Prime Ministers and Some Others Part 13

But it is not only in the missionary field, or in any other form of ecclesiastical activity, that the steeling effect of love on the human will is manifested. John Howard devoted the comforts and advantages which pertain to a position in the opulent Middle Cla.s.s to the purely philanthropic work of Prison Reform; and Lord Shaftesbury used the richer boons of rank and eloquence and political opportunity for the deliverance of tortured lunatics, and climbing boys and factory slaves. If ever I knew a man whose resolution was "steeled," it was this honoured friend of my early manhood, and the steeling power was simply love. A humbler ill.u.s.tration of the same spirit may be supplied by the instance of one whom worldly people ridiculed and who "for fifty years seized every chance of doing kindness to a man who had tormented him at school"; and this though a boy's nature is "wax to receive, and marble to retain." The name of E. C. Hawtrey is little remembered now even by Eton men, but this tribute to the power of love ought not to be withheld.

I am only too painfully aware that we live just now in conditions in which love must take the aspect of severity; in which the mind must be "steeled" and the resolution "set" for a solemn work of international justice. But hatred will not help us; for hatred is fundamentally at variance with that moral law which we daily and hourly invoke as the sanction of our enterprise. Hatred is natural enough, and at least as old as the Fall of Man; but its doom was p.r.o.nounced by a Teacher Who said to His disciples: "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another." Twelve men heard and heeded that new commandment, and they changed the face of the world. Are we to abjure the doctrine which wrought this change, and give heed to the blind guides who would lure us straight back to barbarism?

"What though they come with scroll and pen, And grave as a shaven clerk, By this sign shall ye know them, That they ruin and make dark;

"By thought a crawling ruin, By life a leaping mire, By a broken heart in the breast of the world, And the end of the world's desire;

"By G.o.d and man dishonoured, By death and life made vain, Know ye the old Barbarian, The Barbarian come again."[*]

[Footnote *: G. K. Chesterton.]

VII

_THE TRIUMPHS OF ENDURANCE_

"By your endurance ye shall make your souls your own." If the origin of this saying were unknown, one could fancy much ingenious conjecture about it; but no one, I think, would attribute it to an English source. An Englishman's idea of self-realization is action. If he is to be truly himself he must be doing something; life for him means energy. To be laid on one side, and to exist only as a spectator or a sufferer, is the last method of making his soul his own which would occur to him. _Dolce far niente_ is a phrase which could never have originated on English soil. The greater the difficulties by which he is confronted, the more gnawing becomes the Englishman's, hunger for action. "Something must be done!" is his instinctive cry when dangers or perplexities arise, and he is feverishly eager to do it. What exactly "it" should be, and how it may be most wisely done, are secondary, and even tertiary, considerations. "Wisdom is profitable to direct"; but the need for wisdom is not so generally recognized in England as the need for courage or prompt.i.tude or vigour.

Some of the shallower natures find a subst.i.tute for action in speech.

If only they talk loud enough and long enough, they feel that they are doing something valuable towards the desired end, and they find others, still weaker than themselves, who take their words at their own valuation. Who does not recall moments of the present war when the man-in-the-street has exclaimed, "That was a splendid speech of Blower's! I feel now that we are on the right line"; or, "After what Bellowell said last night, there can be no going back to the discredited policy"? The man-in-the-street did not realize that Blower's words are only articulated air, or that Bellowell could speak with equal effect whether his brief were to defend Belgium or to annex her. But alike the Englishman who acts and the Englishman who talks look askance on the people who think. Our national history is a history of action, in religion, in politics, in war, in discovery. It is only now and then that an Englishman can allow himself a moment for contemplation, for the endeavour to "see into the life of things," for contact with those spiritual realities of which phenomena are only the shadows. Burke did it, but then he was an Irishman. Lord Beaconsfield did it, but then he was a Jew. Gladstone did it, but then he was a Scotsman. May I add that the present Prime Minister does it, but then he is a Welshman? Englishmen, as a rule, are absorbed in action; it is to them a religion, and it takes the place of a philosophy.

At this moment all England is acting, from the King and the War Cabinet to the children who play at soldiers in the gutter. There is no distinction of cla.s.s, or s.e.x, or temperament. All alike feel that they must be doing something to win the war, and that they would die or go mad if they were restrained from action. Limitations, physical or mental, incapacities for effort, restrictions of opportunity, gall as they never galled before. To compare great things with small, the whole nation pulsates with the spirit of the fiercely contested cricket-match:

"Oh, good lads in the field they were, Laboured and ran and threw; But we that sat on the benches there Had the hardest work to do!"

