculously.
On another occasion a man wrote to Hampden and asked that he would visit him ; he was suffering from war-shock and was one of the thousands of new deaf. This was Lieutenant Harris of the Wiltshires, whose possibilities of happiness seemed blasted out of him at the taking of Beaumont Hamel. He had been brought to one of Hampden's lectures by his sweetheart, and on one occasion when Hampden was speaking Lieutenant Harris sat in front of him, and, though he heard not, seemed to be drinking in good tidings through his whole body.
' You know, I do not hear," said Harris, " only my sweetheart can make me hear, but I understood all you were saying. Your words were meat and drink to me, bread and wine, and only seeing you did I get a hope of coming life and happiness." And he clung to the bright girl
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at his side, while she looked at Hampden gratitude that knows no words.
Thus Hampden was ears to the deaf.
And each man who loves may live that miracle of making the deaf hear again. Alas, how many are deaf nowadays. Deafness is on the increase, it has been on the increase for a long while. The still small voice calling Samuel to-day : " Samuel, Samuel," is not easily heard. Samuel is too much engrossed by Copthall Avenue and is long since, perchance, stone-deaf. Still God patiently calls him and has greater faith than we. Since the practice came of employing brass bands at elections to drown the voice of the speaker we have ceased to hear many things. In the town of Bradford many years ago it used to be possible in the main street to hear the lark singing in the sky over the moors outside. You cannot hear it now. In Jerusalem it seems to have been possible to put a ringer to the lips and say, "Hst, the voice of one crying in the wilderness," but the deaf did not hear it, there or here. I suppose it is the clangour of machinery, of the C.O.S. collector and distributor, and such things obsess- ing us that robs us of our sense of hearing. Poldu's hooters have done their share. Poldu has shouted some truths so loudly that the drum of the ear has been broken. Even truths can deafen, and if you were to say "Jesus loves you" as loudly as the great Silvertown explosion, there would be many not only deafened but killed by it. The great guns which kill also deafen. How many have lost their hearing in the War.
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He went down upon his knees and prayed
For mercy, did the Hun. " No, curse you ! you're a German,"
Said the brave Canadian.
The brave Canadian was deaf. Those who love must give back hearing to such as he.
" Why are gramophones so popular in the trenches ? " It is because the ear is ceasing to be of value for soft sounds and gentle music. Why are rag-time choruses so popular. It is because it is becoming more difficult to hear simple human songs.
No song is valuable unless the ears of the heart hear it. Nearly all our popular music just now is out of tune with the heart. As when a child is trying to sing a song it sings it wrongly over and over again until the ear approves, and then great is the child's joy, so now we sing our songs over and over again, but the ears of the heart do not approve.
Hampden took several popular songs and gave them power. There is a song which has a chorus beginning :
Give me the right to love you all the while,
which means, " I want you to be my wife, my possession, and no nonsense about it, so that we shall love one another as a matter of course." It has nothing of the true feeling of a man for the woman he loves — " I have found you, the miracle of miracles ; you stay with me, you stay and yet perchance may go," the feeling expressed by the poet :
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O lyric love, half angel and half bird, And all a wonder and a wild desire ;
of course not, the song is vulgar, blatant, street music.
And yet, as Hampden said, only one word is wrong in the line and it could be altered. Sub- stitute the word grace and you have a perfect prayer of a man to a woman and yearning before the lilies at the altar of the Madonna :
Give me the grace to love you all the while.
:< If you must sing it, sing it with those words and that sense," said Hampden. " And when you sing ' Keep the home -fires burning,' re- member the lamp of faith which is being kept burning in our English homes at night. Light- ing the lamp each evening has become a ritual. Keep the lamp burning before the shrine of your high ideal, that to which your whole childhood was dedicated. And if you sing * Britannia rules the waves,' keep it ' rule ' and mean the highest by it. A great many songs that seem doggerel, and vulgar at that, can be sung as prayers or yearnings — which is the miracle of changing barren metal to spiritual gold ; and they can be heard as yearnings, which is hearing given back to the deaf."
And the miracle of making the deaf hear is akin to that of making the dumb to speak, for often nothing is heard for the reason that nothing is being said. When your friend is dumb it is often as if you were deaf.
The voiceless are waiting — to hear. There
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are many more who are voiceless than have voice and they are waiting to hear a man who can be voice to them. All true poets and prophets and musicians are living manifestations of the miracle of opening the lips. Shakespeare is the voice of millions who are voiceless. Christ was the voice of humanity, dumb until He came.
Hampden met P., the great pianist, and the latter said, " I am not playing during the War ; there is too much grief, my poor country is being ravaged." He would not even play for charity. And he met B., the famous violinist, so rarely heard. And .he met H., the famous singer, who sings only once a year in public and makes enough money by that performance to keep her for the whole year, and more than if she sang the whole year every week.
:< Our wisdom," said the musicians, " is not to perform often. Once we have made our name, the fewer times we perform the better for us materially. We must not make ourselves cheap to the public."
* Your wisdom is not wisdom, it is miserable prudence," said Hampden. " Your voice is a gloria, but you hire it out as glory for cash. Nations are dumb because you do not sing. Perish your commercial sagacity and your land- lady's bills ! Do you make music for coppers like a barrel-organ at the manipulation of a handle ? The devil has worked a devil's miracle on you and made the vocal dumb, and has caused the alleluia to fade lest your credit be cut off. There are none so dumb as those who can sing
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and won't sing ; as there are none so blind as those who can see and won't see ; none so sick as those who could carry their beds at the Lord's word, but wait ; none so dead as those who could live, but will not. Awake, O Lord, and break the chains of these and set them free, so that unawares they may burst into song and the dumb listeners with them hear and cry ' Hosanna ! ' "
After long wailing and disconsolateness, a woman with pale face, sunken eyes, and deep, heavy crape of mourning came out one day and was brought to a room where Hampden was speaking on the meaning of love, the first occasion since her husband went down at sea; she came out and listened to the words of the Priest of the Ideal : " Love is the highest revelation we possess ; it is the strange light of another world falling on our sordid planet. It is a light our souls recognise, and that is the splendour of love— it shows we do not belong to this world but have our true homes afar, at the source of this strange radiance. Love is our strongest proof of im- mortality, if proof be needed."
The woman had loved and been loved with that passion that knows no thought but itself. The life of the two had been perfect. Then mysterious death snatched one away. • Death left the widow speechless, inconsolable. Yet one night after her prayers she suddenly seemed aware of her husband's presence in the room, a sensation of hovering, of the all-but-visible, and she plucked up courage and hope.
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She gained so much life as to go to this meeting, moved by she did not know what impulse. But Hampden had hardly begun speaking when she felt strangely touched. She listened to him as does a lost soul to the bird in the enchanted wood.
No other person in that audience could have the problem and the grief that was hers, and yet all were listening to him intently and personally as if each were finding a saviour. Most of these people moved in a different world from hers and really spoke a different language. Yet it seemed as if he must have foreseen she would be there and was addressing himself specially and ex- clusively to her. No doubt others in that gather- ing had a similar thought — -just as in apostolic days, when the Spirit descended upon an apostle, every stranger found the Gospel personal and each heard in his own tongue.
Some days later Hampden was moved to go to this woman, for she wished to meet him privately, and he was told her story. Her only desire in life was that her husband should be given back. She thought that Hampden could give him back.
She showed Hampden the portrait of her child, a boy at school. :< It is easier for you than for some," thought Hampden, and he said, ' Your son must be a great help."
She told him of her happy life, of her com- panionship with her husband, of the sunny days and marvellous nights of the south, where they had lived together, of his poetic fancies, of his
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strong arm and his bright, confident laughter, of the wondrous unity their love had begotten.
" And I know he still goes on, still is. The sad thing is I was with him till then and shared everything, and now we are parted. It seems so unnecessary, so cruel. I know there may be a plan of God for him — for me, I know, I know. And I have a consciousness of him, of his presence. He comes to me every night, I am aware of him. I have all but seen him. You believe, I know. You can help me. Tell me, how can I realise his presence more, what can I do to be with him more."
Hampden was very quiet.
* You can dedicate your life to him, to the love which holds you still. The boy will help you much. Read together again the poems which you loved. Say ' Our Father ' with him and for him. But may I suggest to you some- thing which will save you from many difficulties — dedicate your life to him and the life which you have, but keep that a complete secret. Do something specially for him every day, but let no one know it is for him or for the sake of your love. Enter now upon a secret life and have a hidden side to all your activity, a sacredly hidden side. It is so important you keep it secret, for, if secret, you will meet your husband in spirit more often and more readily than you could if it were known. It is the spiritual life which like a flower throws a marvellous blossom into the visible world, but has a mysterious secret life of the spirit in the dark earth."
