The Message Part 25

Like balm, the stately words fell upon the people, as a light to lighten their darkness, as an end and a solution to a situation found intolerable. But, though calm resolve was in George Stairs's gift that day, he suffered no complaisance; and, by this time, he held that great a.s.sembly in the hollow of his hand. It was then he dealt with the character of our own century, as distinguished from that of the Victorian era. It was then his words taught me, personally, more than all he had said besides.

I will not quote from a pa.s.sage which has been incorporated in hundreds of school-books. It is generally admitted that the end and purpose underlying the civil and national code of our age has never since been more admirably stated than on the day of its first enunciation in the Albert Hall by George Stairs. His words were glowing when he showed us how the key-note of our fathers' age had been the claiming and establis.h.i.+ng of rights and privileges. His words stung like whip-thongs when he depicted our greedy, self-satisfied enjoyment of those rights and privileges, with never a thought, either of the various obligations pertaining to them, or of our plain duty in the conservation for our children of all that had been won for us. Finally, his words were living fire of incentive, red wine of stimulation, when he urged upon us the twentieth-century watchword of Duty, and the loyal discharge of obligations.

"Theirs, an age crowned by well-won triumph, was the century of claimant demand; ours is the century of grateful obedience. Theirs was the age of claims; ours the age of Duty. Theirs the century of rights; ours the century of Duty. Theirs the period of brave, insistent constructive effort; ours the period of Duty--Duty--Duty!

"In fighting to obtain all that they won for us, our fathers pledged themselves--and us--to be fit recipients, true freemen. For a moment, misled by the glare of wealth and pleasure, we have played the caitiff's part; grasped freemen's privileges, without thanks, and with repudiation of the balancing duties and obligations without which no rights can survive. And--'Behold, the days come that I will cut off thine arm!'

"The G.o.d of our fathers trusted them, in our behalf; and we played traitor. So G.o.d smote England, through the arrogant war-lords of another people. That blow, self-administered, is Heaven's last warning to England. In truth, the blow was ours, yours and mine; we ourselves it was who played the traitor and struck a cruel blow at Britain's heart.

Unworthy sons of valiant sires, we s.n.a.t.c.hed our wages and s.h.i.+rked our work; seized the reward and refused the duty. G.o.d in His mercy gave us many warnings; but we hid our faces and pursued our selfish ends.

'Behold, the days come----'

"But G.o.d stayed His hand. England lies b.l.o.o.d.y but unbroken. There can be no more warnings. The time for warnings has gone by. There can be no more paltering. Now is the day of final choice. Will ye be men--or helots and outcasts? Will you choose Duty, and the favour of G.o.d's appointed way for us, of progress and of leaders.h.i.+p; or will you choose--pleasure, swift decay, annihilation? Upon your heads be it! Our fathers n.o.bly did their part. Upon your choice hangs the future of our race, the fate of your children, the destiny of G.o.d's chosen people, who have paltered with strange G.o.ds, blasphemed the true faith, and stepped aside from the white path--the Only Way: Duty!"

He turned, raising one hand, and the notes of the great organ rose and swelled mightily, filling the hall with the strains of the British National Anthem. Every soul in the building stood erect, and following the choir's lead, that great gathering sang the British hymn as it was never sung before. As the last note throbbed into silence in the hall's dome, George Stairs, who had knelt through the singing of the anthem, advanced, with hand uplifted.

"G.o.d helping us, as, if we choose aright, He surely will help us, do we choose Duty, or pleasure? Choose, my kinsmen! Is it Duty, or is it pleasure?"

It was a severe test to put to such an a.s.sembly, to a congregation of all cla.s.ses of London society. There was a moment of silence in which I saw George Stairs's face, white and writhen, through a mist which seemed to cloud my vision. And then the answer came, like a long, rolling clap of thunder:

"Duty!"

And I saw George Stairs fall upon his knees in prayer, as the Bishop dismissed the people with a benediction, delivered somewhat brokenly, in a hoa.r.s.e voice.

VIII

THE PREACHERS

There are who ask not if thine eye Be on them; who in love and truth Where no misgiving is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth: Glad hearts! without reproach or blot, Who do thy work, and know it not: O! if through confidence misplaced They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.

_Ode to Duty._

It was with something of a shock that I learned, while endeavouring to make my way through a dense crowd to the Canadian preacher's dressing-room, that my friend, George Stairs, was lying unconscious in a fainting fit. But my anxiety was not long-lived. Several doctors had volunteered their services, and from one of them I learned that the fainting fit was no more than the momentary result of an exceptional strain of excitement.

Within half an hour, Stairs and Reynolds were both resting comfortably in a private sitting-room at a neighbouring hotel, and there I visited them, with Constance Grey and Mrs. Van Homrey, and John Crondall. Stairs a.s.sured us that his fainting was of no consequence, and that he felt perfectly fit and well again.

"You see it was something of an ordeal for me, a n.o.body from nowhere, to face such an a.s.sembly."