Action, then, is the creed and the consolation of the English race, and G.o.d forbid that we should disparage that on which national salvation depends. The war must be won by action; but in the strain and stress of these tremendous days we are tempted to forget that there is something to be won or lost besides the war. It is possible to conquer on the Western front, and at the same time to be defeated on the not less important field of moral being. The promise which heads this paper was uttered in full view of an impending agony which should crush religion and civilization into powder. We can realize the consternation with which a patriotic audience heard those premonitions from the lips of a patriotic Teacher; but in the midst of all that was harrowing and heart-rending came the promise of triumph through endurance. "Ye shall make your souls your own." The gloomy and the cheerful prediction were alike made good.

"The East bow'd low before the blast In patient, deep disdain; She let the legions thunder past, And plunged in thought again.

"So well she mused, a morning broke Across her spirit grey; A conquering, new-born joy awoke, And fill'd her life with day."

The Roman Eagles led a momentary triumph, but they fled before the newly discovered Cross. Endurance won.

And so it has been from that time to this. The triumphs of endurance have no end. The barbarism of the Caesars, the barbarism of Islam, the barbarism of Odin and Thor, all in turn did their uttermost to destroy the new religion. Persecution fell, not on armed men strong to resist, but on slaves and women and boys and girls. "We could tell of those who fought with savage beasts, yea, of maidens who stept to face them as coolly as a modern bully steps into the ring. We could tell of those who drank molten lead as cheerfully as we would the juice of the grape, and played with the red fire and the bickering flames as gaily as with golden curls." These were the people who by endurance made their souls their own; and, by carrying endurance even unto death, propagated the faith for which they gave their lives. It did not take Rome long to discover that "the blood of Christians is seed."

The victorious power of endurance is not yet exhausted; but, on the other hand, the peril of moral defeat must never be ignored. It was a strange coincidence that the most trying phase of a four-years'

war should have occurred in the week which, for Western Christendom, commemorates the supreme example of endurance. As far as action is concerned, the national will is not in the slightest danger of collapse. The British nation will plan, and work and fight for ever, if need be. Our only danger is in the moral field. Though our power of action is undiminished, our power of endurance may ebb. We may begin to cry, in our impatience, "Lord, how long?"; to repine against the fate which condemns us to this protracted agony; to question within ourselves whether the cause which we profess to serve is really worth the sacrifices which it entails.

It is just by mastering these rebellious tendencies that we can make our souls our own. If we went into the war believing in the sacredness of Freedom, Brotherhood, and Right against Might, it would be a moral collapse to emerge from it believers in tyranny, imperialism, and the rule of the strong. "He that endureth to the end shall be saved." On that "end" we must keep heart and eye unflinchingly fixed; and strive to add one more to the age-long triumphs of endurance.

VIII

_A SOLEMN FARCE_

Sweet to the antiquarian palate are the fragments of Norman French which still survive in the formularies of the Const.i.tution. In Norman French the King acknowledges the inconceivable sums which from time to time his faithful Commons place at his disposal for the prosecution of the war. In Norman French the Peers of the Realm are summoned to their seats in Parliament which they adorn. In Norman French, the Royal a.s.sent has just been given to a Bill which doubles the electorate and admits over six million women to the franchise.

All these things are dear to the antiquary, the historian, and (perhaps we should add) the pedant, as witnessing to the unbroken continuity of our const.i.tutional forms, though the substance of our polity has been altered beyond all recognition.

Another instance of Norman French which has lately emerged into unusual prominence is the "Conge d'elire." We can trace this "Licence to Elect" from the days of the Great Charter downwards; but it will suffice for my present purpose to recall the unrepealed legislation of Henry VIII. "It was then enacted that, at every future avoidance of a bishopric, the King may send to the Dean and Chapter his usual licence (called his 'Conge d'elire') to proceed to election; which is always, accompanied by a Letter Missive from the King containing the name of the person whom he would have them elect; and if the Dean and Chapter delay their election above twelve days the nomination shall devolve to the King, who may then by Letters Patent appoint such person as he pleases.... And, if such Dean and Chapter do not elect in the manner by their Act appointed they shall incur all the penalties of a praemunire--that is, the loss of all civil rights, with forfeiture of lands, goods, and chattels, and imprisonment, during the Royal pleasure."

