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diff --git a/33636-8.txt b/33636-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..15d6ec8 --- /dev/null +++ b/33636-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3873 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stand Up, Ye Dead, by Norman Maclean + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Stand Up, Ye Dead + +Author: Norman Maclean + +Release Date: September 4, 2010 [EBook #33636] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STAND UP, YE DEAD *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines, prepared from scans obtained from +The Internet Archive. + + + + + + + + + + +STAND UP, YE DEAD + + +BY + +NORMAN MACLEAN + + + + +HODDER AND STOUGHTON + +LONDON -- NEW YORK -- TORONTO + +MCMXVI + + + + +_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + + + DWELLERS IN THE MIST + HILLS OF HOME + CAN THE WORLD BE WON FOR CHRIST? + THE BURNT-OFFERING + AFRICA IN TRANSFORMATION + THE GREAT DISCOVERY + + + + +{v} + +PREFACE + +Two years ago the writer published a book called _The Great Discovery_. +It seemed to him in those days, when the nation chose the ordeal of +battle rather than dishonour, that the people, as if waking from sleep, +discovered God once more. But, now, after an agony unparalleled in the +history of the world, the vision of God has faded, and men are left +groping in the darkness of a great bewilderment. The cause may not be +far to seek. For every vision of God summons men to the girding of +themselves that they may bring their lives more into conformity with +His holy will. And when men decline the venture to which the vision +beckons, then the vision fades. + +It is there that we have failed. We were called to put an end to +social evils {vi} which are sapping our strength and enfeebling our arm +in battle, but we refused. We wanted victory over the enemy, but we +deemed the price of moral surgery too great even for victory. In the +rush and crowding of world-shaking cataclysms, memory is short. We +have already almost forgotten the moral tragedy of April 1915. It was +then that the White Paper was issued by the Government, and the nation +was informed of startling facts which our statesmen knew all the time. +At last the nation was told that our armies were wellnigh paralysed for +lack of munitions, while thousands of men were daily away from their +work because of drunkenness; that the repairing of ships was delayed +and transports unable to put to sea because of drunkenness; that goods, +vital to the State, could not be delivered because of drunkenness; that +Admiral Jellicoe had warned the Government that the efficiency of the +Fleet was threatened because of drunkenness; and that shipbuilders and +munition manufacturers had made a strong {vii} appeal to our rulers to +put an end to drunkenness. It was then that the King, by his example, +called upon the people to renounce alcohol, and the nation waited for +its deliverance. But the Government refused to follow the King. There +is but one law for nations, as for individuals, if they would save +their souls: 'If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off.' But our +statesmen could not brace themselves to an act of surgery; they devised +a scheme for putting the offending member into splints. And, since +then, it looks as if the wheels of the chariot of victory were stuck in +the bog of the national drunkenness. The vision of God has faded +before the eyes of a nation that refused its beckoning. + +This book deals, therefore, with those evils which now hide the face of +God from us. If drunkenness be the greatest of these evils, there are +others closely allied to it. Two Commissions have recently issued +Reports, the one on 'The Declining Birthrate,' and the other on 'The +Social Evil,' {viii} which reveal the perilous condition of +degeneration into which the nation is falling. It is difficult for +people, engrossed in the labours and anxieties of these days, to grasp +the meaning of the facts as presented in these Reports. In these pages +an effort is made to look the facts in the face and to make the danger +clear, so that he who runs may read. And the writer has had but one +purpose: to show that there is but one remedy for all our grievous +ills, even a return to God. + +As we think of the millions who have taken all that makes life dear and +laid it down that we might live; who have gone down to an earthly hell +that we might not lose our heaven; who have wrestled with the powers of +destruction on sea and land that these isles might continue to be the +sanctuary of freedom and the home of righteousness; who in the midst of +their torment never flinched; and of the fathers, mothers, and wives +who have laid on the altar the sacrifice of all their love and +hope--the question arises, how can {ix} we show our love and our +gratitude to those who have redeemed us? We can only prove our +gratitude by making a new world for those who have saved us--a world in +which men and women shall no longer be doomed to live lives of +sordidness and misery. When we shall set ourselves to that task, +seeking to meet the sacrifice of heroism by the sacrifice of our +service, deeming no labour too great and no effort too arduous, then +the vision of God will again arise upon us and will abide. + +N. M. + +_October_ 7, 1916. + + + + +{xi} + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +THE EMPTY CRADLE + + +CHAPTER II + +THE ROOTS OF THE EVIL + + +CHAPTER III + +THE EMPTY COUNTRYSIDE + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MAN IN THE SLUM + + +CHAPTER V + +THE LORD OF THE SLUM + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE GREAT REFUSAL + + +{xii} + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SLUM IN THE MAN + + +CHAPTER VIII + +BEHIND YOU IS GOD + + + + +{1} + +CHAPTER I + +THE EMPTY CRADLE + +The greatest disaster of these days has befallen in the streets and +lanes of our cities at home, and, because it has happened in our own +midst, we are blind to it. And, also, it has come upon us so gradually +and so surreptitiously that, though we are overwhelmed by it, we know +not that we are overwhelmed. Our capital cities are leading the nation +in the march to the graveyard. In London the birthrate has fallen in +Hampstead from 30 to 17.55, and in the City itself to 17.4; in +Edinburgh it has fallen in some districts to 10. In many places there +are already more coffins than cradles. What would the city of +Edinburgh say or do if suddenly one half of its children were slain in +a night? What a cry of horror would rise to heaven! {2} Yet, that is +exactly the calamity which has overtaken the city. In the year 1871 +there were 34 children born in Edinburgh for every thousand of the +population; in the year 1915 the number of births per thousand of the +population was 17. Edinburgh has, compared to forty-four years ago, +sacrificed half its children. And because this calamity is the slowly +ripening fruit of forty years, and did not occur with dramatic +swiftness in a night, there is no sound of lamentation in the streets. + + +I + +What has happened in London and Edinburgh is only what has happened +over all the British Empire, with this difference--that these cities +are leading the van in the process of desiccating the fountain of the +national life. While the birthrate for the whole of Scotland is 23.9, +that of Edinburgh is 17.8. For the nation as a whole the policy of +racial suicide has become a national policy. The marriage-rate +increases, but the {3} birth-rate decreases. A birthrate of 35.6 per +thousand in 1874 decreased to 33.7 in 1880, 32.9 in 1886, 30.4 in 1890, +and to 23.8 in 1912. If the city of Edinburgh is sacrificing at the +fountain-head half of its possible population, the rest of the +English-speaking race is following hard in its wake. The facts which +to-day confront us spell doom. In the year 1911 the legitimate births +in England and Wales numbered 843,505, but if the birthrate had +remained as it was in the years 1876-80, the number would have been +1,273,698. 'That is to say, there was a potential loss to the nation +of 430,000 in that one year 1911.'[1] In the year 1914 the loss is +even greater, for it amounted to 467,837. The nation as a whole is now +sacrificing every year a third of its possible population. This is +surely a terrible fact. The ravages of war, awful though these ravages +have been, are nothing to the ravages which have been self-inflicted. +In the years that are past, the race recovered from the {4} greatest +calamities of war and pestilence because there was a power mightier +than these--that of the child. The abounding birthrate rapidly +replaced the wastage of war. Through the greatest calamities the +nation ever marched forward on the feet of little children. One +generation might be overwhelmed, but + + 'Away down the river, + A hundred miles or more, + Other little children + Shall bring our boats ashore.' + +But alas! when the greatest of all calamities has overtaken the race; +when the young, the noble, and the brave have lain down in death that +the nation might live, the feet of the little children, on which +erstwhile the race marched forward, are not there. We have offered +them up a sacrifice to Moloch. + + +II + +The nation must be wakened to the dire peril in which the steadily +falling birthrate has placed the race. Militarism {5} slays its +thousands; this has strangled its hundreds of thousands. But no +warning note has been sounded by our statesmen. They were doubtless +waiting to see! + +The might of every nation depends on the reservoir of its vitality. +Let that desiccate and the nation desiccates. Of this France is the +proof. That France which, a hundred years ago, overran Europe, fifty +years later lay prostrate under the feet of Germany. Twenty years +before that national humiliation, France began to sacrifice her +children. Lord Acton pointed out the inevitable result; the wise of +their own number warned them--but France went on its way down the slope +of moral degeneration. Its birthrate fell from 30.8 in 1821 to 26.2 in +1851, 25.4 in 1871, 22.1 in 1891, 20.6 in 1901, and to 19 in 1914. The +result was inevitable. In the race of empire France fell slowly back. +The alien had to be imported to cultivate her own fair fields. She +annexed territories, but she could {6} not colonise them. The prophets +who prophesied doom have been abundantly justified. To-day France, +risen from the dead, is wrestling for her life; she is impotent to +drive back the foe without the help of Britain and Russia--she who +dominated Europe a century ago! When we read of a Russian army, after +a journey round half the world, landing at Marseilles to take their +place in the trenches that Paris may be saved from the devastators of +Belgium and Poland, we see the fields ripe for the harvest of that +policy which sacrificed the race to the individual. The hope for +France is that she will rise from the grave of her degeneration, +new-born. + +What has happened in France is what happened in Rome long before. It +was not because of the inrush of barbaric hosts that Rome perished, but +because Rome sacrificed its children. In its golden age, when luxury +clouded the heart, Rome began to avoid the responsibilities of family +life, and so sounded the death-knell of its empire. Here is ever the +source of human {7} decay. The most perfect intellectual and ęsthetic +civilisation ever developed on earth was that of the ancient Greeks. +'We know and may guess something more of the reason why this +marvellously gifted race declined,' says Francis Galton. 'Social +morality grew exceedingly lax, marriage became unfashionable and was +avoided; many of the more ambitious and accomplished women were avowed +courtesans and consequently infertile, and the mothers of the incoming +population were of a heterogeneous class.' And the misery which lay so +heavily on the heart of Hosea was that Israel was rushing to +destruction because children ceased to be born. National +licentiousness produced a diminishing population. 