"Well," said John Crondall, "I suppose that at this moment there is not a man in London who is much more a somebody, and less a n.o.body from nowhere."

"You think we succeeded, then?"

"My dear fellow! I think your address of this afternoon was the most important event England has known this century. Mark my words, that great thunder of 'Duty!' that you drew from them--from a London audience, mind--is to have more far-reaching results for the British Empire than the acquisition of a continent."

"No, no, my dear Crondall, you surely overrate the thing," said Stairs, warm colour spreading over his pale face.

"Well, you can take my deliberate a.s.surance that in my opinion you achieved more for your country this afternoon than it has been my good fortune to achieve in the whole of a rather busy life."

Stairs protested, blus.h.i.+ng like a girl. But we know now that, so far at all events as his remarks were prophetic, John Crondall was absolutely right; though whether or not the new evangel could have achieved what it did without the invasion is another matter.

Myself, I believe nothing could have been more triumphantly successful, more pregnant with great possibilities for good, than the event of that afternoon. Yet I was a.s.sured that fully two thousand five hundred more people crowded into the hall for the evening service than had been there to hear Stairs's address. And I had thought the huge place crowded in the afternoon. As before, the service began and ended with the National Anthem; but in the evening the great a.s.sembly was thrilled to its heart by the Australian _prima donna's_ splendid singing of Wordsworth's _Ode to Duty_ in the setting specially composed for this occasion by Doctor Elgar.

I saw very many faces that I had seen at the first service, but I believe that there was a far greater proportion of poorer folk present than there had been in the afternoon. The President of the Congregational Union presided, and the address was delivered by Arthur Reynolds.

As with Stairs, so with Reynolds, Duty was the gist and heart of the Message delivered--Duty, plain living, simplicity; these they both urged to be the root of the whole matter. Both men gave substantially the same Message, there can be no doubt of that; but there were differences, and upon the whole I am inclined to think that Reynolds's address was more perfectly adapted to his hearers than Stairs's would have been if his had been given that evening. Reynolds's diction in public speaking was not quite his conversational speech, because nothing like slang, nothing altogether colloquial crept into it, but its simplicity was notable; it was the diction of a frank, earnest child. There were none of the stereotyped phrases of piety; yet I never heard a more truly pious and deeply religious discourse.

The social and political aspects of Duty were more cursorily treated by Reynolds than its moral and religious aspect. There was nothing heterodox in the view put forward by this preacher from oversea. A man may find salvation in this world and the next through love and faith, he said in effect; but the love and faith must be of the right sort. The redemption of the world was the world's greatest miracle; but it did not offer mankind salvation in return for a given measure of psalm-singing, sentimentalizing, and prayerful prostrations. Christianity was something which had to be lived, not merely contemplated. Love and faith were all-sufficient, but they must be the true love and faith, of which Duty was the legitimate offspring. The man who thought that any form of piety which permitted the neglect of Duty, would win him either true peace in this life or salvation in the next, was as pitifully misled as the man who indulged himself in a vicious life with a view to repentance when he should be too near his demise to care for indulgence.

"But, even if one could put aside all thought of G.o.d and the life compared with which this life is but an instant of time; even then there would be nothing left really worth serious consideration besides Duty.

Dear friends, you who listen so kindly to the man who comes to you from across the sea, I ask you to look about you in the streets and among the people you know, and to tell me if the majority are really happy. In this connection I dare not speak of the land of my birth, because, though it is yours as truly as it is mine, and we are all blood-brothers, yet I might be thought guilty of a vain partiality. But I do say that I cannot think the majority of the people of England are really happy. I do not believe the majority of Londoners are happy. I am sure that the majority of those who spend an immense amount of money here in the West End of London, are not one whit happier than the average man who works hard for a few pounds a week.

"If I am certain of anything in this world, I am certain that the pursuit of pleasure never yet brought real happiness to any intelligent human being, and never will. True, I have met some happy people in London, even now, when England lies wounded from a cruel blow--a blow which I believe may prove the greatest blessing England ever knew. But those happy people are not running after pleasure or concentrating their intelligence upon their own gratification. No, no; those happy people are strenuously, soberly striving to do the whole of their duty as Christians and British citizens. They are happy because of that.

"Oh, my dear friends, do please believe me, that, even apart from G.o.d's will and the all-sacrificing love of His Son, _there is absolutely no real happiness in this world outside the clean, sweet way of Duty_. If you profess you love a woman, but s.h.i.+rk your duty by her, of what worth is such love? Is G.o.d of less importance to you? Is Eternity of less importance? Are King and Country, and the future of our race and the millions who depend on us for light and guidance and protection, of less importance? As G.o.d hears me, _nothing_ is of _any_ importance, beside the one thing vital to salvation, to happiness, to honour, to life, here and hereafter. That one thing is Duty."