Such are the singular conditions under which the Church of England now exercises that right of electing her chief pastors which has been from the beginning the heritage of Christendom. It would be difficult to imagine a more dexterous use of chicanery, preserving the semblance but carefully precluding the reality of a free choice.

We all know something of Deans and Chapters--the well-endowed inhabitants of cathedral closes--and of those "greater Chapters"

which consist of Honorary Canons, longing for more substantial preferment. It would indeed require a very bold flight of fancy to imagine those worthy and comfortable men exposing themselves to the "loss of civil rights, the forfeiture of goods and chattels, and imprisonment during the King's pleasure," for a scruple of conscience about the orthodoxy of a divine recommended by the Crown.

Truly in a capitular election, if anywhere, the better part of valour is discretion, and the Dean and Chapter of Hereford have realized this saving truth. But my view is wholly independent of local or personal issues, and is best expressed by these words of Arthur Stanton, true Catholic and true Liberal: "I am strongly in favour of Disestablishment, and always have been. The connexion between Church and State has done harm to both--more, however, to the Church. Take our plan of electing Bishops. In the early centuries they were elected by the people--as they ought to be.

Now they are chosen, sometimes by a Tory, sometimes by a Radical Government. The Dean and Chapter meet and ask the guidance of the Holy Ghost to enable them to choose, knowing all the while they have the 'Letter Missive' in their pockets. To me this comes perilously near blasphemy."

But let us suppose an extreme case. Let us imagine a Dean and Chapter so deeply impressed by the unsuitableness of the Crown's nominee that they refuse to elect him. Here, again, the law dodges us.

Except as a protest their refusal would have not the slightest effect. The Crown has nothing to do but issue Letters Patent in favour of its nominee, and he would be as secure of his bishopric as if the Chapter had chosen him with one consent of heart and voice.

True, he would not yet be a Bishop; for the episcopal character can only be conferred by consecration, and at this point the Archbishop becomes responsible. To him the King signifies the fact that Dr.

Proudie has been elected to the See of Barchester, requiring him to "confirm, invest, and consecrate" that divine. Should the Archbishop refuse compliance with this command, he exposes himself to exactly the same penalties as would be inflicted on a recalcitrant Chapter, only with this aggravation--that he has more to lose. When my good friend the Bishop of Oxford addressed the Archbishop of Canterbury, imploring him to withhold consecration from Dr. Henson, he made a valiant and faithful protest against what he holds to be a flagitious action on the part of the Crown; but, knowing the respected occupant of Lambeth as well as he does, I think he must have antic.i.p.ated the reply which, as a matter of fact, he received.

Such being the absurdities and unrealities which surround the Conge d'elire, one naturally asks, Why not abolish it? This question was raised in a pointed form by the late Mr. C. J. Monk, for many years Liberal M.P. for the City of Gloucester, who, in 1880, introduced a Bill to abolish the Conge and to place the appointment of Bishops formally, as it is really, in the hands of the Prime Minister. He urged the painful sense of unreality which clings to the whole transaction, and the injury to religion which is involved in thus paltering in a double sense with sacred forms and words. It is amusing to those who can recall the two men to remember that Mr.

Monk was opposed by Lord Randolph Churchill, who thought he perceived in the proposal some dark design hostile to the interests of the Established Church; but the important speech was made by Gladstone.

That great man, always greatest in debate when his case was weakest, opposed the abolition of the Conge. He deprecated any legislation which would interfere with one of the most delicate functions of the Crown, and he insisted that the true path of reform lay, not in the abolition of the form of election, but in an attempt to re-invest it with some elements of reality. This was well enough, and eminently characteristic of his reverence for ancient forms of const.i.tutional action; but what was more surprising was that, speaking from long and intimate experience of its practical working he maintained that the Conge d'elire, even under the nullifying conditions now attached to it, was "a moral check upon the prerogatives of the Crown," which worked well rather than ill. "I am," he said, "by no means prepared to say that, from partial information or error, a Minister might not make an appointment to which this moral obstacle might be set up with very beneficial effect. It would tend to secure care in the selections, and its importance cannot be overstated."

