The Hearts of Men Part 11

But it may be said these crosses, these crucifixes, are peculiar to Catholic countries. You do not see them in North Germany, in England, in America. Teutonic nations do not parade this sacrifice. No, they do not, for it does not appeal to them so much as to the nations of Southern Europe. Sacrifice was not unknown to the Teutons and the Northern people, but it never reached the height it did further South. It has been the Latin peoples who in this as in other matters went to extremes.

It was the Greeks who sacrificed Iphigenia, who had the festival of the Thargalia; it was Rome which produced Curtius and others who sacrificed themselves. It was the Romans who sacrificed thousands in the Coliseum.

It is in the tumuli of Celtic peoples where we find the cloven skulls of slaves.

Sacrifice has appealed always more to the Latin then and now; and therefore you see the crucifix in Latin countries, but not with us.

Still, we are not free from the emotion. We have the sacrament of Communion; the Atonement appeals to us also. The pa.s.sions that are strong in the Latin peoples are weak with us, yet they exist. The instincts are the same. When executions were public our people thronged to see them. Death has always a peculiar attraction, quite apart from any idea connected with it. It is such a wonderful thing the taking of life, so awe-inspiring, that it has appealed always to men; especially in the west.

In the East that has accepted Buddhism, especially in Burma, it is much less so. They have, it is true, the usual pleasure and curiosity in seeing blood and death. And occasionally you come across some petty sacrifice like that of the fowls mentioned above; but the instinct is comparatively weak. It has never, even before they were Buddhists, been general, and never extended even to cattle. The sacrifice of a man (remember, I say sacrifice, not execution), would be absolutely abhorrent to them, how much more so that of a G.o.d? They have not the instinctive recognition of any beauty in it. Therefore, for this amongst other reasons, the Burmese reject Christianity.

But to the Western instinct this sacrifice and this atonement is wonderful and beautiful. It appeals to us. The old instinct is satisfied.

Therefore, amongst other reasons, Christians cling to the Atonement, and to make that sacrifice the greatest possible it must be the sacrifice of G.o.d, and as G.o.d can only be sacrificed to G.o.d the Christian G.o.d must be a multiple one. To postulate as the Mahommedan does, G.o.d is G.o.d, would destroy the depth of the Atonement. Hence arises the creed, the attempt to reconcile two opposed instincts. There is one G.o.d--that is an instinct, arising from our generalising power; there must be at least two G.o.ds to explain the Atonement, and so we have the Father and the Son.

For of the three G.o.dheads only these two are real to most people. There is G.o.d the Ruler, the Maker of the world, and there is Christ. These are both very real to all Christians. They are prayed to individually, they are wors.h.i.+pped separately, they are clear conceptions. But is there any clear conception of the Holy Ghost as a distinct personality? Is He ever cited separately from the others? Has He any special characteristics?

There are, for instance, many pictures of G.o.d, and many more of Christ--are there any of the Holy Ghost? This Third Person of the Trinity appeals to no instinct, and is only an abstraction in popular thought. When the Creed was framed it was necessary to include the Holy Ghost because He is mentioned in the New Testament. He has remained an abstraction only. But the other two G.o.dheads are realities, because they appeal to feelings that are innate. They are the explanation of these feelings.

Thus do creeds arise out of instincts. It is never the reverse.

Postulate G.o.d the Father as All-Powerful, All-Merciful, and see if by any possibility you can work out the Atonement or see any beauty in it.

Can anyone see aught but horror in this Almighty demanding the sacrifice of His Son? You cannot. But granted that Atonement and sacrifice have to you an innate beauty of their own, and the dogma of a multiple G.o.dhead easily follows. There are creeds built on ceremonies, and ceremonies upon instincts: ceremonies are never deduced from creeds.

CHAPTER XX.

G.o.d THE MOTHER.

The only other form in which the Christ is presented to popular adoration is as a baby in the Madonna's arms. Out of all the life of Christ, all the varied events of that career which has left such a great mark upon the Western world, only the beginning and the end are pictured. Christ the teacher, Christ the preacher, the restorer of the dead to life, the feeder of the hungry, the newly arisen from the grave, where is He? The great masters have painted Him, but popular thought remembers nothing of all that. There is Christ the sacrificed and Christ the infant with His mother. To the Latin people these two phases represent all that is worth daily remembrance. There are crucifixes and Madonnas in every hill side, by every road, at the street corners, in every house, and of the rest of the story not a sign.