'And there are no +more births,' cries the prophet beholding the coming doom. Over us the +skies are darkening with the portents of the same doom. For we also +have given ourselves to the same degeneration. To Puritanic Scotland, +a generation ago, France was oft quoted as a solemn {8} warning of the +depths to which atheism and materialism bring a nation. To-day +Scotland as a whole is only four points behind France in the matter of +this degeneration, and the city of Edinburgh has outstripped even +France. And though this policy of the silent nursery and the empty +cradle is a policy of racial doom, the land of the Covenanters and the +capital of Presbyterianism have made it their own. They have +out-Heroded Herod. + + +III + +It is only when this disease, which is threatening the life of the +body-politic, is probed, that the full extent of its ravages is +manifest. For it is the educated, the cultured, and the rich who are +eluding the responsibility of parentage, while the poor and the +diseased are still continuing to multiply. In inverse ratio to the +income and the size of house is the number of the children. It is the +same sad story in every city. In London, the birthrate of Hampstead, a +suburb mainly inhabited {9} by the rich, fell from 30.01 in 1881 to +17.55 in 1911, while that of Shoreditch, a working-class district, only +fell in the same period from 31.32 to 30.16. In his evidence before +the Birthrate Commission, Dr. Chalmers, the Medical Officer of Health +for the city of Glasgow, contrasted the birthrate in two of the poor +districts of the city with that in two of the best districts. In the +two worst wards the birthrate was equal to 161 per thousand married +women between the ages of 15 and 45 years, whereas in the two +well-to-do wards it was only 34.[2] In the city of Aberdeen, the +birthrate in the poor and congested district of Greyfriars is almost +double that of Rubislaw which includes the best housing in the city. +In no city is this grim contrast more marked than in the city of +Edinburgh. + +When the different districts of Edinburgh are considered, it is +apparent that in the poor districts the birthrate maintains still some +vitality, but among the {10} well-to-do and the rich it is rapidly +diminishing. In the Canongate district there is a birthrate per +thousand of 24; in Gorgie, 23.9; in St. Leonard's, 22.4; in Merchiston, +12.6; in Haymarket, 11.5; and in Morningside, 10.9. In the three +districts of Edinburgh where the wealthy, the cultured, and the +well-to-do abound, there the birthrate is but half of those districts +where the poor, the miserable, and the criminal are congregated in +noisome slums. In Morningside and Haymarket the birthrate is only a +third of what it was in Scotland in 1871. These districts of the city +have sacrificed two-thirds of their children to their ease. It is +among the terraces and squares of the West Ends of great cities, and +among the gardened villas of suburbs that this degeneration has evinced +the fulness of its power. Where children could grow in health and +happiness, thence selfishness has banished them; where, amid squalor, +filth, and vice they are almost doomed from birth, there they are +multiplied. Degeneration always {11} begins at the top, and works +downward. At the top only one-fourth are left; at the bottom, +two-thirds are still left. But the dry-rot is creeping downward. The +lower middle class is following its betters; and the artisan is +following hard after. Only in the Canongate is the shouting of +children at play still to be heard, and there the State surrounds the +last survivors of the race with every temptation to evil and ruin. + +This is a grim fact when the future of the race is considered; and of +its grimness there can be no doubt. The vital statistics do not lie, +and they are the proof. There are other proofs. The statistics of +baptisms are steadily falling. In many West End congregations the +sacrament of baptism has become a rarity! Sunday schools are getting +smaller and smaller. The records of seven years (1908-14) showed the +appalling fact that fourteen of the chief Free Church denominations of +Britain have lost 257,952 scholars. The materials out of which the +Church {12} was formerly built are crumbling away. Empty cradles mean +empty Sunday schools, empty classes, and, ere long, empty pews. The +strangest thing is that in face of the forces that threaten destruction +the Churches are silent--as if mesmerised! In these last years even +the church-going population of this country was rapidly reverting to +the base conditions in which Christianity found humanity, and from +which the Cross in a measure rescued it. And the Church has lost the +power of sounding the trumpet and warning the people of coming judgment. + + +IV + +When we inquire into the causes of this parlous state to which the race +has been brought, we find that the greatest is self-deception. If men +and women realised what they were doing, they would be horrified. But +they don't realise it. They are acting on noble principles! They can +provide for and educate two children {13} better than six; therefore, +in the interests of the race, they will only have two! One parent +wrote to the Press recently that he could only give a public-school +education to one boy, and therefore he had no more! They have the idea +that by coddling the few they will usher in the super-race. In short, +they murder the race, but they do it on noble principles, in conformity +with the sanctions of religion, and in the name of the most high God! +Their lives are a direct reversal of the elementary canons of morality; +but they themselves imagine that they are the most perfect products of +evolution, and that they are, by a process of racial suicide, bringing +the race to its perfection--ushering in the super-race and the +super-man. + +What a false education must that be to which the race is thus +sacrificed. Education is not a matter of money or accomplishments, but +of wonder, reverence, imagination, and awe. Heaven and earth are +waiting, without money or price, to {14} thrill the young heart with +glory and loveliness; but the poor soul must not be born because he +cannot go to Eton. And the great wide world is calling for men; +provinces added yearly to the Empire demand men; great plains wait the +spade and the plough; the realms of King George have as yet only their +fringes occupied, and the race must produce the men who will go in and +possess, or other races, not yet tired of life, will enter in. And +yet, in the name of the race, the race is being sacrificed. + +The real root of the evil is selfishness. A generation that sought +only its own pleasure refused the burden of parentage. They nursed +lap-dogs and preferred bridge to babies. They could not have the +luxuries they craved and also nurseries ringing with the joyous voices +of children; and they made their choice. There were found those who +called them fashionable; but nobody will ever call them blessed. And +because of that choice families whose names were great in the land are +to-day {15} extinct. Names which in other days raised those who bore +them into the fellowship of high ideals and noble service, have +disappeared for ever, because a generation which knew no altar at which +to worship save the altar of self, sacrificed even the generations to +come at that altar. But there is found some saving grace among them. +Having silenced the voices of children in their own houses, they +organise societies to care for the children in the slums, and preserve +their precarious lives. 'In communities like Letchworth or the +Hampstead Garden Suburb, families of more than two children are rare +among the educated classes, but nearly every one is giving time, +energy, and money to the reform movements which they believe to be +urgently needed in the interests of the community.'[3] They themselves +decline to bear the burden of parentage, but they are ready to teach +the poor the best way of bearing the burden. Unconscious that they +themselves, the victims of {16} race-weariness and of selfishness, are +in direst need of some mission among them that would quicken them to +life, they organise missions to quicken others. The dead in the valley +of the Dry Bones organise to reform Jerusalem! Not all the earth can +present a stranger spectacle than this--the citizens of the West Ends, +who have sacrificed the race to their own ease, solicitous over keeping +alive the children of the miserable in the slums! Their own gardens +and nurseries are empty; but they would keep the children alive in +airless, foetid closes. Thus would they condone. But it is no boon to +the race to keep alive the children of the diseased and of the unfit; +nor is it a kindness to these children to ensure that they shall grow +into the consciousness of the misery into which they are born. The +generations of the healthy and the clean have been sacrificed on the +altar of selfishness, and no service at any other altar can ever atone. + + +{17} + +V + +But it might have been worse with the race than it is even to-day, for +this obsession of racial suicide might have possessed the nation sooner +than it did; and if it had, then we would truly have been poor indeed. +For Sir Walter Scott was the seventh child of his parents; and it is as +certain as most human surmisings, that if the ideal of life which +to-day dominates the professional classes in Scotland, had, in the year +1771, found sway in the College Wynd of Edinburgh, Walter Scott would +never have been born. John Wesley was one of nineteen children: +fortunately for the race, the gospel of the salvation of men through +racial limitation had not yet gained devotees in that vicarage where +the children were taught to cry quietly! Alfred Tennyson was the third +of seven sons, and if yesterday were as to-day, then 'In Memoriam' +would never have been written. But now, alas! the door {18} is shut +against the Walter Scotts and Wesleys of the future. + +It is unnecessary to multiply instances. Any one can see how +impoverished the race would have been, and how different the history of +the world, if the door by which mighty souls become incarnate had been +shut by the generations of the past. One has but to think of the world +with Luther, Knox, Carlyle, and the prophets shut out. In France +to-day Napoleon would never have been born! We can already trace the +tracks of the withering blight that has seared humanity. In Germany +idealism is dead, and there is no prophet either of Christian love or +of self-sacrifice. France trampled upon the Church because the Church +fought resolutely against the policy of racial suicide and used all its +power to save the womanhood of France from submitting to degeneration. +Because the Church persisted, France 'extinguished the light of +heaven,' and no man was found who could rouse the nation to realise its +sin and to repent. {19} The prophet who could have done so was +doubtless shut out. And among ourselves we can mark the slow ebbing of +vision, of genius, and of prophetic might. Two generations ago one +voice could rouse the whole nation and kindle the fire of fierce +indignation against the tale of Balkan atrocities. In our day we +beheld the Armenians massacred again and again; but there was no voice +to rouse the nation to indignation or to action. We could not send the +fleet to the mountains of Ararat, declared our statesmen, and we +acquiesced. One by one the great leaders, the poets, the writers +passed into the silence, and the day of the politician and the +time-server had come. Did a prophet arise, we no longer stoned him; we +only meted out to him contumely and neglect. In vain did Lord Roberts +summon a nation sinking on its lees to arise and quit themselves like +men. When the judgment throne of God blazed forth in the heavens, and +our startled eyes beheld the sword emerge from the mists that hid +heaven {20} from our eyes, we were engaged in preparations for civil +war, and listening to the low murmur of the toiling masses who +threatened social chaos. And there was no man found equal to the task +of saving us from ourselves. The men who could have saved us were, +doubtless, shut out. It is manifest that the richest elements must be +lost to any race that limits its own growth. If the sixth and seventh +children in a family be the healthiest, as has been established by +investigation,[4] then there is no place for the strongest in a family +limited to two! Thus it comes that we are left to-day without a Wesley +who could kindle the passion of righteousness in the nation's soul; +without a Scott who could glorify our patriotism; and without a +Tennyson who could set the hearts athrob. We have as yet produced +neither