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And so one might write chapters and books to tell the things which Hampden wrought and said " in the Spirit " in his miraculous life. But we already see the light of his life shining in the darkness of his world. A man once said to him :
" Look here, I am on the threshold of life. I've got to make a living, to get a profession or calling, to start a business or get into a business that will give me my daily bread. Having obtained a start, I have to watch for advancement. I may read and study to that end, or intrigue to that end. Having established myself, I look round for a wife. I leave my father's spacious home and obtain a little home of my own. I live economically to keep it going. A family adds itself, and I must provide for many and insure my life. I am steady and staid, getting a little heavy perhaps ; I love my garden, how- ever. I read a little for pleasant relaxation — where do miracles come in for me ? "
" Is that the table of your opportunities ? " asked Hampden. :< Civilisation has touched you, , and, like a caterpillar, you sham death. Why, your opportunities are boundless. Your whole life should be a miracle. You are on the threshold of life ; its wonders are all untried. Instead of making a living you can Jive, and instead of finding a calling you can listen for the call. Your young heart beats bravely in the midst of the beautiful body ; the dweller in the innermost is enthroned in your being ; poetry is behind your eyes, the pathos of existence, tenderness unrealised ; the majesty of power is on your
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brow. You are body, but you are also spirit. Nothing can hurt you. You own a God, and you can follow Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego into the fiery furnace and it can never consume you. You are proud ; there is nobility in your aspect. Yet you are humble ; there is aspiration and yearning in your heart. You are. You have also a need to become. You were not born to be a slave. About you is a wonderful world of nature beckoning you, enticing you to become. As the poet said, you waited an eternity to be born, an eternity before your star rose in the East. You ask where do miracles come in for you ? And how are you going to open your eyes without seeing miracles, live without them, be called without them, find a wife without them, children without them. My dear boy, begin now to realise power in all your senses, spiritual power.
' You need never cast a glance or say a word or touch a person without doing something vital. Each glance or word or touch may be a constraint. Learn to look creatively on men and women and upon things, to say words which change and make, to touch with a touch pregnant with the magnetism of love, with the spirit of love that flows from you to that which you touch."
Hampden talked for a good evening once with a man who had a drapery business. When he rose to go and put out his hand, he said, " Good-bye."
" Oh, don't say Good-bye," said the draper meaningly, " say An Revoir."
2 A
354 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xxxiv
" I always say Good-bye," said Hampden, and his companion knew then that when he said Good-bye he meant a definite prayer of blessing.
That Au Revoir, or Auf Wiedersehn, or Dosvidania as they say in Russia, is very much the fashion nowadays. It was invented by the shopman who, when he sold you one of his wares, expressed the hope that he would see you in his shop again.
I think when Hampden shook hands his hand- press meant Have /ifej when he said "Good-bye," he did mean " God be with you." When he spoke it was that " man might be the soul's- brother of man," or God be praised, or both. When he looked at a sick child it began to be well. His hand on the feverish steadied the pulse. He heard voices, his ears were attuned to the celestial voices always whispering and singing and sometimes praising in voluminous chorus about us. Each step he took was a step of marvel, and when he came to you you were aware of a presence and something — a light.
No, there was nothing supernatural about him ; he was like you, like some one in you the reader, your ideal self ; like some one in me the writer, like the man that I should wish to be.
Oh, Saul, it shall be, A face like this face shall receive thee, A man like to me.
CHAPTER (CZ3 LIFE
XXXV I? ==\ AND
DEATH
Chat youth's sv/eet manuscript should dose..
BOOM-M-M ! sounded the guns in France, and they could be heard even in the depths of quiet England. And every day was printed in the papers the sinister records of death thus in small print : Keeble 23948, Martin 10929, Ridley 25574, Scott 31165; every minute the War Office messages were hastening to houses of calamity ; the dark shadow was wandering over home after home, new home after new home. Poldu kept calling to the nation, calling, calling — They die, they die. More men, more men I And Hampden, with many another serving his fellow- men truly in ways of peace, was notified " to join for service." Hampden did not wish to go ; it had once been hard for him not to go, hard to resist the infection of the obvious self-sacrifice. He had his special work to do and his special responsibility to himself and God. All priests were exempted, it is true, but not lay priests, and many a layman was doing ministrative and priestly work of a more powerful and necessary kind than those in the cloth.
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Hampden was left free at first, but now once more came the yellow form with its blunt notice to serve. He received the message calmly, but went about his daily life during the month of respite teaching, touching, looking on. It was his time of greatest activity. England had most need of him.
Under the cover of State-infused cheerfulness there was great gloom and depression in Britain, the spirit of death gnawing at the vitals of the nation ; a pessimism, not as regarded the issue of the War, but as regarded the after-life, life as a whole ; a consciousness that the beautiful had been broken and spoiled and never could be recovered ; a sense of devastation and calamity ; the know- ledge that what was broken off when the War began cannot be resumed when it is over.
Good old days of equipoise and hope, of cricket and sport, of innocence and ease, where are ye gone ? Where is no matter, but gone they are. Hampden's old friend Mildmay was reported dead, and despite his faith the news came cold on Hampden's heart. Frank Mildmay was of the sort who cannot ever die ; he had a laugh and a bearing that suggested immunity from fate. He enlisted in the first week of the War, soon went out to Belgium, was in almost every exploit of note, and never wounded. He never came to ;< Blighty " for his leave, for mother and father were dead, and he preferred to give the time to some dear friends in France ; and he always felt the War would be over soon. If the War had been conducted vigorously, it
xxxv LIFE AND DEATH 357
might have been over before this moment when the dead armies, rivalling the living in number and splendour, snatched him and added him to themselves. Hampden was asked to visit his flat in Knightsbridge and see what ought to be done with his books and papers and effects. The flat had been left ; no provision had been made to keep it clean ; dust had been settling there for the whole period of the War. On the blotting- pad you could make out the impression of Mild may's last letter before he joined. News- papers of the 3ist July and the 2nd and jrd of August were on the floor. There was a tennis- racket on the table. The bed was not made, but left as Frank had last jumped out of it. On the wall the portrait of the boy's mother looked pathetically down. Hampden sadly picked up the letters that had lain unforwarded, broke the seals and read them. One was from the Middle- stones, old friends of Mildmay's — the old lady had died. The War had proved too much for her. At the outset she had been planning a beautiful tour in the south, but had put it off till " after the War." There was a letter from a man who had had great plans for building, but had given up all and gone as a soldier ; a letter from a woman who was married on 3 ist July and went to Germany for her honeymoon, and had come back leaving her husband behind interned ; a letter from a good old English tramp who had now lost both legs, and a fast bowler who had lost his right arm ; letters also of less bodeful contents, but all shadowed by the War.
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In the wastepaper basket lay a crumpled sheet of paper ; Hampden picked it up and smoothed it out again and read. It was a half-finished poem in Mildmay's own writing, the last thing he had done before the great event and the great call. Hampden acknowledged the letters and sent notice of death, and then put the unfinished poem in his breast-pocket and went away.
Next week he visited another man who had also enlisted in the first week of the War, Macleod, now discharged and returned to civil life as a result of wounds and nervous shock. He had been of the unlucky sort, and had been wounded several times and robbed on the way to the base, been frost-bitten, had trench fever, and had had shell-shock. Medical boards had been consider- ing him solemnly for a long time, and had at last decided that though he had all his limbs and presented a good appearance, his whole vital energy had been sapped and he could be no more use to the Army ; he was accordingly re- turned to civil life. He had just been discharged when Hampden came to him ; his stained khaki tunic hung on the wall, and he had put on once more the wan clothes which he had put aside in the first August of the War. For him the War was over and the peace had come. He was restored to Nature and the world to carry on as if war had not been.
It is not possible to describe the gloom of this man, his utter dejection, his wordlessness. A fine figure of a man, but all shrunken from his clothes, which now hung on him, he sat
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huddled in a chair, his face lined, his eyes in a nest of wrinkles. He looked worse than he was, and Raemaker might have used him in one of his ragged cartoons as a figure of Europe con- fronting peace.