I must confess, with the greatest respect for my old leader, that the "importance" of the Conge d'elire as a restraint upon the actions of the Prime Minister can be very easily "overstated." Indeed, the Conge could only be important if the Capitular Body to which the "Letter Missive" is addressed have the courage of conscientious disobedience, and were prepared to face, for the sake of imperilled truth, the anger of the powers that be and the laughter of the world. Courage of that type is a plant of slow growth in Established Churches; and as long as my friends hug the yoke of Establishment, I cannot sympathize with them when they cry out against its galling pressure. To complainants of that cla.s.s the final word was addressed by Gladstone, nearly seventy years ago: "You have our decision: take your own; choose between the mess of pottage and the birthright of the Bride of Christ."

IV

POLITICS

I

_MIRAGE_

"Operations had to be temporarily suspended owing to the mirage."

This sentence from one of Sir Stanley Maude's despatches struck me as parabolic. There are other, and vaster, issues than a strategic victory on the Diala River which have been "suspended owing to the mirage." Let us apply the parable.

The parched caravan sees, half a mile ahead, the gleaming lake which is to quench its thirst. It toils along over the intervening distance, only to find that Nature has been playing a trick. The vision has vanished, and what seemed to be water is really sand.

There can be no more expressive image of disillusionment.

To follow the "Mirage" of receding triumph through long years of hope deferred was the lot of Labour generally, and it was especially the lot of agricultural labour. The artisans gained their political enfranchis.e.m.e.nt in 1867, and, though they made remarkably little use of it, still they had the power, if they had the will, to better their condition. But the agricultural labourers remained inarticulate, unnoticed, unrepresented. A Tory orator, said--and many of his cla.s.s agreed with him, though they were too prudent to say it--that the labourer was no fitter for the vote than the beasts he tended. But there were others who knew the labourers by personal contact, and by friendly intercourse had been able to penetrate their necessary reserve; and we (for I was one of these) knew that our friends in the furrow and the cow-shed were at least as capable of forming a solid judgment as their brethren in the tailor's shop and the printing-works. There was nothing of the new Radicalism in this--it was as old as English history. The toilers on the land had always been aspiring towards freedom, though social pressure made them wisely dumb. Cobbett and Cartwright, and all the old reformers who kept the lamp of Freedom alive in the dark days of Pitt and Liverpool and Wellington, bore witness to the "deep sighing" of the agricultural poor, and noted with indignation the successive invasions of their freedom by Enclosure Acts and press-gangs and trials for sedition, and all the other implements of tyranny.

"The Good Old Code, like Argus, had a hundred watchful eyes, And each old English peasant had his Good Old English spies To tempt his starving discontent with Good Old English lies, Then call the British Yeomanry to hush his peevish cries."

To a race of peasants thus enthralled and disciplined the Mirage appeared in the guise of the first Reform Bill. If only that Bill could pa.s.s into law, the reign of injustice and oppression would cease, starvation and misery would flee away, and the poor would rejoice in a new heaven and a new earth. But no sooner was the Royal a.s.sent given to the Bill than the Mirage--that deceitful image of joy and refreshment--receded into the dim distance, and men woke to the disheartening fact that, though power had been transferred from the aristocracy to the middle cla.s.s, the poor were as badly off as ever. The visible effects of that disillusionment were Chartism, rioting, and agrarian crime, and there was a deep undercurrent of sullen anger which seldom found expression. As late as the General Election of 1868 an old man in the duke-ridden borough of Woodstock declined to vote for the Liberal candidate expressly on the ground of disappointed hopes. Before 1832, he said, arms had been stored in his father's cottage to be used if the Lords threw out the Bill. They had pa.s.sed it, and the arms were not required; but no one that he knew of had ever been a ha'porth the better for it; and he had never since meddled with politics, and never would again. In this case the despondency of old age was added to the despondency of disappointment; but among younger men hope was beginning to dawn again, and the Mirage beckoned with its treacherous gleam. The Agricultural Labourers' Union, starting on its pilgrimage from the very heart of England, forced the labourer's wants and claims upon the attention of the land-owners, the farmers, and the clergy.

Those who had been brought by early a.s.sociation into touch with the agricultural population knew only too well how deep and just was the discontent of the villages, and how keen the yearning for better chances. To secure the vote for the agricultural labourer seemed to be the first step towards the improvement of his lot.

The General Election of 1880 was, as nearly as our const.i.tutional forms admit, a plebiscite on foreign policy; but to many a man who was then beginning public life the emanc.i.p.ation of the labourer was an object quite as dear as the dethronement of Lord Beaconsfield.

It was not for nothing that we had read _Hodge and His Masters_, and we were resolved that henceforward "Hodge" should be not a serf or a cipher, but a free man and a self-governing citizen.