The evening congregation was more demonstrative than that of the afternoon, and though I do not think the impression produced by Reynolds's address was deeper or stronger than that made by Stairs--it could hardly have been that--its effects were more noticeable. The great crowd that streamed out of the hall after the Benediction had been p.r.o.nounced, testified in a hundred ways to the truth of John Crondall's a.s.sertion that the Canadian preachers had stirred the very depths of London's heart as no other missioners had ever stirred them.

By George Stairs's invitation, Mrs. Van Homrey, Constance, Crondall, myself, Sir Herbert Tate, and Forbes Thompson, joined the preachers that evening, quite informally, at their very modest supper board. It must have been a little startling to a _bon vivant_ like Sir Herbert to find that the men who had stormed London, supped upon bread and cheese and celery and cold rice pudding, and, without a hint of apology, offered their guests the same Spartan entertainment. But it was quite a brilliant function so far as mental activity and high spirits were concerned. We were discussing the possibilities of the Canadian preachers' pilgrimage, and Crondall said:

"I know that some of you think I take too sanguine a view, but, mark my words, these meetings to-day are the beginning of the greatest religious, moral, and national revival that the British people have ever seen. I am certain of it. Your blushes are quite beside the point, Stairs; they are wholly irrelevant; so is your modesty. Why, my dear fellow, you couldn't help it if you tried. You two men are the mouthpiece of the hour. The hour having come, you could not stay its Message if you tried, nor check the tide of its effect. I know my London. In a matter of this kind--a moral movement--London is the hardest place in the kingdom to move, because its bigness and variety make it so many-sided. Having achieved what you have achieved to-day in London, I say nothing can check your progress. My counsel is for no more than a week in London; two days more in the west, three in the east, and one in the south; and then a bee-line due north through England, with a few days in all big centres."

"Well," said Reynolds, "whatever happens after to-night, I just want to say what George Stairs has more than once said to me, and that is, that to-day's success is three parts due to Mr. Crondall for every one part due to us."

"And to his secretary," said Stairs. "It really is no more than bare truth. Without you, Crondall, there would have been no Albert Hall for us."

"And no Bishop," added Reynolds.

"And no great personages."

"_And_ no columns and columns of newspaper announcements."

"In point of fact, there would have been none of the splendid organization which made to-day possible. I recognize it very clearly. If this is to prove the beginning of a really big movement, then it is a beginning in which _The Citizens_ and their founder have played a very big part. You won't find that we shall forget that; and I know Reynolds is with me when I say that we shall leave no word unsaid, or act undone, which could make our pilgrimage helpful to _The Citizens'_ campaign. I tell you, standing before that vast a.s.sembly to-day, it was borne in upon me as I had not felt it before, that your aims and ours are inseparable. We cannot succeed without your succeeding, nor you without our succeeding. Our interpretation of Christianity, our Message, is Duty and simple living, and unless the people will accept that Message they will never achieve what you seek of them. On the other hand, if they will answer your call they will be going a long way toward accepting and acting upon our Message."

"I am mighty thankful that has come home to you, Stairs," said Crondall.

"I felt it very strongly when I first asked you to come and talk things over. Your pilgrimage is going to wake up England, morally. It will be our business to see that newly waked England choose the right direction for the first outlay of its energy. The thing will go far--much farther than I have said, and far beyond England's immediate need. But, of course, we mustn't lose sight of that immediate need. If I am not greatly mistaken, one of the first achievements of this movement will be the safe steering of the British public through the General Election. With the New Year I hope to see a real Imperial Parliament sitting. By that I mean a strong Government administering England from the House of Commons, while some of its members sit in an Imperial Chamber--Westminster Hall--and help elected representatives of every one of the Colonies to govern the Empire. My belief is there will be no such thing as an Opposition in the House. Why should England continue to waste its time and energy over pulling both ways in every little job its legislators have to tackle? It sterilizes the efforts of the good men, and gives innumerable openings to the fools and cranks and obstructionists. You will find the very names of the old futile cross-purposes of party warfare will fall into the limbo which has swallowed up the pillory, the stocks, and Little Englandism. With deference to the cloth present in the person of our reverend friends here, let me quote you what to me is one of the most strikingly interesting pa.s.sages in the Bible: '_The vile person shall be no more called liberal._' It will become clear to all men that the only possible party, the only people who can possibly stand for progress, movement, advance, are those who stand firm for Imperial Federation."

"And then?" said Constance, leaning forward, her face illumined by her s.h.i.+ning eyes. Crondall drew a long breath.

"And then--then Britain will have something to say to the Kaiser."

As we rose from the table, George Stairs laid his hand on Reynolds's shoulder.

"Deep waters these, my friend," said he, "for simple parsons from the backwoods. But our part is plain, and close at hand. Our work is to make the writing on the wall flame till all can read and feel: Duty first, last, and all the time. 'The conclusion of the whole matter.'"

"Yes, yes; that's so," said Reynolds, thoughtfully. And then he added, as it were an afterthought: "But was that remark about vile people no more being called liberal really scriptural, I wonder--I wonder!"