a Pitt nor a Wellington. They have been shut out. That is our +impoverishment. For great souls will no longer come aboard a world +such as this. + + +{21} + +VI + +And yet there were those who would have given all they had if to them +there were given what these others spurned. They knew that the only +abiding joy of life is the joy of little children. But that was denied +them. They had boundless capacities of love and of sacrifice, but the +opportunity of development came not to them. Few cries can pull at the +heartstrings like the cry of the old maid: + + 'All day long I sit by the window and wait, + While the spring winds fling their roses everywhere, + And I hear the voice of my husband cry at the gate, + And the feet of my children tremulous on the stair. + + 'Hour by hour I dream at the window here, + While footsteps trip and falter adown the street, + And I hear my children murmuring, "Mother, dear!" + And the voice of my husband crying, "Sweet, oh sweet!"' + + +{22} + +But they who had the opportunity went out pursuing the mirage of +pleasure, and they wanted no voices crying 'Mother, mother.' And these +others were left with their hunger--left to 'clasp air and kiss the +wind for ever.' For the modest never attained in the days when the +vulgar and the blatant received the incense and the crown. It was +because the pure were disregarded that the cult of the empty cradle +cast the glamour of its degeneration over the land. + + +VII + +In the so-called dark ages the mother and the child were an object of +veneration if not of worship. Men thrilled with the sense of the +sacredness of life because they feared God--the source of life. What +the race needs is to go on pilgrimage back to the Manger--back to the +Child. But, alas! the spiritually dead cannot go on pilgrimage. First +the dead must be quickened. What we need most of all is to cleanse +these self-filled, soiled hearts in the {23} fountain of +self-sacrifice. The soul of the race, if the race is to be saved, must +go on pilgrimage back to the Manger--back to the Mother and the Child. + + 'And he who gives a child a home + Builds palaces in kingdom come. + And she who gives a baby birth + Brings Saviour Christ again to earth.' + + +When, last winter, the enemy poured into a trench, and almost all the +defenders were killed, a French sergeant, grievously wounded, grasped a +rifle and began to shoot, crying out to his semi-conscious comrades, +'Stand up, ye dead.' At the wild cry the wounded arose, and the +half-dead began to shoot with unsteady hands. By a resurrection from +the dead the trench was saved. To a race that has set its face towards +decay, there ringeth from heaven the cry, 'Stand up, ye dead.' It is +not yet too late to save the race, the empire, and the world. + + + +[1] _The Declining Birthrate_, p. 247. + +[2] _The Declining Birthrate_, p. 343. + +[3] _The Declining Birthrate_, p. 93. + +[4] _The Declining Birthrate_, p. 126. + + + + +{24} + +CHAPTER II + +THE ROOTS OF THE EVIL + +If a disease is to be combated the first thing to be done is to +diagnose it. It is only when the destructive powers of an enemy are +realised that the full power of a nation is mobilised; and the moral +forces of a nation will only be mobilised for its own salvation when it +realises the full sweep of the forces of degeneration which are united +for its ethical destruction. Hitherto the attitude of society towards +the evils which threaten its very existence has been one of assumed +ignorance. Ostrich-like it buried its head in conventions and was +determined not to see. The result has been that the evils grew in an +atmosphere of artificial darkness and ignorance, until to-day the +fountains of the national life are at one and {25} the same time going +through a process of desiccation and of pollution. The elements in +society which have in them a promise of strength are limiting their own +existence; the elements which have in them the least promise of +vitality are passing on the stream of life diseased alike by +inheritance and by infection. It is a disagreeable and distasteful +duty to contemplate the foul diseases which prey on the body-politic, +but we must face the duty. We must remove the blinkers which have too +long hid from us the sweep of those forces which will inevitably work +destruction unless the nation be roused to its peril. + + +I + +It is a startling fact that in the very days when the flower of the +manhood of the race is perishing by the hundred thousand on land and +sea, a campaign is being conducted in London with the express purpose +of preventing the wastage of life being replaced by the advent of life. +It is almost incredible that such a {26} thing could be, but those who +carry on the propaganda are not even conscious that they are doing +wrong. In this very unconsciousness of evil we see the depths to which +the nation is falling. In his evidence submitted to the National +Birthrate Commission, the secretary of the Malthusian League, with a +frankness which showed that he was thoroughly convinced of the +righteousness of the policy he propounded, gave detailed information +regarding the propaganda now being carried on by his society: + + +In the early days of the movement strenuous and, at first, successful +attempts were made to interest the poorer classes directly. But the +opposition which quickly arose rendered the continuance of this policy +impracticable, and it was only at the commencement of 1913 that it was +deemed possible to start an open-air campaign in one of the poorest +districts of South London. The response was so gratifying and the +demand for practical advice so persistent, that the League {27} +determined at an early date thereafter to issue gratuitously a leaflet +describing the most hygienic methods of limiting families, subject to a +declaration by applicants that they were over twenty-one years of age, +married or about to be married, that they were convinced of the +justification of family limitation, and that they held themselves +responsible for keeping the leaflet out of the hands of unmarried +people under twenty-one years of age.... The applications received +show unmistakably that the poor and the debilitated are most anxious to +adopt family limitation, and are deeply grateful for the necessary +information....'[1] + + +The Commission naturally asked for a copy of this leaflet. + + +'I have some of these practical leaflets here,' answered the witness, +'but I have one thing to say about them. That sort of thing has to be +done with precautions. It has only been recently issued, and only +those can take it who will sign a {28} declaration that they are either +married or about to be married, and that they consider the artificial +limitation of families justifiable. If any of the members here come +within that category--that is prejudging the case--they can have it, +otherwise I am afraid I cannot give it.' + + +This is the only touch of comedy in the greatest tragedy of our day. +The Commission of grave and reverend seigneurs were not to be trusted +with a leaflet which was circulating gratuitously in East London. It +is manifest that no declaration signed to the contrary will prevent +these leaflets passing from hand to hand, or the information they +convey from man to man and woman to woman. There is no limit to the +evil wrought by even one such leaflet. Down the streets, by word of +mouth, the secret goes. And wherever it goes, death begins to reign. +And the nation disregards the undermining of its existence. It is not +enough that bomb and shell and gas should be laying its manhood low in +swathes; it suffers a campaign {29} in its streets and alleys that +wages war on the life that is struggling to be born. If the hands that +sway the destiny of the race were not paralysed such a propaganda would +not be suffered for a day. + +The secretary of the Malthusian League made it clear in his evidence +that he had a grievance against the educated and leisured classes in +this country. It was not the intention of the League that its teaching +should result in the impoverishment of what is good in humanity. The +teaching of eugenics aims at the improvement of the soul of the race by +developing the force of heredity and by improving environment. The +effect of the Neo-Malthusian propaganda has been hitherto to discourage +worthy parentage, and to limit the birth of children among the class +who would transmit a worthy heredity and could supply a good +environment. Thus the result has been the very reverse of that aimed +at by eugenics. But the Malthusian League is not repentant. +'Notwithstanding the fact that, in spite {30} of its efforts, the +limitation of families has up to the present been on dysgenic lines, +the Malthusian League cannot profess regret that the limitation has +occurred'--thus its secretary. It did not intend that result, but it +does not regret it. It desired to direct its teaching to the poor and +enable them to restrict their children, but the well-to-do classes +prevented them. 'All we could do was continually to direct all our +movement to convincing the educated classes of the necessity of so +extending it; but they allowed it to stop at themselves and did not let +it go any further....[2] I think it would have been far better had +they realised that the restriction should have been conveyed to the +quarters where it was most needed.' The position seems to be this: The +upper classes who already had established a monopoly of the good things +of this world, when the teaching of race-limitation came their way, +added this also to their monopoly. Having assimilated it, they kept it +to {31} themselves. This was the last fine fruit of their selfishness! +But, now, the opposition has weakened in a world of greater +enlightenment, and the Malthusian League is determined to resist that +selfishness which would keep the good things of this world as the +preserve of certain classes. Therefore it starts its new campaign in +South London. 'We know that the want of restriction among the poorest +grade is enormously due to ignorance,' says its secretary. 'It is +clear, therefore, that if such knowledge is available to them it will +conduce to more restriction in those quarters than at present.' Having +achieved what it did not intend--having silenced the voices of children +in Park Lane and Belgravia--the Malthusian League is now determined to +achieve what it intended--silence the voices of children in Lambeth and +Poplar! + + +II + +When the arguments on which the Malthusian League base their propaganda +{32} are considered, they are at once revealed to be the fruit of false +reasoning and of ignorance. Neo-Malthusianism is based on the +principle that poverty, disease, and premature death can only be +eliminated by restricting the increase of the population. As disease +and premature death are largely due to poverty, the problem is how to +eliminate poverty. It is, however, manifest to any one who considers +the sources of the world's food supply that these sources could provide +food for a population many times greater than that at present +inhabiting this planet. The vast territories of the British Empire are +at present only occupied along their fringes. The most fertile +regions--the vast spaces of Africa watered by noble rivers--cry out for +the spade and the plough. Canada is doubling its wheat supply every +few years. Counties at home, lying derelict, are waiting for intensive +cultivation. The remedy for poverty is a right distribution of the +world's food, and a right direction of the energies of men towards the +production {33} of food. When life is directed to its primary object, +the production of food, then the greater the wealth of life the greater +will be the food supply. The true wealth of a nation is therefore its +life. + +But the Neo-Malthusians are incapable of regarding life with anything +but a jaundiced eye. If anywhere life should be desired it should +surely be in Australia, where a population only equal to that of +Scotland inhabit a continent. But even there the Neo-Malthusians will +have nothing but restriction. The birthrate in Australia has descended +to 10 per thousand, but the Neo-Malthusians regard that with +satisfaction. 