What is the emotion to which the Madonna appeals? Why do she and her Child thus live in Latin thought?

There are historians who tell us that the wors.h.i.+p of the Madonna was introduced from Egypt. She is Astarte, Queen of Heaven, the Phoenician G.o.ddess of married love or maternity, she is the Egyptian Isis with her son Horus. It is a cult that was introduced through Spain, and took root among the Latin people and grew. There is no question here of Christ, they say; it is the G.o.ddess and her son.

It has also absorbed the wors.h.i.+p of Venus and Aphrodite. Venus was the tutelary G.o.ddess of Rome, she was the G.o.ddess of maternity, of production. It was not till the Greek idea of beauty in Aphrodite came to Rome and became confounded with the G.o.ddess Venus that her status changed. She was the G.o.ddess of married love, she became later the emblem of l.u.s.t. But it was she who purified marriage to the old Roman faith; she was the purifier, the justifier, the G.o.ddess of motherhood, which is the sanction of love and marriage.

It may be that all this is true. It may be possible to trace the wors.h.i.+p back through the various changes to Astarte, Ashtoreth, to Isis, to older G.o.ds, maybe, than these. All this may be true, and yet be no explanation. The old G.o.ds are dead. Why does she alone survive? What is the instinct that requires her, that pictures her on the street corners, that makes her wors.h.i.+p a living wors.h.i.+p to-day?

And why is it that she appeals not at all to the Teutonic people? Where are her pictures in Protestant Germany, in England, in Scotland, in America? Do you ever hear of her there? Do the preachers tell of her, the picture makers paint her, the people pray to her? Such a wors.h.i.+p is impossible. And why? What is the answer that to-day gives to that question? Is the answer difficult? I think not, for it is written in the hearts of the people, it is written in the laws they have made, in the customs they adhere to, in the oaths they take, in their daily lives.

Consider the Roman laws of two thousand and more years ago, the French laws of to-day. What is there most striking to us when we study them? It is, I think, the cult of the family.

The Roman son was his father's slave. He could not own property apart from the father, he could not marry without leave, his father could execute him without any trial. Family life lay outside the law; not Senate, nor Consul nor Emperor could interfere there. The unit in Rome was not the man, but the family.

As it was so it is. The laws are less stringent, but the idea remains. A man belongs not to himself but to his people, to his father and to his mother. In France even now he has to ask their leave to marry. The property is often family property, and his family may restrain a man from wasting it.

There is no bond anywhere stronger than the family bond of the Latin peoples. In mediaeval Rome, even often in Rome of to-day, all the sons live with their father and mother even if married. It is the custom, and, like all customs that live, it lives because it is in accord with the feelings of those who obey it.

A man belongs to his family, he clings to it; he is not an individual, but part of an organism.

And although in law it is the father who is the head, it is the father who is the lawgiver, the ruler, is it really he who is that centre, that lode-star, that holds the family together? I think it is not so. It is the mother who is the centre of that affection which is stronger than gravity. We laugh when a Frenchman swears by his mother. But he is swearing by all that he holds most sacred. No Latin would laugh at such a matter. Because he could understand, and we do not. To everyone of Latin race there comes next to G.o.d his mother, next to Christ the Madonna, who is the emblem of motherhood.

The Latins do not emigrate. They hate to leave their country. And if they do, if necessity drive them forth, are they ever happy, ever at rest till they can see their way to return? The Americans tell us that Italians are the worst immigrants because they will not settle; because they send their pay to their parents in the old country, and are never happy till they themselves can return. We call it nostalgia, we say it is a longing for their country. It is that and more. It is a longing for their family, their blood. They cling together in a way we have no idea of.

Does an Englishman ever swear by his mother, does he yearn after her as the Latins do from a far country? Does the fear of separation keep our young men at home? It is always the reverse. They want to get away. The home nest tires them, and they would go; and once gone they care not to return, they can be happy far away. The ties of relations.h.i.+p are light and are easily shaken off, they are quickly forgotten.

Italian labourers and servants give some of their pay always as a matter of course to their parents. It is a natural duty. And in Latin countries there are no poorhouses. They could not abide such a theory any more than could the Indians. It would seem to a Latin an impossibility that any child would leave his parents in a workhouse.

Poor as they might be they would keep together. The great bond that holds a family together is the mother, always the mother. We can see this in England too, even with our weaker instinct. The mother makes the home and not the father.