* This world may be a fine place for our children, but it'll never be anything for us again," said he to Hampden. ' That's all gone, the poetry of it, interest of it — there's a certain amount of health at the Front where men are dying every minute. But all is rotten here. All lies in ruins. It's all one great Belgium. London is nothing but Ypres, though the buildings are standing. Would that I had been killed ! Why didn't they put me out of it at the hospital ? "
Hampden tried to comfort him. ' You must rest now a long while," said he ; ' go to the country." ..." Oh, curse the country " . . . 14 Go to the country and just exist for a while and don't read the papers. Live with the beautiful things and in the silences." . . . " No, no, I cant, I must stay here and read the horrible news all the while" . . . "But you are unwell, not normal, you can even get happiness and forget." ... " / can never forget" . . . :< Oh yes, you can, my dear boy, but seek to get well first. Then your own body will forgive you all that you have done to it for your country's sake. Believe me, the death and desolation all around is not final. There will be an Easter morning full of miracle and sunrise. You have a pledge of it. Do you not possess me, your friend who wishes you Life, who has Life to give ?
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Whilst you have been fighting so hardly I have been watching, and I have seen the promise of the new time, the silver fringe of the blackest hour. A new life, a better life, is coming."
" No, no," said Macleod, " I shall finish with the revolver -shot, mark my words. It is too much to face, and I have lost hope utterly."
A fancy lit up Hampden's sad soul. He picked up Macleod 's revolver. :< Suppose that you are about to do it now, to kill yourself," said he. " Life is not worth while, therefore be rid of it — that is your argument, is it not ? "
" Yes, exactly."
' Very well. Suppose I am a fairy. If there is anything you would like changed, apply to me. I will give you various powers. You shall have the power to change other metals into gold. Does that make any difference ? "
;< None whatever ; I don't want gold."
* Very well, I will add more. I will give you power to become invisible, and to go wherever you will and visit whom you will as quick as thought."
Hampden stood staring at Macleod, and the weary soldier looked up at him almost too tired even to think. * That would be curious," said he ; " I'd go back to the Front at once and see how things were going. I'd go to Germany. But I'd get tired of it, you know, more tired than I am now."
" Well, then, the fairy adds a third gift. You shall be renewed in life and strength and regain your youth, and from to-day never grow older unless you will. ..."
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Macleod smiled, and for a moment seemed to forget himself.
;< Oh, Hampden, what a tempter you are," said he. * You know you can't give me these sweet things."
" Oh, I can," said Hampden. :< If you want that eternal youth and that gift of imagination and that power to find spiritual gold in this wretched world, you can. You can have them I will help you to them."
" All right, old boy," said Macleod, " I do believe you. What you say seems nonsense, but you are the first glimpse of anything decent I've had since I returned to mufti. There, see the sun peeping in from among the walls and chimney-pots, that one sun ray. Still, how desolate it all is, Hampden, my old friend ! My girl still loves me, but I can't ask her to marry such a hopeless wreck as I am. I've no body, no soul, and no business. I could only share with her my despair. My father is in France. He shammed that he was only thirty-eight instead of forty-eight. My mother, as you may guess, is half dead with nervous prostration, quite grey and going rapidly deaf. Our little place is mortgaged to pay taxes, the business has been wound up. Curse it, but it's dull."
Hampden felt in his breast-pocket for Mild- may's half-finished poem and handed it to Macleod. " That is for you to continue," said he. " It was left on a broken line on the 2nd of August 1914, and the man who was writing it is just dead." And he told him the story of
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Mildmay's death, the lucky boy from whom bullets seemed diverted.
" You and yours must go on with the poem," said he. " I also have to go to the War now."
" No, no," cried Macleod starting up. " Not another for that great hell. You must not go "
He looked at Hampden with great animation and anger, and then, after a moment, with a love that left the two friends in one another's arms.
* We will try and carry on, somehow," said Macleod.
CH-.XXXVI fil DEATH
OF TREVOR.
oyeur fcith. bt it unto you .
HARD upon the news of Mildmay's death came that of the death of Trevor — death-news pelting like hail. But occasionally news was false news, and soon after the intelligence of the death of Trevor came a denial and acknowledgment of error. He was not dead, but seriously wounded. All who had known Charlie Trevor mourned at the news that he was dead. It was added gloom to those who knew him at the Foreign Office, and anguish to those near him. Hampden wavered visibly hearing it. It was as if his friends were dropping one by one around him. Suppose the War goes on, and practically every one is taken and our whole people cut up in large vital sections and destroyed, what use to go on living here when every one had passed over to the other side. Perhaps Hampden's true mission was rather with those who had died. What would have happened in Jerusalem if Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, and Philip and the rest had been conscripted by Cassar and sent to
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fight for Rome to save it from the hordes of barbarians, and one by one they had died ? Would not Jesus also have been taken ? Hamp- den read in Poldu's papers : There is only one true way just now in which a man can serve his country and humanity ', that is by shouldering the gun ; the best of other ways is second best. Would it have been the best way for a St. John, for a St. Francis, for a Tolstoy or the young Shakespeare ? Poldu would have answered through Snorgum & Co. — " It might not be possible to answer for these, but it certainly was the best way for your friend Trevor, and now he is a hero and shares in the immortality of Britain's glory. What could he have achieved in the Foreign Office to compare with that?"
Trevor's people had ordered black-edged paper, gone into mourning, and sent out many notices of the hero's death before they learned he was not really dead. Many people shed tears and wore black for the hero, not knowing that the sepulchre was empty.
Trevor had been writing to Celia very fully, and then suddenly in an unexplained way the writing ceased. Owing to a recent fire in his quarters in France he had lost many treasures and much of his kit, and Celia, among others, had been posting him things to make up. She regularly sent him packets and tried not to be futile in her helping him. Trevor, for his part, realised the unexpected at the Front. He had never expected to feel so lonely, so dependent on the thoughts of those at home. He was
xxxvi DEATH OF TREVOR 365
crazy for letters from any one and every one, homesick " to a degree," and he had ceased to be the self-sufficient person of home where it was nothing to him whether friends wrote fre- quently or were silent. He ached ; he fretted ; his eyes searched space for England, searched the starry sky for Celia's face. He had learned most unwarrantably to rely on this girl. All his latent idealism had come to the fore, and through what was little more than admiration and sym- pathy, love and adoration had risen into being. In the old days he would have laughed to see such a transformation take place in another man. But now sometimes in the loneliness of the night his lips would form the words, " I want a letter from you, my darling." But she was not his darling. Even if he had loved her at first sight they had not come to that point in courtship. He would say over and over to himself her name and then pull himself up with a jerk. Her letters to him were most of them studiously matter-of- fact, and were " Dear Mr. Trevor," and " Yours truly, Celia Cosmo " — if only " Yours truly " could be taken literally ! He and his companions in khaki were most noisy and devil-may-care. Their jokes were often verging on sacred ground, especially with regard to women. But Trevor laughed and became noisier and rougher in word and way himself. He was as brave and hard as they. They did not know his passion, being possibly each occupied with his own interior struggle. He had no confidant and no one could have guessed that upon occasion he said things
366 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
to himself as apparently absurd as " Ce/ia, I will throw myself on my knees in front of you and confess now " — just as no one knew when or how often his comrade was praying, or whether, perchance, he never prayed at all.
Only after the fire which destroyed so many of his things did Celia warm a little in her tone toward him and begin to write longer letters. She, for her part, had long since felt it might be awkward when Trevor came home. She was doing her bit in keeping up with him and writing letters. But he, poor boy, was suffering so much that he allowed himself to be a little foolish. She hoped that when he came back he would be more manly. People were much more sensible in real life than they were in their letters. Was he in love with her ? If so, he was not orthodox in his ways. Perhaps he was taken that way with women. Anyhow, she could not return any affection — that was all to be reserved for Hampden. Washington King she had banished from her mind, whilst he, poor wight, was engrossed in buying more material treasures. Hampden, it is true, was said to be in love with some one else. But he loved her also, and he was a man she could respect. She was not sure that Trevor was a man whom she could altogether respect. He was a little boy who needed mothering, that was clear. He needed tenderness, a certain sort of tenderness that expressed itself in socks and scarves. She felt she ought perhaps to write a kind word now and then asking him to take care of himself if
xxxvi DEATH OF TREVOR 367
only for his friends' sake. And then came the fire, the wet, the mud, the great offensive, the impressions of maddening artillery, the many dead, the torments of the wounded, the ter- rifying casualty lists, and the thought — " Who knows, perhaps the poor boy may even now, whilst I think so condescendingly of him, be lying dead on the battlefield."