'What I am absolutely certain of is that no country can, +from year to year, increase the amount which it produces by enough to +hold all the people that can be born, and Australia apparently has just +got to the point; its birthrate has just descended to 10 per thousand, +but there has been a correlation between the birthrate and +deathrate.... I do admit that, at the present moment, it {34} has just +got to the point of balance.' The hollowness of an argument such as +that is apparent when it is remembered that the wheat crop of Canada in +1915 was more than 50 per cent. higher than that of 1911. Canada in +five years increased its food supply by half; it is impossible in five +years for the birthrate to increase the population by half. Canada has +done even more, for since 1901 it has increased its wheat supply by 125 +per cent., and its population is only two per square mile. Yet in the +vast empty territories of Australia and Canada the Neo-Malthusian would +spread his propaganda! + +What is manifest is that if teaching such as that of the +Neo-Malthusians be the ideal adopted by the people of this Empire and +the Dominions beyond the sea, then the Empire is doomed. Australia has +laid it down as an unalterable policy that the continent shall be a +white-man country. How can that policy hold in Australia with a +birthrate of 10 and in New Zealand with a birthrate of 9 {35} per +thousand? The abounding birthrate of Japan and China demands an +outlet. If the men of British race succumb to race-weariness and +adhere to the policy of racial suicide, they must give place to those +that are not yet weary of life. It will be impossible for any race in +the future to hold territories which they cannot occupy, and lands +which they cannot replenish or cultivate. And, yet, in the region of +empty spaces, the Neo-Malthusian regards racial limitation with +satisfaction. 'When the birthrate stood at that level [19 to 20 per +thousand] in Ontario, was that a desirable level for Ontario ... being +a young country with plenty of room for expansion?' was one of the +questions addressed to the secretary of the Malthusian League. 'I am +quite decided Ontario should at present have only that birthrate,' was +the answer. Surely human folly has seldom transcended this. + +But the Neo-Malthusian has another argument to support his delusions. +It is {36} that the lowering of the birthrate leads to the lowering of +the deathrate, and thus that there is no decrease in the population. +It was on this ground that the secretary of the Malthusian League +justified the restriction of births even in Ontario. 'When Ontario did +increase its birthrate, its deathrate increased; it gained no increase +of population thereby, so I am absolutely definite in that case.' But +the Superintendent of Statistics, Dr. Stevenson, promptly pricked that +bubble. The alleged increase of the deathrate in Ontario was due to a +miscalculation. The increase in 1911 of the population was +underestimated. The population in Ontario increased in 1911 to +2,523,000; the birthrate went up from 21.10 to 24.7, and the deathrate +came down 14.0 to 12.6. So far from the increased birthrate in Ontario +producing an increased deathrate, it brought with it a diminished +deathrate. At the touch of reality the edifice of the Neo-Malthusian +crumbles into sand. He is not deficient in patriotism; for he says so. +{37} 'We probably should get more colonising and more efficient +colonisers if we had a smaller birthrate,' declared the secretary of +the Malthusian League. Empty cradles are going to populate the Empire! +There is surely no limit to the faculty of human self-deception. + + +III + +Though the arguments of the Neo-Malthusians be fallacious, and the +basis of their teaching illusionary, yet they have gained the +allegiance of a vast portion of the population of the Empire. A +birthrate lowered by half in some cities, and by a third over the whole +of the nation, testifies to the withering blight which has passed over +the race. In a little while Britain will be as France--its population +stationary. We have yet a little way to go ere we have reduced the +birthrate to the level of Australia, 10 per thousand; but we are on the +way to it. When that day draws near there will be no more emigrants +available for the territories that we hold; {38} and the door of +Australia must open to the yellow races. A race that chooses death can +no longer shape or mould the issues of life. + +The statistics which abound in the Report are as the ringing of a +passing bell. But far more alarming than the mere statement that the +race is now sacrificing a third of its children is the fact that this +limitation has not yet come to its full development. The stage which +is now attained is that a vast majority of the educated classes +sacrifice the race to their self-indulgence. The figures given in a +booklet entitled _The Small Family System_ show that 'in the Fabian +Society in about 90 per cent. of the more recent marriages they have +voluntarily restricted.' The super-intelligent of the Socialists have +set their faces towards the drying up of life's sources. The evidence +amply proves that everywhere 'the size of the family tends to vary +inversely as the social status of the parents.' The figures provided +by the Registrar-General for {39} England and Wales showing the births +classified according to the occupation of the father, are as follows: + + Births per 1000 + married males aged + under 55 years, + Social Class including retired. + + 1. Upper and middle class . . . . . 119 + 2. Intermediate . . . . . . . . . . 132 + 3. Skilled workmen . . . . . . . . 153 + 4. Intermediate class . . . . . . . 158 + 5. Unskilled workmen . . . . . . . 213 + +The race is now being carried on mainly by the poorest classes of the +population. But, when the Neo-Malthusians have carried out to the full +that campaign on which they have now entered; when the faith in life +which the poor have not yet lost, shall at last be undermined; when it +will be true of Poplar as of Belgravia, and of the Canongate as of the +West End, that having a family is no longer a British ideal--what then +is to become of the race and the Empire? What we must realise is that +this process of racial destruction will steadily go on working down the +social {40} scale until the race is doomed--unless the conscience of +the race be roused and the forces of degeneration routed. Nobody has +studied the whole problem with more thoroughness than Dr. J. W. +Ballantyne of Edinburgh. 'If this voluntary restriction has begun in +one group of society,' says Dr. Ballantyne, 'it has not expended itself +yet upon the other groups ... it is working its way, one might almost +say, as a leaven, it has not yet reached the larger groups of people, +and therefore I expect the fall in the birthrate to go on.' In the +present miasma which has fallen on the race, when women have become +'less scrupulous,' and doctors advise with greater and greater +frequency the restriction of birth, Dr. Ballantyne can only summon us +to 'bring up the reserves and strengthen the recruits.' Life has +ceased to be desired; its continuance is no longer 'convenient.' It is +inevitable that, unless a change comes in the spirit of our day, the +process of decay will go steadily on. + + +{41} + +IV + +It is a repulsive picture this which grows before our eyes; but there +are blacker shades still--so black that one can only indicate them and +pass on. So far we have only considered the restricted birthrate as +the result of the teaching of Neo-Malthusianism; but there is a further +restriction which even the Neo-Malthusian condemns--the destruction of +the unborn life. + +The best way to indicate this, the blackest of all the signs of moral +decay, is to quote here and there from the Report. + + +_Witness_--The LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK. + +_Question_--It is your general experience, my lord, that there is among +the working-classes, so far as you can judge, a larger amount of +abortion than the use of anti-conceptions? + +_Answer_.--That is what I should say. + +_Dr. Scharlieb_.--They say that there are five abortions to every one +live birth. + + +{42} + +The Lord Bishop of Southwark did not hesitate to declare that the +destruction of unborn life in South London 'betrays instincts which are +worse than the savage.' + + +_Witness_--Sir THOMAS OLIVER, M.D., LL.D., B.Sc., of +Newcastle-upon-Tyne. + +_Witness_.--The waste of infant life was enormous owing to the +expectant mother miscarrying.... For twopence a woman might purchase +sufficient ... to cause her to miscarry, while she at the same time +might imperil her own life.... + +_Witness_--Dr. AMAND ROUTH, M.D. + +_Witness_.--My main contention was in regard to the enormous antenatal +mortality.... The number of abortions is about four times as great as +the still-birth.... Assuming that the still-births are 3 per cent., +and the abortions 12 per cent., the two together are 15 per cent. + + +Of the mass of evidence regarding this terrible aspect of the national +life, these quotations must suffice. The public conscience has, in +this last generation, become so deadened on the part of masses of the +{43} people that life is no longer sacred. 'It is always a great +comfort to me,' says Dr. Amand Routh, 'that it is criminal as well as +wrong--that one can show that the law considers it to be murder.' To +escape from inconvenience, to secure freedom from responsibility, to +attain untrammelled devotion to pleasure--the weapon of murder is +freely used. One of the witnesses, Mrs. Burgwin, told the Commission +an experience. 'When I went to Moscow,' says Mrs. Burgwin, 'I went to +see the great Foundling Hospital ... and I felt very ashamed when I +came away, because I said to a Russian doctor there, "You know this is +very serious; you have got a couple of thousand illegitimate children, +and by bringing them into a place like this you are only encouraging +illegitimacy!" And he said to me, "Well, Mrs. Burgwin, is not that +better than what you do in England? There, even your married people +murder the children."' + + +{44} + +V + +There is another cause of the falling birthrate which I will only +indicate. However necessary it may be to look facts in the face, there +are facts so ugly that they do not bear even contemplation. One great +cause of the fall in the birthrate is the social disease. One or two +quotations must suffice. + +'I hold,' says Dr. Ballantyne, 'that in a given family, if syphilis +enters it, it is the most deadly thing for the future of that family.' + +'Have you any idea about the proportion of antenatal deaths which are +due to syphilis?' 'Of course, one's idea is,' answered Dr. Amand +Routh, 'that it is an enormous proportion--perhaps one-fourth....' + +'Dr. Willey was of opinion that probably 32.8 per cent. of the total +still-births were due to syphilis.' + +'I would hold the view that it is a considerable proportion,' says Dr. +Ballantyne, {45} 'founding upon Fournier's evidence in France, where he +speaks broadly of families being swept out of existence before birth by +syphilis.' + +'We have been recently told that there are 500,000 fresh cases of +syphilis yearly in this country and three times that number of cases of +gonorrhea.' + +It is the opinion of Sir William Osler that of all the killing diseases +syphilis comes third or fourth.[3] 'While we have been unable,' says +the Commission on the subject, 'to arrive at any positive figures, the +evidence we have received leads us to the conclusion that the number of +persons who have been infected with syphilis, acquired or congenital, +cannot fall below 10 per cent. of the whole population in the large +cities, and the percentage affected with gonorrhea must greatly exceed +this proportion.' Regarding all that, one can only re-echo the words +of Sir Thomas Barlow: 'I think it is terrible.'