And now are we not finding that sanction we were searching for? If the Madonna, the type of motherhood, appeals to all the people, men and women, is there not a reason? It is an instinct. These images and pictures of the Madonna sound on their heart-strings a chord that is perhaps the loudest and sweetest; if second to any, second only to that of G.o.d. G.o.d as father, G.o.d as mother, G.o.d as son and sacrifice, here is the threefold real G.o.dhead of the Latins.

But with us the family tie is slight, the mother wors.h.i.+p is faint. Our Teutonic Trinity is G.o.d the Father, G.o.d the Son, and now later G.o.d the Law. These are the realities.

For with us conduct is more and emotion is less than with the peoples of the South.

CHAPTER XXI.

CONDUCT.

Of all aspects of religion none is so difficult to understand as the relation of religion and conduct. It is ever varying. There seems to be nothing fixed about it. What does conduct arise from? It takes its origin in an instinct, and this instinct is so strong, so imperious, so almost personal, that of all the instincts it alone has a name. It is conscience.

By conscience our acts are directed.

There are scientific men who tell us that our consciences are the result of experience, partly our own, but princ.i.p.ally inherited. That if conscience warns us against any course of action it is because that has been experienced to result in misfortune. It is an unconscious memory of past experiences. Conscience is instinctive, and not affected by teaching to any great extent; and that conscience is the main guide of life no one will deny.

But do the voices of conscience and of G.o.d, as stated in the sacred books, agree?

When the savage sees a G.o.d in the precipice and is afraid of him, there is no question of right or wrong. Not that the savage has no code of morals. He has a very elaborate one. But it is usually distinct from his religion. What virtue did Odin teach? None but courage in war. Yet the Northmen had codes of conduct fitted to their stage of civilisation. The Greeks had many G.o.ds. They had also codes of morals and an extensive philosophy, but practically there was no connection. In fact, the G.o.ds were examples not of morality but of immorality. It was the same with the Latins and with all the Celts. Their religions were emotional religions, their codes of conduct were apart, although even here you see now and then an attempt to connect them. And when the Latin people took Christianity and formed it, they put into their creeds no question of conduct. You believed, and therefore you were a Christian. The results of bad conduct would be annulled by confession, and the sinner would receive absolution. To a Latin Christian a righteous unbeliever who had never done anything but good would in the end be d.a.m.ned, whereas the murderer who repented at the last would be saved. "There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance."

Is the inference that the Latin peoples were wickeder than others? I doubt it. They initiated all European civilisation, and trade and commerce, and law and justice. Probably the highest examples of conduct the world has known have been Latins. They had and have the instinct of conduct, they had and have consciences as good as other people, but only they do not so much connect conduct and religion. You can be saved without conduct.

The Jews, on the contrary, had no instinct of conduct apart from religion. In the Ten Commandments conduct, if it have the second place, has yet the larger share. Righteousness was the keynote of their belief, and if the only righteousness they knew was little better than a n.o.ble savagery, it was the best they could do. They included every form of conduct in their religion--sanitary matters, caste observances, and business rules. The Hindu goes even further in the same line. Everything in life is included in his religion.

When in the Reformation the Teutonic people threw off the yoke of Rome, a yoke which was not only religious but political and social, one of their princ.i.p.al arguments against Roman Catholicism was the abominations that had crept in. I think it would be difficult to a.s.sert that the people who revolted were in morals generally any better than those they seceded from. Good men in the Latin Church saw equally the necessity for reformation. But bad morals did not seem to them so destructive to faith as it did to the Teutons. There was this difference, that whereas the Latin could and did conceive of religion apart from conduct, the Teuton, like the Jew, could not do so. With the Latin they were distinct emotions, with the Teuton they were connected.

One of the princ.i.p.al aspects of the Reformation is the restoration of morality to religion, the abolition of indulgences, of confession and absolution, the insistence on conduct in religious teachers.

The morality of Christ?

The remarkable fact is that it was not the morality of Christ at all.

The Reformation was never in any way a revival of the code of the Sermon on the Mount or the imitation of Christ. To a certain extent it went further away from Christ than the Latins. For instance, the Latin priests imitate Christ in being unmarried, the Protestant pastors married. When Calvin burnt Servetus he was not returning to the tenets of the New Testament, and what thought had the Puritans or the French Huguenots, the most masterful of men, of turning the other cheek?