At such thoughts Celia's soul would be stilled. She would feel that Trevor was somehow in her care, and that the trust was holy. She believed more in God now than in luck. Shim-Rah, the mascot, had been deposed and there was no one on the little pedestal in her bedroom where in •jest she used to pray. Possibly she put an invisible effigy of Hampden there. Shim-Rah was quite forgotten. She prayed now to God each night, and at the thought of Trevor's danger tried to remember to include him in her prayers. In her first whisperings she linked herself with Hampden before God, but often when she said Amen without bringing Trevor in, the face of the young soldier would come up half-reproachfully before her soul and she would be forced to add a separate prayer : "O Lor d, preserve Charles Trevor, be 'with him and bring him sajely home." Then later, when the anxious silence came, she thought of her soldier friend a score of times a day and put him in her prayers first, almost forgetting Hampden.
Trevor's last letter to her before he was reported dead contained some touching para- graphs which Celia read and re-read :
368 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
I dare say you think me ever so absurd, but I idealise you wildly out here, as I idealise everything in dear old " Blighty." I shall weep with emotion next time I go down Whitehall. And in front of you, when I see you again, I shall fall down on my knees. But prosaic old Whitehall is not worth my tears, and you will not want my adoration. Still, it is so. And I'm almost capable of saying, instead of " Our Father, which art in heaven," " My Celia, who is in York, hallowed be thy name." That sounds blasphemous, does it not ? But it's just the same. I'm not afraid of the thought. You have become utterly beautiful to me, and if I say of you, " Hallowed be her name," it is a newer and more beautiful way of saying the other. God can only be found through the beautiful and after suffering. I never knew who God was till I came out here. I never yearned for the beautiful, or cared till now.
And then Celia learned of Trevor's death. At the news she collapsed, fell limp as if dead ; her whole being was anguished, she went to her room and shut herself up and wept.
" Oh that he were alive,'* she whispered, " oh that he had not gone out in this attack ! "
In her soul was but one elementary thought : He has been : he now is not. He was so strong and young and handsome : now he is a dead body. He existed : now he is non-existent. I shall never see him again. Will he never come again ? — no, he will never come again. And she had thought to be hard with him and keep him in his place when he came back. But he was not destined to be spurned by her, he was destined to be killed. She knelt and wept, and wept again.
xxxvi DEATH OF TREVOR 369
She had had him in her keeping. She had not cared sufficiently, and so had lost him, had rated herself too high, had not even been proud of having some one among the bright heroes. But what was she, oh what was she to put herself in the balance ?
For grief she could not pray. What was there to pray for ? Herself ? In her anguish she put herself upon the altar and let herself suffer, hour after hour, an eternity in a day.
Late in the night the thought occurred to her : What of Hampden ? She was about to banish him from her mind and soul, when suddenly, as it were, her whole dark room filled with light ; she rose from her bed weakly and stared. Out of the light the thought of Hampden came back to her with astonishing brightness. Celia dried her eyes, got up from her bed of grief, and, as it were, obediently knelt at the side of her bed.
" Grant, O Lord," she whispered, " that he may be restored to me, that poor Celia may have another chance."
And several other thoughts she prayed, and the anguish was past. Then she returned to bed and found peace and slept.
Next morning she unlocked her door and rejoined her perplexed mother, who asked in vain what had been the matter. Old Cosmo at break- fast put down his morning paper and kissed his daughter. As he did so Celia's downcast eyes lighted on the casualty lists of the day, and she suddenly wrenched herself from her father's arms.
2 B
370 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xxxvi
For half-way down the page she had seen the following notice :
10909, Trevor, previously reported killed, now reported seriously wounded.
A week later she found him personally in the Manchester Second General Hospital.
CHAPTER
xyxvii. TAKEN.
HAMPDEN was taken. But he kept it a secret that he had to go, and in the whirl of his activities during his month of respite no one could have guessed that shortly he would be lifted up out of the hurly-burly into the serener atmosphere of France.
He was suddenly a great success. Perhaps because he tried to put a whole life in one month and reap at once the overflowing harvest of his spirit, or because he had accepted Fate, the splendour of life blazed up as never before. The false rumour went abroad that he worked miracles, and then the true rumour that he did work miracles. The socially idle buzzed about him and over him ; the spiritually thirsty lifted up their mouths to him. He was sought as never before. Hampden was a force in the land ; he touched with his divining rod unlikely places and found long-hidden treasures, touched the dark rocks of our barren life and the living water gushed forth. He stood for personal
372 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
religion. Others before him, and with him, were workers in the great vineyard, but their chief idea was organisation, political propaganda to obtain parliamentary action, the stimulation of discontent or of political conscience, but he spoke direct to the heart. Even his followers wanted to organise, advertise, have Hampden summer schools or start Hampden churches. Like the Apostles who witnessed the true brightness of Christ, they cried, " Master, it is good for us to be here, let us build three tabernacles," when all that was necessary was to give praise and then go down the hill and personally cast out devils. Christ has been to us merely Christianity as the human being has been merely humanity. Hamp- den reminded that it was necessary to get back to Christ and the human being. There is too much organisation. We are suffering from it grievously. Thousands are working for peace, for European peace, for universal peace, for ever- lasting peace — but not for peace in a human heart, not for the rule ,of love in individual -human lives. We wish parliamentary powers to close all public-houses and remove all tempta- tions, not strength on the part of individuals to resist temptations. We want the State to be father and mother to the slum children, and feed them and clothe them and teach them. In all these and like things we show ourselves lacking in faith and vision.
Because he said these things, Hampden was attacked by the people who put political con- science higher than religious impulse, by those who
xxxvii HAMPDEN TAKEN 373
could call themselves progressives, by those who live in garden settlements and wear hygienic clothing and avoid germs (" Let them go and live among the slums if they truly love the people who dwell there," Hampden used to say). He was attacked by Jews because he did everything in the name of Christ, and the Jews were feeling that Christ was being forgotten and Judaic rationalism taking its place. He was attacked by those who thought him too serious and unworldly and lacking in a sense of humour ! Homunculus stood up in a public meeting and heckled him and tried to get a laugh at his expense. Fritz Golstein, the celebrated Russian, put jokes at his expense in his musical comedy patter. All these things and many others conspired to make Hampden's last month in London very strenuous. What an opposition there still is to the Gospel of Christ ! — and a stupid, unseeing, unintelligent opposition ! Malice also ? Perhaps.
;< Obey the impulse when it comes," said Hampden, " and give up everything that stands in the way of complete service of the ideal, that is, of Christ. There are positions of strategic im- portance in life. You can lighten your task by seizing these positions. Put yourself in the way of the Master. Commit yourself to the disciple- ship of Christ. Out of rationalism, the ordinary reasonableness of law-making and politics, comes no spiritual fruit. That is simply Judaic ; it was good in its day, but it is an anachronism now. They tell you Christ was a Jew ; that is not true, He was the first Christian. Judaism had
374 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
become unserviceable nineteen hundred years ago. Christ was the first Christian ; now each and any one of us by grace may become a Christ and live not by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
" Not for me," you say, " I'm a damaged bit of goods. I've always been stupid."
" Christ was the stone that the builders rejected. He was stupid enough from the devil's point of view."
For one reviler of Hampden there were ten listeners, and the bread which he transmitted them was multiplied to feed thousands.
" I want to bring you to hear an unusual speaker," said a disciple to one who had not heard. " He is a sort of revolutionary in the domain of the soul, but the exact opposite of a nihilist. You remember Bazarof the nihilist in Turgenief's great novel ? Whatever he put his hand to he failed in, till at last he blood-poisoned himself with his own lancet. But whatever this man says or attempts he seems to succeed in a spiritual way. He also is a critic of the conven- tional and the accepted, but with this difference : that he re-consecrates and creates whereas Bazarof desecrates or annihilates. He is a minister and a teacher. People come to him and he hands them the bread, not his bread, but that which comes to him to hand on."
A young man came up to Hampden one day and asked : " What is your sect ? "
:< I am not much interested in sects as such," said Hampden, " I am an imitator of Jesus."
xxxvn HAMPDEN TAKEN 375
" You mean you are a Christian ? "
" Yes."
" I am a Buddhist."
:< Oh," said Hampden, with an engaging smile.
' Yes. I've tried all systems, and Buddhism suits me best."
' You speak as if you were comparing makes of bicycles," said Hampden. " Couldn't you invent a religion for yourself, something abso- lutely new, not an old thing like Buddhism ? "
' Would you advise me to ? "
* Why, yes, certainly I would, trust your heart and think it out for yourself, and when you've found it strive to be true to it."
' But wouldn't you rather 1 accepted the system of Christianity ? You're a Christian your- self."
:< If you find your own religious ideals and are guided to follow them by a loving heart, that is Christianity. Christ brought no system into the world — He came partly to release us from systems."