[4] + +{46} + +It is only when the after-effects of these diseases are considered that +the full measure of the peril which they create is realised. They not +only lead to an enormous loss of child life, but they also undermine +the health of those on whom they have fastened their fangs, +transmitting the misery even to the third generation. The evidence +shows that more than half the cases of blindness among children are the +result of these diseases in the parents. Out of 1100 children in the +London County Council Blind Schools at least 55.6 per cent. were +clearly attributable to this cause. In adult life this evil is +responsible for diseases which often manifest themselves after many +years, such as general paralysis, affections of the brain and spinal +cord, and epilepsy. It is because the people have been left in +ignorance as to the terrible consequences not only to themselves but to +their children, that the welfare and happiness of life are thus +sacrificed to sin. + +'It is one of the few diseases which {47} are hereditary,' writes Sir +Malcolm Morris, 'and in the hereditary form its effects are even more +disastrous than in the acquired variety.... Many of its innocent +victims die in the first few months of life from meningitis, +hydrocephalus, convulsions, and other affections; if they survive they +are liable to recrudescences of the disease up to the twentieth year or +even later. Growth is checked, vitality depressed, intelligence +stunted; hideous deformities may be produced, sight and hearing may be +destroyed, and the central nervous system may be involved, with results +similar to those which supervene in adults. What a story of mutilation +and massacre of the innocents!'[5] + +When these results are considered, there comes a feeling of amazement +that a nation should suffer such plagues to afflict its vitality +without putting forth every effort to stamp them out. The nation which +has become thus afflicted by its own vices must have sunk to a depth +which {48} may well fill the observer with consternation. And the +remedies which are proposed will only deliver the people from the +consequences of their acts--they will not cure the disease itself. The +only salvation lies in the ideal of the pure heart once more shining +forth before the eyes of man. The law of God decrees that sin be +punished; and deliverance for humanity from punishment can only come by +conformity to the law of God. But this is not how we now regard it. +We have set ourselves to combat the social disease not because vice is +hateful but that in the future vice may become safe. When we shall +have attained our end the shadows shall have gathered in deeper +blackness. The few remaining stars shall be blotted out. + + +VI + +Such, in bold outline, are the forces which threaten the continuance +and the well-being of the race. On the altar of degeneration England +and Wales offered {49} up in the year 1914 over 600,000 children.[6] +Who can compute the laughter and joyousness, the happiness and the +riches thus consumed at the shrine of our self-indulgence? And every +sign points to this vast sacrifice of life increasing with the years. +For we are emancipated; and we smile at any restraint emanating +from--God! Science has delivered us from that. We know it now--the +voice of law is only the echo of outworn superstitions. And science, +which has broken the chain of restraint, and which has provided the +means for gratifying desire without incurring responsibility, has +blessed us also with the high-explosive shell. This great +deliverer--science--has put into our hands the power of pruning life at +both ends. If the world is to find salvation through the absence of +life--then, salvation is at the gate. In other days it gave {50} our +fathers a shudder to read of the moral depravity of Home ere the +scourge of God fell on it. The old Romans can, alas! cause us to +shudder no longer. We have improved upon them. Science has helped us +greatly, and with its aid we can sound depths of depravity the Roman +never reached. The triumphs of science have in our hands become +instruments of an immorality which would have made even heathen Rome +shudder. And as yet we are only at the top of the declivity. The +momentum of our descent is gathering force with the years. + +It may be asserted that this view is alarmist, and that, however bad +our state, we are better than Germany. No thought of an enemy from +without need, therefore, mar our satisfaction in our swift declension +into the morass of vice. That comparison may be granted: we are better +than Germany, though Germany has not yet sacrificed her children in +such hecatombs as we have done. But what we have to consider is not +the birthrate in {51} relation to that of Germany but in relation to +the extent of the earth surface which owns our sway. The end of the +war will find Germany confined within narrow borders with all her +colonies gone. The Germany of to-morrow will have no room for racial +expansion. But we own the fourth of the world's surface. That vast +territory calls to us for men. And if we individually choose our own +selfish ease, and sacrifice the generations to come, we shall have +failed in our imperial calling. We may win an empire on the +battlefield; we will inevitably lose it in the silent nursery. + +Not in relation to this or that earthly factor has this question to be +considered. It is in relation to the Moral Order of the universe that +we must face it. The unseen Power that reigns is a Moral Power. +Somewhere in this universe, Righteousness is throned. Whatever race in +the past surrendered to evil and made degeneracy its god--upon that +race the judgment of the consuming sword fell. Though the {52} +judgment often tarried, it always fell. As one considers the moral +condition to which we have come, the worse condition to which we are +hastening, the destruction which befell those of old in whose footsteps +we are now treading, the dust accumulated on buried cities and vanished +races who made their pleasure their god, and the flaming of the sword +wherewith God removed in all ages the cankerous growth from the body of +humanity,--the question leaps forth: How can we escape the righteous +judgment of God? Will there be found a place of repentance for us who +have sacrificed the child of flesh and blood to the calf of gold[7] and +have surrendered ourselves to the sensuous delights of worshipping at +our chosen idol's shrine? Unless the nation finds the place of +repentance, it needs no prophet to foretell the end. For we have been +living for more than a generation a life 'such as God has never +suffered man to lead on earth long, which He has always {53} crushed +out by calamity or revolution.' And the startling fact is this--that +when the judgment of God befell, it was on men unconscious that they +were being judged. They came to the Great White Throne and never +discerned it; they reached the end and never knew it to be the end. +Thus they perished--Babylon and Rome alike. And we are as they. The +judgment-seat is visible in the heavens, but our eyes never turn to it; +amid the crash of the world's civilisation we hear no voice calling to +repentance. + + + +[1] _The Declining Birthrate_, p. 90. + +[2] P. 125. + +[3] _Report of Royal Commission on V. D._, p. 23. + +[4] _Ibid._, p. 55. + +[5] _The Nineteenth Century and After_, April 1916. + +[6] _The Declining Birthrate_, p. 248:-- + + Deaths in antenatal period . . . . . . . . . 138,249 + Fewer births owing to reduced birthrate . . 467,837 + ------- + Total loss for 1914 . . . . . . . . . . . . 606,086 + +[7] See pp. 85-88. + + + + +{54} + +CHAPTER III + +THE EMPTY COUNTRYSIDE + +In the past the decay of civilisation has been heralded by the decay of +the country-side. When the cities had sucked the life of the plains +and valleys dry, then came the end. It was thus with Israel. Out of +the villages and farms nestling in valleys the people were driven into +cities by the rapacity of men eager to be rich. This was the burden +that weighed on the prophets, 'Woe unto them that join house to house, +that lay field to field till there be no room.' When in the country +places there was no room for the common folk, then national decay +ensued in Israel. It was so also in Rome. The day came when one +magnate owned the 'territories of whole tribes' and left them 'to be +trampled under foot by herds or ravaged by wild beasts,' or garrisoned +them 'with slave {55} prisons or citizens held in bondage,' and Rome +sucked dry the rural life of Italy and of the lands washed by the +Mediterranean. Therewith paralysis seized the greatest of the +world-empires. In every age overgrown cities have proved themselves +the graveyards of civilisation. And the primary cause of the evils +which now threaten us is that we have made the countryside waste. +Counties and parishes have been depleted of life that cities might grow +more and more. It has been calculated that nine out of ten families in +England have migrated to the city in the last three generations. In +and around Glasgow half of the population of Scotland is concentrated. +Three-fourths of the whole population of Scotland has been massed in +the industrial belt of country that lies between the Forth and Clyde +estuaries, and which includes Edinburgh and Glasgow and the towns round +which are centred the iron and coal industries. We have driven our +manhood and womanhood out of the sunshine {56} and the clean air and +the silent spaces into the foetid, sunless closes of monstrous cities. +There the clanging of machinery leaves no place where the soul can be +still. And upon us has fallen the woe declared against those who +devastate the quiet places, adding field to field, until there is no +room for the poor. + + +I + +The greatest tragedy of our day is that the English race which has +conquered the fourth of the world's area has lost its own land. In the +course of a hundred years the spoliation of well-nigh the whole nation +has been consummated. The villages and rural parishes of England which +once teemed with life are left to decay. The life and the wealth which +reared the parish churches of England--those monuments of vanished +piety and of forgotten arts--and which produced with skilled handicraft +the 'ornaments and church furniture, bells and candlesticks, crosses +and organs, and tapestry and banners,' have ebbed away, leaving behind +them only a {57} memory. The world can nowhere show a desolation such +as has overtaken rural England. Elsewhere, be it France or Germany, +Serbia or Bulgaria, the cottages are scattered over close-tilled land, +and the labour of man is rewarded by the earth yielding its increase. +But England presents the spectacle of decayed cottages, of vast spaces +'laid down to grass,' of stately houses with the silence of tree-shaded +parks round about them, and of a land which yields no longer food but +sport. 'As things go now,' writes an observer, 'we shall have empty +fields, except for a few shepherds and herdsmen in all the green of +England.' In his book, _The Condition of England_, Mr. C. F. G. +Masterman has presented a picture of rural decay which is steeped in +tears. 'A peasantry, unique in Europe in its complete divorce from the +land, lacking ownership of cottage or tiniest plot of ground, finds no +longer any attraction in the cheerless toil of the agricultural +labourer upon scant weekly wages'--thus Mr. Masterman. If {58} the +life-blood of a nation be derived from the clean countryside, then +'England is bleeding at the arteries, and it is her reddest blood which +is flowing away.' + +It is to the Moloch of an industrial civilisation that this sacrifice +of life has been made. The desolation was wrought because men, in +their haste to become rich, were blind to the true values of labour. +They forgot that the primary work of man is to produce food, and that +upon the production of food the whole structure of the commonwealth +depends. Cities endure because, far beyond their ken, the land yields +wheat and fruit and supports wandering herds. All other work is +parasitic; that work alone is essential. But a perverted civilisation +sacrificed the primary to the parasitic, and poured its rewards into +the lap of the workers who added nothing to the world's true riches. +The road to success and honour lay only through the city. Formerly the +gentleman was he who tilled the ground; in our day the man who ploughs +and reaps {59} is deemed a boor. Clean hands and clean linen are now +the badges of a gentleman. The sense of the dignity of making the soil +yield its riches has vanished from among us. Everything is ordered +that the stream of life from the fields and the open sky into the +barracks of sooty, squalid cities may swell into an ever-increasing +river. We had only one ideal and that was cheap food. Other nations +carefully conserved the workers of the soil and protected them from a +competition that might deprive them of the reward of their labour. +During the last fifty years, while our population has rapidly +increased, our agricultural population has been diminished by a million +workers. A hundred years ago we had 9,000,000 acres producing wheat, +to-day we have only 1,800,000 wheat-growing acres. We have indeed +sacrificed our true life. In the whole of the British Empire, covering +a quarter of the globe, the total white population living on the land +is only 13,000,000, whilst that of Germany alone, working the land and +{60} living by it, has risen to 20,000,000. We had one watchword which +stirred our blood--the cheap loaf! The meaning of the watchword was +hid from us. For the cheap loaf meant cheap labour, and cheap labour +meant ever-increasing riches to the exploiters of toiling masses in the +lamp-lit cities. But the 'cheap loaf' meant for the country places +which yielded it, that the husbandman could not live by his labour. +Floods of oratory were poured forth; under the guise of philanthropy +the ideal of cheap food was held up in palpitating periods by +capitalists who reaped their sure reward in labour correspondingly +cheap, and the fields of England were steadily laid down to 'twitch and +thistle.' A generation wrought this desolation, unconscious of the +desolation that it wrought. The agricultural labourer became at last +obsessed by the watchword which wrought his ruin. Even Mr. Masterman +records with sympathy, if not with satisfaction, the attitude of the +farm labourer to the new 'fiscal reform.' {61} 'Oh dear!' is his +comment, 'we want no taxes on food.' We destroyed him, but we did it +so skilfully, and with so splendidly assumed an air of philanthropy, +that the worker on the land did not even recognise the instrument +wherewith we destroyed him. He has been the victim of political +factions--of politicians who have sacrificed the State to party. The +Conservatives not unnaturally made the monopoly in land a tenet of +their faith, and resisted every claim on the part of the poor to call +any portion of England, however small, their own; the Liberals made the +policy of Free Trade an inviolable doctrine, and though that policy +mainly enriched the capitalist, they assumed in its support the +semblance of enthusiasm for humanity, if not of the passion of +religion. But between the two, as between the upper and nether +millstone, the rural population of England has been ground to powder. +Not for the first time in history the desolation of a kingdom has been +wrought by time-serving politicians. + +{62} + +And with the devastation which our national policy thus wrought in the +countryside there passed away, slowly but steadily, the ancient +landowners. These men had in their veins the life-blood of England; +they built up the Empire and sent forth their sons to be the +'frontiersmen of all the world.' Innumerable ties bound them to the +people. Squire and peasant were at one in love of the land, and each +knew that his welfare was bound up with that of the other. But the +lands had to be sold, and the new-rich came from the cities and +replaced the aristocracy of the countryside. They had no ties binding +them to the sons of the soil. They knew not the traditions to which +the landlord and tenant were loyal. They only sought to transplant a +bit of the city into the heart of the country. It was then that the +country folk awoke to the insecurity of their lives. At a word they +were sent forth homeless wanderers. The hint of a right to be +vindicated brought down unemployment and eviction on the head of {63} +England's freedmen. The cottager in the country could no longer call +his soul his own. In the city he could at least call his thoughts his +own, and he could give them utterance in stumbling words without +incurring the risk of being made homeless. No wonder the rural +labourer escaped for his life. The nation, as usual, awoke too late to +the realisation of its ebbing life. It began to make provision for the +people of England acquiring a moiety of the land of England. But it is +easy to turn a smiling land into a wilderness; to convert the +wilderness back into a garden is the baffling problem. 'To-day,' +writes Mr. Masterman, 'land is being slowly and laboriously offered to +the people, a generation after the people who once hungered for that +offer have flung themselves into the cities or beyond the sea.' Any +parvenu can sweep the population of a parish forth into Poplar and +Lambeth; it may well pass the wit of man to bring their children back +from Poplar and Lambeth to the land. + + +{64} + +II + +To-day four-fifths of the population of England is crowded in cities, +and there they are left 'to soak and blacken soul and sense in city +slime.' In Scotland the same forces have been at work with the same +result. Parishes of soil as fertile as is in the world are to be found +in the occupation of half a dozen farmers, some of whom hold two or +more farms. Land which might hold hundreds of families, if the land +were available for the people as in France, is empty save for a handful +of farmers and their servants. Though great markets are at the door +waiting the produce of intensive cultivation, the small holder is +crowded out. Denmark pours into our cities the produce which the +monopoly in land prevents being supplied at home. Holland feeds us in +time of peace and our enemies in time of war. That the Danes and the +Dutch may have stores wherewith to feed our foes, the fields of England +are laid waste. {65} The only life now left in the country is the ebb +and flow of the overflow from the cities. Germany and Austria have +withstood a two years' blockade, because the land is there kept under +cultivation and yields the necessaries of life. Our enemies have not +been blind to a nation's true riches. Did we lose the command of the +sea for a few weeks, there would be no escape from destruction. For we +have sacrificed our bread supply to the production of Brummagem wares. + +But there has been in Scotland an additional element of tragedy in the +rural situation which has not been manifested in England, at least on +so large a scale. Whole parishes have in the Highlands during the last +century been laid waste by wholesale ruthless evictions. Behind the +processes which have made the glens and mountain slopes desolate of +men, and which have massed a million of human beings into a city of +restricted area such as Glasgow, piling them, family on the top of +family, in noisome tenements, there lies {66} perhaps the greatest +tragedy of the nineteenth century. And that tragedy is all the more +poignant in that it has been wrought in silence, none paying it any +heed. Glens filled with men have been transformed into desert places +filled with sheep or deer, and that at the will of one man, while +statesmen paid no heed and the world took no cognisance.[1] For were +not these things done beyond the Grampians? And what happened there +was of no consequence. + +It is almost incredible that, during the last century, glens and +countrysides in Scotland were stripped bare of human beings by +wholesale eviction. The thought of these poor thatched houses burning +{67} and the people driven away to find refuge where they could--in the +slums of Glasgow or across the seas--is to our minds so intolerable +that many will deny such crimes were ever perpetrated. Yet they were +perpetrated. The hearthstones on which the peat fires unceasingly +burned, which for generations had never grown cold, were left to the +rain and the snow. Some parishes were laid wholly waste. In one such +parish which I know, out of which sixty-one officers bearing their +King's commission went forth to fight in the Napoleonic wars, there has +gone forth hardly one officer to-day. Where hundreds were found of old +in the day of need, a mere handful of ghillies or shepherds is found +to-day who can take up arms. For that parish which gave Scotland the +greatest family of preachers and leaders in religious and social +movements was laid ruthlessly waste, and the parish minister, who held +all the honours which his Church and country could bestow on him, was +left in his manse solitary {68} amid the wilderness which greed +created, to die of a broken heart. That most beautiful of islands--the +Isle of Skye--sent forth 21 generals, 48 colonels, 600 commissioned +officers, 10,000 soldiers to fight in the great wars for human freedom +against the Corsican; to-day the Isle of Skye can scarcely muster 1000 +in the greatest crisis of human history. One parish in the western +sea-board which sent 200 men to fight for freedom in the Napoleonic +wars to-day could only muster six; for the parish fell into the hands +of a man who wanted a deer forest for the passing of his leisure hours. +These figures are but representative of what has happened all over the +British Isles. An old man, who was carried as a child in the corner of +a plaid out of his native glen when the cataclysm of eviction burst on +the unbelieving crofters and cottars, while cottage after cottage was +given to the flames, when asked what he remembered about it, answered: +'I can see yet the smoke rising to heaven; and I can hear {69} the +sound of weeping down the glen.' In my boyhood's days I heard an old +man speaking of the townships of his youth being laid waste, and he +said: 'I remember it as one remembers things seen in a dream.' There +are many books in which those who may desire can inform themselves of +the depths to which it is possible for greed and tyrannous power to +bring men who have no ideal but the gratification of their desires. +The cruelties and the wrongs perpetrated in the Scottish Highlands on a +loyal and law-abiding people can only be paralleled by the atrocities +of the slave traders in Africa. They would be unbelievable were it not +that the State suffered the same processes in a gradual and less +dramatic form to accomplish the same ends in England. The only +difference was that the Scottish evictor concentrated in one day of +sword and fire the desolating work which in England and in Lowland +Scotland was diffused over many years. Whether the result be that of a +day or of {70} a hundred years, the folly and the guilt are the same. +The same fate as overtook rural England and Scotland has in even more +fateful degree overtaken Ireland. The vast majority of the Irish are +now outwith their native isle. In the Ireland of to-day only the +derelicts are left. Throughout the length and breadth of the three +kingdoms, the country places in which strong men were reared have been +made desolate that cities in which men decay might extend and enlarge +their slums. + + +III + +In this devastation of the country places the abnormal process of +eviction played but a small part compared with the normal processes +which worked steadily for the emptying of the country and for the +growth of the city. A blinded legislature sacrificed everything to the +growth of an industrial civilisation. What the ruling classes wanted +was the increased prosperity of Glasgow and Birmingham; it mattered +nothing though the {71} country-folk perished. They had, however, some +consideration for the countrysides. They caused schools to be built +everywhere at the expense of landlords and tenants. But in these +schools they caused nothing to be taught but the dates of battles and +the names of rivers. In them there was nothing taught of the wonder of +growing life, of the miracle of earth pouring food into the lap of men, +of the glory and beauty of the greening earth, or of the dignity of +breaking up the fallow ground. I say, nothing of worth was taught in +these schools--nothing, except what roused an unhealthy craving for the +life that could be lived with unsoiled hands! And for the support of +these schools one lady who owned a large estate in the west had to sell +her jewels that she might pay the school rate, and tenants parted with +their stock for the same end. For the State had decreed that the +country places should pay for the support of those processes which were +to work their own desolation. Landlords were {72} made bankrupt and +tenants ruined that bloated cities might grow more and more. + +Every development of the great national machinery designed for the +intellectual illumination of the people has wrought more and more +desolation in the country places. The last of these has been the +worst. In Scotland the parish school since the days of Knox was the +centre of intellectual activity, and the parish schoolmasters were able +to send their scholars