The young man paused a moment, and then looked up at the teacher and said :
" But, master, should I not go wrong ? I am one of the least of mortals, how could I invent Christianity ? "
Then Hampden answered him : " Even in the least of us there is boundless power, and even in the darkest there is the most inscrutable and unearthly loveliness discoverable. Our whole aspiration comes from a sense of power, and our
376 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
melancholy and yearning from a consciousness of hidden beauty in the soul, from a sense also of imprisonment. It would not be worth while your having a religion at all if the religion were not actually you"
Although Hampden tried to avoid having collections at his meetings, there was nearly always some collection for a " charitable object " or " to clear expenses " and as was almost in- evitable, there were some who said he was making " a good thing " out of preaching the gospel of idealism. It is true he never wanted for money. At one meeting where questions were asked some one defiantly got up and asked him what his income was. Hampden smiled. :< I do not know," he replied, " it varies. I get my daily bread, thanks to Him who gives it."
:< Can I earn my daily bread and keep a wife and family and serve Christ at the same time ? " some one asked.
" Serve Christ first," said Hampden.
Another said :
!C I'm at the beginning of life and working in an office, doing work which has no interest for me and promises no life. I want to break away and live according to heart's desire. Do you think I would be justified in ruining what seems likely to be a profitable career ? "
:< Give up everything, no matter at whatever cost to you materially or to the firm or Govern- ment employing you, or to those depending on you for money. No one has a right to depend
xxxvii HAMPDEN TAKEN 377
on you for money. God did not make you or any one that you might support others with money. Get true life at any cost. You will then be in a position to give spiritual life to those near you. It may wreck your body to give up, put you into shabby clothes, bring on you persecution, obtain for you the evil opinion of the world, but these things will be as nothing beside your true felicity."
' But I do not want to make myself happy at the expense of other people," said the young man dully.
And whether he took courage and made a bid for life or took consolation in not injuring any other interest in a material way is not known. But many were angered or affected to be angered against the priest for this advice. • There sprung up such a pother and a turmoil. The inter- nationalists denounced him, the pacificists picked a quarrel with him, the suffragists said he was a mere man, the clubmen said he was a woman, the pamphleteers put their pens in gall and furiously asked : " Who is this man who is doing such harm to all the blessed causes, exhibiting an almost German energy on the wrong side, writing articles, answering letters, making speeches, stir- ring up crowds of men, giving scandalous advice to young men, pouring the darkness of religiosity into the bright common sense of our political intelligence, claiming to work miracles, bolstering up the Church of England, intensifying the worship of the tribal god and begetting sympathy for curates, dragging damaged idols out of
378 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL xxxvii
decent obscurity and setting them up in our market-place again, refurbishing the miserable face of Christ, prating of the water of life and spiritual gold, this tempter, this Tolstoyan, this Nietzschean, this dropper of sparks in powder factories, this anti-Semite, this anti-Christian and heretic, this blasphemer, this muddlehead, this charlatan, this ignoramus — Anathema, anathema. What are prisons for ? What is the Defence of the Realm Act for ? Why do the people talk about him ? Why is there not a conspiracy of silence regarding him, a conspiracy of all decent men against him ? "
It was in the midst of all this hubbub that Hampden's month went out, and he reported himself quietly for service, and without any one knowing where he had gone he disappeared from London.
otmvni j|k ^. AMD
JH£
ELV5IVE
MEANWHILE Washington King lapsed into ob- scurity and was forgotten. Press sensations of varying kinds followed so rapidly and people lived so much in the present that the man in the street could not ever tell you what was the chief interest of the preceding week or even of the preceding half-week. So King was not taken to the Tower ; he retired to the country for a fortnight to let the storm blow past, and when next he returned to London people stared at him, and he was as much a stranger as Rip van Winkle when the latter returned from his hundred years' sleep. He tried to visit Poldu ; Poldu was always out. He called on Lady Daniel, but the house had now been converted into a hospital. Even his ambassador stared at him, and asked, " Why, where have you been ? "
He was no longer a lion, but Time, that sorcerer, had changed him into a mouse. All was quietude about him, and he crept to and fro and nibbled.
379
380 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
Yes he had certainly missed the big thing.
There were for him no state facilities for purchase ; nothing was left but to do what he could privately. He recognised that he had failed, that his greater dreams were shattered. The treasure he had been able to send to America had already caused quarrelling there, and, far from saving the nation, showed a tendency to corrupt its manners. He received warning letters from his fellow-countrywomen : " Don't collect, collecting is the curse of this country ; it's not worth while unless you can pull off the big thing" ; and another wrote : " It's not so much obvious mementoes of England that we want over here as the elusive something"
King cursed the big things and the elusive somethings under his breath. " They do not know how difficult it is for me to make good on this quest," said he.
He wrote a long apologetic letter to Hampden and offered to renew companionship. But Hampden, in the waning moon of his short month, saw no practical value in wandering with King any more. So he summarised his opinion of King's quest in a letter :
You know my true object in showing you England was to make it clear that there was nothing here which you could say we had truly outlived and therefore ought to sell or give away, nothing in any case that you required. But you lost patience and rushed to Poldu. Poldu is not an idealist and he is a business man, but he is also in his bluff way patriotic, and shrewder than most people imagine. By the boom
xxxvm THE ELUSIVE SOMETHING 381
which he gave you he ruined your chances, and I am glad. You ought to confess your failure now and go home and write a strong book on the living religion and faith of the British people. In staying on, you are doing a second-rate thing. If you want the spiritual background of England for the United States you must be prepared to fight for the same ideals. You must love the living word of our poetry not the original manuscript, the spirit of our Christianity not the tombstones of it. Your quest to give America spiritual treasure obtained from our source is not impossible. It is even easier than doing the second- rate thing — with grace.
Still Washington King was obstinate. And although he recognised that he could not now persuade the Office of Works to disgorge any- thing large, he did do a capital business with private persons in Great Britain. He bought much that keener people of England, and above all the absent soldiers, would have been sorry to part with had they known that the transactions were going on. But they were too busy with war to have eyes for other things. King rubbed his hands joyfully over illuminated Gospels, and old fireplaces, and ripped panelling, and farm- houses, and historic chairs and beds and tapestries, bits of masonry and ruined effigies. These were consigned to " God's own country, " as he put it, and ten tons of spiritual treasure were sunk by German submarines alone.
In his comparative leisure he began to write to Celia again and made a definite proposal that she should become his wife. Celia coldly and formally refused. But on the same morning he
382 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
received another letter agreeing to the sale of a contemporary portrait of Queen Elizabeth. He hadn't " brought it off " with Celia, but after all he might have been very unhappy with her in America; she wouldn't mix well with American society, and her type of beauty, though truly and delightfully English, did not quite correspond to the American ideal. " I had better get me a good American wife," said he, and it was evident he was not very hard hit.
A certain Hebrew sold King a crown which he claimed had been fished up out of the Wash. Experts said it was counterfeit, but King held that it was the real thing at last.
He made a tour of our churches and chapels, listened to sermons, and was eventually successful in persuading five clever and eloquent preachers to give up their call to serve England and re- cognise the call to serve America. King failed to get a cathedral to take over, but though he missed the big thing he did get this good handful of congregational ministers. It will thus be seen that King's second best was often really vital loss to England, and a pity.
He booked a passage on the largest and swiftest of American boats, the Bird of Freedom, and consigned the ministers and other treasures to New York. A brass band played the passengers off at Liverpool :
Hurrah, hurrah, we bring the jubilee,
All hail the flag, the flag that sets you free,
and various other citizens of the United States waved the Stars and Stripes.
xxxvm THE ELUSIVE SOMETHING 383
This did not avail the passengers, however, for the Black Eagle, that does not recognise freedom, tore the big Bird to pieces in mid -ocean, and many more tons of spiritual treasure were sunk by submarine.
King, however, had missed the boat.
The Bird of Freedom had flitted twenty-four hours earlier than advertised, the company rather priding itself on fooling spies and dodging pirates.
King almost raved in the offices in Liverpool when he heard that the boat had gone a day earlier. * This is the most cursed dog-gone piece of ill-luck since this job of mine went wrong," said he.
" You've missed the big boat," said the agent. :< Never mind, take the second best. Let us book you a berth on the Sufferance and we'll refund you the difference. You'll be more comfortable in the Sufferance, for the Bird of Freedom doesn't run as well as she did."
When two days later King heard at his hotel that the Bird of Freedom had gone down, he fell on his knees and tears gushed from his eyes.