straight to the University. But the pundits at +last decreed that this must cease. Secondary education was banished +from the parish schools. The teachers who formerly had scope for, and +joy in, the higher spheres of teaching were consigned one and all to +the withered fields of elementary education. All the secondary +teaching was concentrated in the towns where central schools were +established, to which promising children who desired such training were +collected. + +The result has been disastrous. The light of higher education in each +rural {73} parish has been quenched. The secondary education has been +concentrated in towns, and only a few parents could face the additional +burden of providing lodgings for their children. The pundits made no +provision for the proper accommodation for boys and girls at the most +critical period of their lives. No hostels were built for them. In +insanitary villages they were left to whatever provision decayed houses +could provide for them. In these schools religious and moral training +was banned. After school hours boys and girls, removed from the +salutary influences of their homes, were left to the social joys of the +street corners. The main industry of many of these towns was that of +the hotel and public-house. The result has been that a large +proportion of boys and girls who in the shelter of their homes would +have grown into a worthy and useful citizenship have been utterly +ruined. The system was devised that the few might be pushed up the +ladder into the region of the higher {74} knowledge, leaving all record +of God and moral duty behind with their elementary textbooks; and no +provision whatever was made to safeguard them, in the course of the +giddy ascent, from toppling over and falling into the mud. And the +great system, instead of elevating, crashed them into the mire. And +this devastating process still goes on. The rising generation in the +country places in Scotland are made unfit for country life by a false +education, and, through its neglect of their higher needs, many of them +are ruined. A nation that spends five millions a day on war would not +in its education system provide for the social and moral needs of its +sons and daughters. It sacrificed everything to the brain. And the +result has been desolation in many a family in Scotland in lonely glens +and by the sea. Our education machinery has, in truth, been +Prussianised, and in the process the soul has been grievously wounded. +The class that provided the ministers of religion in wide stretches of +Scotland, provides {75} them no more. A generation of boys left to the +moral influences of the street corners, undisciplined and disregarded, +can provide the nation with clerks and not with leaders in the sphere +of the soul. + + +IV + +There is no sign that the nation is waking to the misery wrought by the +bureaucrats. All the cry is for a further march along the same road. +The Government have in these last days appointed two Commissions on +Education, the one to 'inquire into the position occupied by natural +science,' and the other 'into the position occupied by the study of +modern languages,' in the educational system, and they are to consider +the matter, the one in relation to the 'interests of the trades, +industries, and professions' dependent on science, and the other in +relation to the 'interests of commerce and public service.' In this +there is no hint that what the nation mostly needs is the development +of character, the re-enforcement of soul. We are to investigate with +{76} our eye on commerce; the material gain is still our goal. The +Germanised minds have won their first victory. The future path of our +development is to be the path of the Teuton, and we are to tread it +like him, sacrificing our souls to Mammon. For the sake of commerce we +must go on pushing our boys faster up the ladder, heedless of debris of +moral wreckage at its foot! + +A still more depressing symptom is the policy already adumbrated by the +Government to mitigate the devastation wrought in the country places. +Our armies now number millions, but the Government introduces a bill to +settle a few hundred soldiers on the land! Millions of acres lie +waste, but the Government proposes to deal with a few thousand acres +here and there. The needs of the future require an exodus from the +Egypt of the slums and from the slavery of that industrialism which +adds nothing to the world's true riches, and the re-establishment of +the people in their true heritage, the land. But the Government {77} +proposes to reinstate a handful. There is no sign that the politician +has as yet realised that agriculture is the noblest of industries, a +nation's true wealth. And there is no realisation of the only method +by which this can be done. It is the magic of ownership that alone +will restore to the people the joy in the land. The rent system is +doomed to failure. In the words 'my own' there is a glamour which +turns even sand into gold. When to the masses that have been despoiled +there is again restored the privilege of designating a little portion +of the land of their fathers, their own, then, and only then, will the +country places once more waken to life, and the desolation of +generations be at last removed. A nation for which millions have been +found ready to die must surely provide for the living such social +conditions as will enable them to live joyous and clean lives. In +kingdoms teeming with riches, no heart must be starved of beauty, no +life starved of bread, and no soul starved of God. + + + +[1] A hundred years ago there were 5 deer forests in Scotland, now +there are 200. Since 1891 the acreage in Scotland under deer and +devoted to sport increased from over 2 ½ millions of acres to over 3 ½ +millions of acres. This process of increasing the area devoted to +sport has gone on even since the war began. This land, to the extent +of two millions of acres, can be reclaimed for human use. Scotland has +talked of afforestation for a generation--and done nothing! During the +last twenty-five years, while the politicians pursued their game, the +people of Scotland lost an additional million of acres so far as food +production is concerned! + + + + +{78} + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MAN IN THE SLUM + +The countrysides have been laid waste, but what of the men and women +who were thus driven from the wide, wind-swept spaces to stony streets +and airless barracks? What did it mean of happiness and well-being to +them? Let us try to present the contrast to ourselves. + + +I + +In no sphere is there such an opportunity of happiness as that of work +in the open air, when men have learned to love the sights and the +sounds of the wide sky. The pleasantest sight in the world is to watch +a ploughman driving straight his long furrow, or resting at the furrow +end crooning to his {79} well-groomed team, while the fresh air fans +his face and the westering sun casts a mantle of loveliness around him. +He may be a lover of nature, this man. He may watch the coming of the +birds and the first white flashing of the swallows' wings. If he does +not own the land there is no reason why he should not 'own the +landscape.' At the close of the day he goes home and is met by the +welcoming shout of his children, who, strong and sturdy, clamber on his +knees. + +But it was decreed that he be driven into a slum; and see what has been +made of him! Walk through the East End of Glasgow on a Saturday night +and mark the product of the 'highest civilisation' the world has ever +known. Out of reeking public-houses men and women reel into the +streets. Degradation and brutality have marked them for their own. +Their diseased bodies witness to their lives of sensuality. They were +children of the fresh air, now 133,000 of them in {80} Glasgow live in +one-room houses with the very decencies of life denied them; and +486,000 live in one-room and kitchen houses--a total population of +619,000, in the one city, doomed to live under conditions which render +all privacy impossible. Often a father and mother and three or four +children live in a single apartment. When that single apartment is at +the top of the rookery, the pitiful spectacle is seen of little +children with bowed or bent legs climbing painfully up the squalid +stairs. The mothers of the race can be seen toiling up weary flights +of stairs carrying a heavy basket on one arm and a child in the other. +Once streams of purest water from the hillsides flowed day and night, +singing to them, cleansing for them; now it is impossible to keep +clean, for in these rookeries the washhouse is only available once +every three weeks! Out of a million of a population, 60 per cent. live +under conditions such as these. The Medical Officer of Health (an +office that can be no {81} sinecure in such a city) has declared that +there are 10,000 houses in Glasgow absolutely unfit for human +habitation, and which it is impossible to make fit. But a doomed +population must go on living in them because there is no other +accommodation to be found for them. In these places the children +perish in the first year of life at a rate of 200 per thousand; but in +the West End only 50 children die per thousand. Out of every thousand +babies born in those parts of the city in which the poor are massed, +150 at least are destroyed by the social conditions which the highest +modern civilisation has created.[1] After a day of nerve-racking toil +the freeborn Scotsman comes home to his lair, the one-roomed house +which can command the use of a {82} wash-house once in three weeks, to +the foulness and the squalor, and what is he to do? The State has +provided. The whisky-shop is there, at the corner, with its brightness +and its allurements and its forgetfulness of woe. The State says to +him, you can escape out of your intolerable surroundings through the +door of alcohol. And he escapes. There is no other course left for +him, and only the Pharisee can blame him. Thus it comes that the +State-regulated alcoholic manufactories of paupers and criminals pass +the slum-dwellers through the mill, and they come forth moral refuse. +Children with the faces of old men and women cry to each other the +undertones of a babel of profanity. For weeks they never see the sun, +moving under a pall of black smoke. They rise to toil in the dark, and +all day they watch and feed clanking machinery, and they return home in +the dark. The State has provided for them the narcotic of drunkenness. +Vigour dies low in them. Out of every {83} three one is rejected as +physically unfit to bear arms. When stringency is exercised one out of +two is rejected. In the process of transplantation and disinheritance +the people have lost not only the land but their bodies. For them +there has been yielded no profit. They have lost the world, but they +have not gained their souls. + +For the greatest of all their losses is this, that they have lost the +sense of God. In the country they could not fall to those depths. +There they were face to face with the Unseen. + + 'Who plants a seed beneath the sod + And waits to see it push away the clod-- + He trusts in God.' + +But in the East Ends of our cities no work of God is ever visible. And +they were told by many wise men that God was superfluous. Everything +could be explained without any God! There was nothing but sensations! +Ah! who can blame him because he has sunk so low? {84} They took the +earth from him; they took the sunlight from him; they took the air from +him; they darkened the moon and the stars for him--until at last they +took God Himself from him. And it has all been so cunningly wrought +that he is all unconscious that he has been driven out of Paradise. +That is the essence of the grim tragedy. + + +II + +In the countryside it was possible for men and women to live clean and +decent lives, and those who are left there continue to do so. In proof +of that it may be cited that the north-west districts of Scotland can +still show a birthrate of 34.8. Were it not for the 'Celtic Fringe' +and the country places, the birthrate of Scotland would be far lower +than it is. For the country and the hillsides are the land of far +vistas and empty spaces, so that the apostle of racial limitation could +not there plead that there is no room for more. And life is natural; +children, {85} so far from being an endless burden to their parents, +are looked upon as life's true riches, the helpers and the supporters +of their parents. The crofter's house may be poor, but it rings with +the shouting of children at play, and love spreads its endless feast. +In these places, so unsophisticated and so 'uncivilised,' children are +not a burden, and, however large the family, there is room in the heart +for more. + +But far different is it when the family is driven from the countryside +into the slum. There the new civilisation decrees that men and women +must no longer live natural lives. If they have children they must pay +the penalty, and the penalty is that landlords refuse to accept them as +tenants. Long, long ago a Child was born in a stable 'because there +was no room for them in the inn.' There was room for tax-gatherers and +soldiers and traders, but there was nobody found to make room for a +woman in the hour of her direst need. The Child was shut {86} out. +But that was in a rude age and the door was shut by untutored men. The +most startling of all the facts which leap to light as we consider the +social and moral condition of our generation is the fact that after +nineteen centuries of Christianity, in the heart of the most 'perfect' +development of civilisation, the same tragedy is perpetrated--the child +is shut out. There is room for everything but not for innocence. +There is conclusive evidence to prove that the property owner in London +has set his face against tenants who happen to be the unhappy parents +of little children.