" Oh, mother," he cried somewhat irrelev- antly through his sobs, " mother, mother."
But his tearful joy gave way to wrath as he realised the menace not so much to himself as to the American citizen in general. * That's fixed it," he cried, and he started to his feet and thumped his writing-desk with his hand. ;< It's not the sleepy old British Lion that stands in the way of getting this spiritual treasure. It's come
384 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL xxxvin
home to me now. It's the Hun ! Now we must throw our weight on the heavier side and stop this foolery once for all. If Wilson won't move, at least I will."
And as it was the great time of subscribing War Loan, he wrote to Poldu :
SIR — I am putting a million into British War Loan, and call on all Americans who love freedom to follow my example. My next step will be to enlist in a Canadian regiment and fight for the common cause. If my country doesn't follow suit, I'll follow the example of Henry James ;
to which Poldu replied : ' ' Bravo ! all my papers shall print what you say. My heartiest con- gratulations. I could not think of a better way of furthering the matter which you have at heart."
Then Poldu received him again, and since paper was so scarce he gladly and generously bought back the unused advertisement space which King had left. Ship after ship went down — scores of ships. America was forced into the war and then gladly accepted by us as a brother in arms. King carried all his thoughts and emotions into St. Paul's to the great service of consecration, and with that real generous en- thusiasm which is so bright a quality of his countrymen, he gave up his material quest for an ideal one, crying — " All I have is England's, I will take nothing from her : she is suffering not for herself but for us all."
CHAPTER /f IIS THE
HOSPITAL
DAY DAWNS ON YPRES ON THE YPRE5 OF THE HEART.
TREVOR lay in bed in hospital in a bright ward with many other men ; and various visitors came and sat at his bedside and asked him questions about himself and the War — whereabouts had he been serving? was he wounded in a grand offensive or by a stray shell ? what did it feel like to be constantly in danger ? and so forth.
" Do they want peace out there ? " asked one. * What do the troops feel about things, are they angry that we talk about peace here at home ? "
Trevor smiled ironically.
His neighbour in the next bed answered :
" Some of those who don't want peace ought to be sent out to see what it's like."
" Every one looks forward desperately to the day of peace," said Trevor.
" You don't find war poetical ? " asked another visitor.
" Yes," said Trevor, " there is poetry in it, because men are facing death and attempting the impossible all the time. It's been a great
385 2 c
3 86 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
adventure for all the stay-at-home sort of English- men."
" You find it romantic, then ? "
" No, not in the least. It is mostly very ugly, and if it were not for the cheeriness of the soldiers there would be nothing to be said in its favour. It is all a matter of machinery. Many men joined to get away from modern civilisation and get a breeze into their life, and these men are mostly dead or very sick of it now. You see the War has become merely a development of modern industry. The progress of the War so far has been chiefly the substitution of guns for men."
* But surely that is an improvement. It makes it possible to have many less men in the firing-line."
!< No, for you see," said Trevor, " it offers less scope for the individual. It makes the War deader and duller and more like the factory life at home. Less and less must any one think for himself ; less and less does a man understand what is going on, what is the general plan, what is coming next, who is winning, or even where he is. Sections of the enemy's territory are sub- jected to a certain industrial treatment, and thoroughly pulverised by the blasting machinery."
" What is that ? "
* The artillery, I mean. When a section is considered to be thoroughly broken up, you rush in with hand-tools, finish the work, and then consolidate and take over. That is the new way of fighting. The sole personal interest which for most is a terrible one, is the little rush forward,
xxxix IN THE HOSPITAL 387
but the rest, the waiting, the digging, the pulver- ising, is deadening, soul-racking, degrading."
* War is unpopular, then ? "
" Yes," said Trevor. " It's a dirty job ; almost all the old glamour has gone. Even the soldier type, the man who has been brought up to the fighting idea, says, ' Never again — not in this way at least.' The men have wakened up to the sad reality. There are more discontented souls now than there were in the old peace days."
;< Do you think that after the War the soldiers are coming back with opinions of their own about life ? "
' Yes," said Trevor, " they're coming home with a new set of opinions made by what they have gone through and by the new social inter- course, not the opinions made by the news- papers. The public will make heroes of the Army when it returns, but the individual soldiers will not care for this popularity, unless they get freedom to live a fuller life. They don't want to be put upon and thrust back into the factories. They want a fuller and more real life. At present each man says to himself : ' Who knows, I may be killed or crippled for life ; I won't say anything about what I'm going to do in the peace time coming.' He is almost superstitious about en- dangering his luck. But once it is over and he has actually survived he will ask : ' What was my life saved for ? Why was I protected through all these dangers, why miraculously preserved ? Not to go back to the mean, dirty, sordid England of the time before the War.' "
388 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
" But they know that the men of the old gang at home are waiting their return, and that directly the psychological moment has come they will fall on the heroes right and left and bludgeon them into the old ruts and the old ways. The soldiers know a harder struggle is coming, a more difficult war than even this with the Germans."
' They'll want a freer life, that's certain," said one visitor.
' There ought to be grants of land for them in the colonies," said another.
' There ought to be a decent opportunity to lead a decent life," said Trevor's companion from the next bed.
A third patient who had been listening intently but not saying a word, turned in his bed and groaned.
* They don't want to be exported wholesale to the colonies," said the first visitor. ' That would be a poor reward for all they've gone through."
1 They want the opportunity to go to the colonies if they feel like it," said Trevor. " They don't want to see written in huge letters in Trafalgar Square —
'YOU HAVE A DUTY IN PEACE AS GREAT AS YOU HAD IN WAR.'"
;< But they have a duty to perform in peace," said the second visitor. ;< Every one will have to put his hand to the mill to help pay off the interest on the national debt."
" If so, we shall go to some country that has
xxxix IN THE HOSPITAL 389
not got a national debt," said the second soldier patient. ;< It is not fair. The man at home has given his money ; the soldier has given his legs, or his eyesight, or his life, or his health — we want to be free."
" Every one wants freedom," said Trevor, with a sickly smile, for pain was surging through his limbs. He paused, and then went on : " Freedom to think, to stop and choose what next, not to be hustled and pushed and put upon. Lots of them are getting married or are just married — they don't want to live the life their fathers and mothers lived."
" They know they'll have to, though," said the second soldier. " There's a potty back room in a Bow tenement waiting for the hero and his Liza, a sweated job and politics instead of life. Low wages, food dear, no sport except to watch West Ham or the Plaistow Rangers, no fresh air. Yes, they want that now, and blue sky. They've tasted it in France."
" And they ought to have it," said both visitors.
" But won't get it," said both soldiers.
Then a ward-nurse who was passing, asked : " Is it so gloomy ? " And at that point, as if smiling upon their pessimism, the sun cast long rays through the grey Manchester clouds and the windows of the great high hospital. The ward door opened and in came Celia, all in white, and bringing a bunch of flowers in her hands. The other visitors moved away.
390 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. xxxix
Trevor's face lighted up, and it was clear he at least looked forward to a- more wonderful, more beautiful adventure when the War was over. The War had given him Psyche. He went for- ward with her. And, despite the talk, many a soldier was in Trevor's case.
LAST
CONVER- -SATIONS.
A LITTLE WHILE AND YE SHALL NOT SEE ^E. AND AGAIN A LITTLE WHILE-
HAMPDEN drilled his short season on Salisbury Plain and then was hastened to France. He was not in a very smart draft of men ; it was com- posed of some of the last men taken from home life in England. They were most of them " indispensables " and had larger stakes and more national value than those who had been swept into the Army earlier. Here were teachers, professors, investigators, inspectors, adminis- trators, managers of large businesses, artists. The most irregular man in Hampden's platoon was a poet of no mean gift. The sergeant who bade him get his hair cut was a plumber.
;< Do you know who we are ? " asked the poet of Hampden. * We are the Samurai, the leaders who had such a good time in Wells's Modern Utopia."
" The aristocracy of talent," said Hampden, with a smile.
As these men marched along they thought, and there was a fine reflective look on their faces.
391
392 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
Some wore spectacles and had spent the best part of their life looking through microscopes and using fine knives. Others had the wrinkled brows of the bookworm and recluse ; others the head on one side, the cogitative bent of the writer. Their manners were perfect ; they never cheeked the sergeant. But last year's veterans grinned on them with a knowing air.
Hampden was lost to London but he was gained to the Army. And at the time England was perhaps more in the Army than she was in London. The priest of the ideal continued his ministry and found good soil for the Word. New friends came out of the company of entire strangers and remained close to him ; all manner of men of all types came to him to converse on spiritual matters, and he was seldom alone — a contrast to the pitiful figure of the Army chaplain, who stood lonely and frigid in the letter of the liturgy and the discipline of parade. It is fair to say that the chaplain's predecessor had been a certain Brother Charles who had tried to break down tradition and be a living priest. One Sunday morning Brother Charles dropped on his knees beside a bush and prayed publicly, to the astonishment of passing soldiers. He then went to the troops assembled for Church parade and addressed them thus :
" Men, I am about to dismiss you. I have long felt that the worship of God ought not to be constrained upon you by force. Such worship is not acceptable to God. But if any of you are really moved to worship this Sunday morn, will
XL LAST CONVERSATIONS 393
you please come to the back of yonder barrack and I will hold a service there. Understand yourselves as dismissed."
Whereupon the men melted away — to play football or cards, or write letters — and not one man turned up to Brother Charles's informal service. After this the Colonel insisted that Brother Charles be removed and a more sensible " padre " brought in. Then came the pallid and rigid Rev. Immanuel Forsythe.
The true chaplain, however, was in the midst of the men, and one of themselves. You can generally find them in most regiments in the Army — the unofficial chaplains, the men with most spiritual influence, and Hampden was a chaplain of this kind.
Hampden had regular talks with his new- found companions. On Sunday mornings there was always a good gathering about him. The new recruits were not the card-playing sort of men who through aberration of intelligence seize every leisure moment to kill it, and they had too much marching and digging to be keen on football. Their interest was in ideas, and now specially in the sort of religious ideas which Hampden was putting forth. Some of the officers observed this, and exclaimed somewhat wrathfully, ' They seem a deal more interested in this wretched private with the gift of the gab than they are in the ultimate business of preparing to kill Germans" — a perfectly just observation, though it led to Hampden being numbered in the first convenient draft sent across
394 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
the sea to make good numerically the great losses in our forces.
On the last Sunday before he went away Hampden took farewell of those whom he had found on Salisbury Plain. His words fell into the depths of some hearts and were preserved — to be carried forward into the new era when the War should be over. The last entries of debit and credit having been entered, something makes the balance, and that something is carried forward to the new era and the new account. Perhaps this last conversation was the literal balance of Hampden's life, though spiritual book-keeping is not to be made out by men.
Said Hampden : If Christ were taking leave of us to-day, what would He say ? How would St. John xiv., xv., xvi., xvii. appear in our new gospels ? The old words made us friends : " Henceforth I call you not servants but I have called you friends," said the Master. You know what I have held. We can be more intimate with God than of yore ; the separation, the no-man's-land between us is of our own making.
We can be Christs. We can be sons of God. It sounds strange in your ears if I say, " Do not think of your brother as of a Christian, think of him potentially as of a Christ."
The first Christians did not call themselves followers of Christ, but imitators. They were not merely partisans, but each man tried to live out in himself the life of Christ ; that is why they had such power. Our Christianity has
XL LAST CONVERSATIONS 395
little power ; it is weak because it has become lip-service and partisanship and vulgar acclama- tion. Only what is in the heart has power. That which is on the lips is often nought but wind.
My farewell word is that our religion should be one of power, that we should take the power that comes from the friendship of Christ and with it cure our moral helplessness. We become born again as the evangelicals insist. And the second personality we obtain should have the spiritual power which Christ had. Being born again is being born miraculously, of the Virgin, and after it you henceforward go forth upon your way as a Christ-child.
What Christ did, you can do ; as He lived, you can live ; at the last, by the grace of God, as He died, you can die and be found again, transfigured, more beautiful, by those you left behind.
Those of us who will be left behind after the great destruction has done its worst, will go forth into the new world bringing our spiritual powers to the new creation. Our Credo must be a living Credo : "I believe in God the Father, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord, conceived by the Spirit of Truth, born of the Virgin, baptized in these waters, fasting in our wild places, tempted in our mountains and temples and stony places ; who finds His disciples whom He at last calls friends ; who lives miracu- lously from day to day, feeding the five thousand with bread from heaven ; who is betrayed and
396 . PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
agonises in the garden even now, everlastingly crucified under Pontius Pilate ; thought to be dead and buried, but ever rising from the dead."
It is so many years since the farewell words were given to the disciples : " In the kingdom of heaven is a place for each ; when I die your place in the kingdom will be clearer. But when it is clear I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am ye may be also.
" He that believeth in Christ, the works which I do shall he do also. If ye shall ask anything in My name I will do it. And the Father will send you the Spirit of Truth, through which Spirit you shall understand things, and where you have forgotten what would have been my thought concerning anything, through the Spirit you shall be able to divine it. And I will come to you again.
" Yet a little while and the world seeth Me no more ; but ye see Me. Because I live ye shall live also.
" Peace I leave with you ; My peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you." Not the peace of ceasing to be persecuted ; not even the peace of 1918, but Christ's peace, the peace in the heart, the peace of the individual soul rested upon God.
Following this at the last Jesus prays — not for the world, but for those men and women who were specially His, for those who would carry on the ministry when He had died : " As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. Neither pray I for these alone,
XL LAST CONVERSATIONS 397
but for those who shall receive the word from them, that all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us."
Then comes His death, and we apostles remain with this last behest and prayer.
What, then, has happened, and where do we stand ?
The friends of Jesus are not all humanity or even all Christians, but there is a small group who call themselves friends, and all manner of other groups unfriendly toward one another.
The many mansions have become the quarrel- ling, jangling sects.
Gone is the love, the meek submission to the Spirit of Truth, the great works, the peace of the heart.
We have now, as we had not then, organised Churches of Christ. Instead of the spiritual thing, the invisible Christendom, there have arisen the very visible Church of Rome, and not less visible and material smaller organisations. The churches possess enormeus material wealth, and afford scope for worldly ambition. Being an apostle has become a profession. The State, that is the world, calls itself Christian. Caesar has become visible head of the Church. It looks as though Christ was unduly pessimistic about the world which was in good time to accept Him. The truth is, however, that the world merely uses the name of Christian. It hates Christ as hardly as it did then. For there are two king- doms, the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom
398 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
of this world, and they are not at one. And the Church of to-day tends to be narrow and hard as the Jewish Church of old. Spiritual life surges about it but cannot find its way in at its doors. There are good priests serving at its altars, there are also priests who are no priests. And outside the official limits of the churches and chapels there are many who should recognise themselves as priests, who should be consecrated to that high end. These feel now that it is not their task in life. Others are standing at their places at the altar. The altar is served. Why should they modify their way of life.
Herein, dear friends, lies my message on the eve of the great reconstruction and reseeking. The visible Church stands in the way of the spiritual consciousness just as stone idols of the heathen stand in the way of the apprehension of God. The sects are all too exclusive. Christ Himself could not pass the strict examination of the Roman ; He would not perhaps be at home among the Baptists ; He would grow cold listen- ing to the way we worship Him in the Church of England. He would perchance knock at the door of some humble but loving folk, and they, when they saw Him, would say doubtfully, " But we do not go to Church," or " We do not even call ourselves Christian." But Christ would say, " Nevertheless ye belong to Me, and I to you."
The love which Christ started is wider and deeper and freer than all Churches whose limits are defined. And the Spirit of Truth, coming like a Dove, is not a bird which has been kept
XL LAST CONVERSATIONS 399
and caught. It is invisible and quick as thought, and whispers to the ear of the loving heart here, there, and everywhere at once.
The Church of Christ and all the true collect- ive expression of religion can be saved as much by those outside the official organisation of the Church as by those within. You, friends, whom I have found, are all truly in the ways of priest- hood, and some of you must be called in the new era. Poets, artists, teachers, givers out of books, journalists, inspectors — you also must be priests. Not officially priests as others are, but secretly priests. Not consecrated by bishops, but con- secrated direct by God in the secrecy of your own hearts. I would have every teacher feel he was a priest unto God, every artist and writer, every librarian and curator, every spokesman and representative of others, all those doing research, the officers in the Army. Let each be ready to hear the call, and, hearing it, obey.
But be it secret. We all serve some one, and when the decision comes to exchange the partial for the greater service there is no need to say so. Let others say, " This man must conceive himself as a sort of special servant of Christ." To pro- claim oneself is weakening : the works will speak much better for you, and at the same time preserve your young spiritual life. Simeons have been standing on pillars for centuries, and there is sufficient witness of that kind. We are living on the surface instead of living in the depths. We need the strength of the secret depths of God. So I beseech you, if you understand yourselves
400 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
as priests, do not advertise it as is the world's way. By your fruits you will be known to one another and to God.
Wear secretly if you will some token of your new allegiance, or, if you do not need that reminder, wear simply loving eyes and the conversation of Christ.
There is nothing more worth living for than the great joy of the human soul understanding gleams of its true meaning. And you will know in your hearts the prompting of God. The race, that is the great unity of all the men and women there ever were and ever will be, needs us working in our appointed places as priests of the ideal. All men are wounded and at odds to-day because of the sense of separation. Love alone can break down barriers and heal and make at one. The vision accepted gives us priesthood, and love gives us miraculous power of healing, making whole, making at one. The vision which is seen in the heart must be realised in humanity at large. We are workers to that end, priests of the ideal.
• •••••
Celia saw off her Trevor at Victoria, Vera her Hampden at Salisbury, and thousands of other women stood with their heart's chosen at other stations saying good-bye, farewell, swaying in the emotion of parting, of giving. At Dundee, at York, at Nottingham, at all towns, every night, pacing up and down the dark platforms, wives and sweethearts with the men they are letting forth from their arms to danger and
XL LAST CONVERSATIONS 401
distress, to suffering and fighting, perchance never to see again, — the solemnest moments, the deepest anguish ! Fingers are gentlest as they touch, eyes deepest, words tenderest.
Eyes, look your last !
Arms, take your last embrace ! and, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain —
" My love, my prayers go with you," says the clinging girl, the quiet, loving heart. :< Oh, I wish, I wish — if only wishes could preserve you ! Write to me often, my darling. And pray : remember I pray too. Are not two prayers a perfect strength ? Remember I hold you in my keeping, you hold me in yours too. Nothing can harm you, no real harm — even if you die. Only do not die ! Come back, my beloved, come back to me again ! I shall be waiting for you, my little room decked out for you, my poor heart waiting and watching."
Vera put into Hampden's hand a sheet of notepaper on which she had copied out the beautiful poem of Mrs. Browning :
God be with thee, my beloved, — God be with thee ! Else alone thou goest forth Thy face unto the north ;
and then :
Can I bless thee, my beloved, — can I bless thee ? What blessing word can I From mine own tears keep dry ?
2 D
4o2 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH. XL
Can I love thee, my beloved, — can I love thee ?
And is this like love, to stand
With no help in my hand, When strong as death I fain would watch above thee ?
My love-kiss can deny
No tear that falls beneath it ;
Mine oath of love can swear thee
From no ill that comes near thee,
And thou diest while I breathe it,
And I — I can but die ! May God love thee, my beloved, — may God love thee !
So the low train whistles blew and the trains rolled away outward bearing the men afield, leaving their women behind. Vera was left standing ; Celia was left, with her eyes heavy with withheld tears ; all the others also were left. And the men sailed away to the outward world to battle with their arms, whilst in England remained anxious, throbbing, waiting hearts, and faith.
CHAPTER |>T IMMORTAL-
HAMPDEN died. He participated in three great movements, but in the first great rush he was killed. He killed no German, and like many another marshalled into the ranks against his will, he never intended to kill. His personal mission was to give life, not death. We forced him to go and he went. He was killed on these fields, and men raced over his dead body after his spirit had flown to the stars. He had not been re- bellious, he dissuaded no man from the fight. The world for whom for a while he had been a joy and a shining light sacrificed him, but he had borne it no ill-will. Trevor had met him in France, and he said, " I am sorry to see you here. Just supposing you get killed ! "
" Well, that will only be what has happened to many a young man," said Hampden. ;< Hun- dreds of rare souls have been dismissed out here already. Surely you don't think that is dead loss and irreparable ? "
" But your heart, your eyes to see, your 403
404 PRIEST OF THE IDEAL CH.
message ? " asked Trevor. :< If we lose you, then you are gone. There are hundreds like me to fill my shoes. But you \ "
:< Have faith," Hampden had said with a smile.
[C I have faith all right," said Trevor, raising his brows.
' Well, there will always be some one to pick the extra words I would have said and say them ; I did not invent my message, I found it. I was chosen. When I pass the portal some one else will pick up the golden thread. You think me great ; well, I am not great, it is humanity that is great, man who is great, godlike. My face will show out in another place by and by. Christ died on the Cross, but His face is repeated in humanity. It is part of what we are all to be. Don't worry, it's all right, all right whatever happens."
His body was recovered by those who loved him and buried in the rain. Then the shells came and unburied it and buried it again. Poor helpless body ! For many days after his death his memory was gleaming in the minds of those who had known him. Hampden's eyes kept looking, his voice kept whispering, and his poor broken body appearing to the consciousness of men and women. His spirit was abroad in the. land. The same may be said of hundreds of thousands of bright spirits. Good Friday is past, Easter Day perhaps not come. But the sunrise and the strange peace cometh, and the forty days when you can realise the dead who are alive more
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intimately, when you shall fall in with them by the way. They have died, but they live. They have died, but they are alive for ever.
A letter came for Hampden after he died. It was from Brother John, asking again for the life of Christ written to show that " I and My brothers are one." Alas, Hampden never had time to write it, but he lived it. So have many. And Hampden and his brothers are one in the imperishable England, in you, in me, in all of us.
THE END
Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.
BOOKS BY STEPHEN GRAHAM
A TRAMP'S SKETCHES.
WITH THE RUSSIAN PILGRIMS TO JERU- SALEM.
WITH POOR EMIGRANTS TO AMERICA. THE WAY OF MARTHA AND THE WAY OF MARY.
PRIEST OF THE IDEAL.
In these five books published by Macmillan & Co. there will be found a sequence of religious expression. The study of the Priest of the Ideal follows directly from The Way of Martlia and the Way of Mary.
OTHER VOLUMES
A VAGABOND IN THE CAUCASUS.
UNDISCOVERED RUSSIA.
CHANGING RUSSIA.
THROUGH RUSSIAN CENTRAL ASIA.
RUSSIA AND THE WORLD j WAR DIARIES AND
RUSSIA IN 1916 J ARTICLES.
PRESS OPINIONS
The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary
By STEPHEN GRAHAM. 4th Impression.
HIBBERT JOURNAL. — "The book is strikingly written. It consists of a series of chapters which, though apparently disconnected, are held together by a unity of meaning and of purpose that runs through all of them. It is this inner meaning of the book that makes it of permanent value to students of religious psychology. . . . The value of the book lies not in the concrete illustrations, but in the wonderful insight with which some of the essential features of the national character are brought out. The chapter called ' The
PRESS OPINIONS—
Russian Idea ' is a remarkable analysis of what is best in the Russian people. . . . There is, however, another line of thought running through Mr. Graham's book ... a presentation in an artistic form of the world viewed sub specie ceternitatis. ... It is this insistence on the spiritual value of the ordinary things of life, this vision of the world as an eternal now, that seems to me to be the true message of the book. NATHALIE A. DUDDINGTON."
WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.—11 The deepest thing in Chris- tianity is personal choice. ... To Mr. Graham, then, there is not one orthodoxy, but many, and the test of them all is the measure in which they approach to the universal. . . . That is Mr. Graham's message. How he presents it — in this rapt, ardent, piercing, and creative description of a strange, wonderful, and alien people — is the delight and illumination of his book."
TIMES OF INDIA. — "Martha was right, but Mary's good part was right also. That sentiment will be recognised at once as thoroughly Asiatic. It is also quite Russian. People in India, who know Christianity only in the pushful and worldly forms in which it has been presented to them by the West, should read Mr. Graham's studies of Eastern Christianity."
PIONEER. — " The East realises that in apparent failure lies a truer destiny than in apparent success."
EVENING STANDARD.— "Christianity! you exclaim. Why, the clever men have assured us it is played out. We look for a new revelation — or to the reign of reason. Here comes Mr. Graham, however, preaching that Christianity, so far from being played out, has hardly began. 'This young religion of Christianity,' he calls it, and surmises that 6000 years hence it may have crystallised out from the present chaos of its tenets. 'As yet it is in the confused grandeur of youth. It has all possibilities.' If this be not optimism, I do not know what the word can be applied to. Think what it means ! Belief in the youth of the world, in a far-reaching future of belief. Twenty years ago, a man would have been considered a romantic fool who talked so. But make no mistake, Mr. Graham and his like are not regarded in that light by the generation that is coming on. It is not a generation born old. It has the will to live, to affirm rather than deny. THOMAS LLOYD."
MONTROSE STANDARD. — "The book's unity grows out of its diversity. In chapter after chapter the reader finds himself led on as if by hidden music."
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