[2] Childhood is {87} that which nobody now desires +except a few poor people whom the Malthusians have not yet instructed. +'A printer told me the other day,' says Monsignor Brown, '...he had +five children; when he went to an agent the other day, the agent bowed +him out and would not listen to him, though he wanted five rooms and +was prepared to pay the rent.'[1] If a family exceeds four the +position becomes acute. 'If a family consist of four or five +children,' declared the Assistant Housing Manager of the London County +Council, 'they would have a difficulty in obtaining accommodation.[3] +All this is quite natural. The property owner wants his rent, and he +wants it without his property suffering undue dilapidation. And the +rent is more certain when there are not more than two or three +children. He is not a philanthropist; he wants his money, the race +must look after itself. Profits and not children--that is the rule of +{88} his life. In every city it is the same. The owner of house +property will not have children in his houses, even as the London +County Council will not have married women as teachers--for they might +have children! This then is what we have done. We have deprived +four-fifths of our population of their birthright in the air and the +sunshine and the land, and we have decreed that they must live +unnatural lives--otherwise we will allow them no place wherein to live! +We have built up a civilisation in the midst of which childhood is +anathema. + + +III + +When we look beneath the surface and ask the reasons why the poor +cannot find houses in which they can live with comfort, we discover +that it is a matter of finance. The extortionate prices of building +sites render it impossible to build on them any dwelling-houses except +tenements. Here is an example: {89} 'Unless the land were given you, +you could not possibly build cottages,' says the Secretary of the +Guinness Trust. 'Our new site, which was supposed to be sold to us on +cheap terms, cost £11,000 an acre, so that you can see the landrent per +tenement will work out at about 2s. 6d. a week, and as I say, the +Ecclesiastical Commissioners professed to sell to us at a low rate, +having regard to our objects. It is really not a stiff price for the +position.' In this bare statement we touch bedrock. The Guinness +Trust, founded with the philanthropic purpose of providing decent +housing for the poor, buys an acre for building purposes from the +Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who, from their very name, must be +interested in the poor, and they get it cheap at £11,000 an acre! What +does it mean this fabulous cost of land in great cities? A hundred +years ago that acre would be bought and sold at its agricultural value +of a few score pounds sterling. Whence, then, this inflated price? +The {90} answer is that the people created that value. We deprived +them of the land of England and drove them to the cities. In the +cities they, by their labour, made the land valuable; and the value +which they themselves created we turn against them. We exiled the +people from the soil; and in the cities, where we piled them, we turned +the values, which they created, into an instrument for their ultimate +destruction. They have made the land so valuable that cottages can no +longer be built on it, and the man with four children searches in vain +for a house. It is a staggering product of a perfect civilisation. +And still more staggering when one realises that the birthrate of these +poor people, for whom the Guinness Trust provides some measure of +comfort, is 36.95 per thousand, as compared to 17.53 in the west. The +section of the population still willing to carry on the race must pay +£11,000 an acre for the sites of their teeming tenements. Only after +that form can civilisation make room for the child. + + +{91} + +IV + +What guerdon has the State provided for the massed populations who have +the very riches they create thus turned into an instrument for their +impoverishment? One looks for that guerdon in vain. The vast majority +of them are consigned to a life of privation from birth to death. +Factories pour heavenward the smoke which lies over our cities as a +pall, and in the gloom men and women toil with bloodless faces +producing the goods which, elaborate and costly, or cheap and nasty, +crowd the markets of all the world. But ten millions of the toilers go +shivering through life ever tottering on the verge of the precipice of +want. Over one and a half millions of them were rated as paupers in +the years before the war. In the old Roman world half the population +were slaves, but three-fourths of our population are virtually slaves. +For the man who marries and has children, who is forced into a slum, +and is {92} once chained to the chariot of modern machinery, there is +no escape. 'Man is born free,' declared Rousseau, 'and is everywhere +in chains.' No chains of slavery were ever more degrading than those +forged in our day. Systems of indoor sweating found for their antidote +the pauper system of outdoor relief. England, that struck the shackles +off the African slaves, forged shackles for her own children. The +conditions of the modern slaves are in a sense worse than that of the +Roman serf. For the Roman slaves often laboured in noble toil, +building temples which have defied the corroding power of time and +which still inspire the heart with admiration and awe. But these +slaves of to-day build nothing that endures. The cities of their +labour might perish to-morrow, but in their perishing no beauty would +disappear from the earth. The very efforts which the toilers have made +to improve their state have been movements of blindness and folly. +They have organised {93} far-reaching systems by which they seek +through the limitation of output to improve their condition. The gate +through which they press towards deliverance is the gate of dishonesty. +That is the proof of the servitude not of body only, but of mind and +spirit, to which they have been brought. 'I do not hesitate to express +the opinion,' wrote Huxley in 1890, that if there is no hope of a large +improvement in the condition of the greater part of the human family; +if it is true that the increase of knowledge, the winning of a greater +dominion over nature which is its consequence, and the wealth which +follows upon that dominion, are to make no difference in the extent and +the intensity of want with its concomitant physical and moral +degradation amongst the masses of the people, I should hail the advent +of some kindly comet which would sweep the whole thing away as a +desirable consummation.' Since then, wealth has enormously increased, +science has triumphed more and {94} more over nature, but the increase +of the one and the triumph of the other have only produced an increase +of physical and moral degradation on the part of masses of the people. +Whoever ponders the two Reports in which for the first time that +degeneration is fearlessly and mercilessly exposed, cannot any longer +be blind to that. It is not, however, by means of a 'kindly comet' +that the arrest comes. For God's judgments shut not the door against +hope. + + +V + +In the days of old a prophet surveying the decay of Israel used a +phrase which grips the heart: 'They build up Zion with blood, and +Jerusalem with iniquity,'[4] and so has visualised our pitiful state +also. It is not, however, quite the same. For Zion was the temple, +and stood for the hunger of the soul. We no longer build any temples. +We build factories and playhouses and endless miles of grey and +colourless {95} streets. To-day the prophet would vary the words, +'They build up theatres and cinemas with blood and London with +iniquity.' That is near the truth. London has been built up by that +iniquity which has made the home-counties of England waste; and the +life-blood of islands and fair valleys and hill-sheltered glens has +been drained that Glasgow might grow and its slums be enlarged. The +call to repentance which comes to our ears is a call summoning us to +right the wrong wrought by blinded politicians, to restore again to the +people the decencies of life and the possibilities of happiness. The +call to national repentance is not a call to emotion but a call to +action. Of old prophets summoned a race fast hurrying to decay to +return to God. The way of return was the way of action. They were +exhorted to people the waste places, to curb licentiousness, and to +walk in the path of righteousness. And to-day the call of national +repentance is the same. {96} It is the call to the realisation of an +ideal of life in which masses of the people will not be damned from +birth by a social organism in whose grip they are powerless. All in +vain does a mission, appealing to the soul, feeble of help, wage +conflict in a slum with the forces of the State, wielded through a +dozen public-houses, that depress and enslave. As things now are there +can be no escape and no salvation for the man in the slum. + + + +[1] Dr. Chalmers has pointed out in the _Proceedings of the Royal +Society of Medicine_, 1913, vol. vi., that the mortality of infants +varied inversely with the number of rooms occupied up to four. + + Infant mortality in one-apartment houses, per thousand, 210 + " " two " " " 164 + " " three " " " 129 + " " four " " " 103 + +[2] The following quotation from a newspaper of this summer is +illuminating:-- + +'A woman with six children, who sought advice at Acton, said that so as +to get a flat she told the landlord that she had only three. + +'He accepted her deposit, and allowed her to enter the flat, but on +learning of the other three children, ordered her to leave, and would +not take her rent. He described her as a trespasser, and threatened to +eject her unless she left. + +'"If I had told him the truth," said the woman, "he would not have +taken me. As soon as I say I have six children, people will not listen +any longer." + +'The magistrate told applicant that she must make arrangements to +leave.' + +[3] _The Declining Birthrate_, p. 202. + +[4] Micah iii. 10. + + + + +{97} + +CHAPTER V + +THE LORD OF THE SLUM + +He stood at the corner of a terrace that opens off the steep street +that leads from the heart of the high-perched city right down to the +sea. With his right hand he gripped the paling, while he swayed gently +from side to side. A big, burly, swarthy man with a close-cropped +black beard, he sawed the air with his left hand, while he glanced with +bleared eyes down the street. From the bottom of the steep a car came +lumbering up, and a gleam of intelligence came into his eyes. He let +go his hold on the paling, and made for the tram lines. He plainly +wanted to board the car, but his feet moved in contrary directions, and +on the pavement he described an arc. And he {98} lurched back on the +paling, gripping it this time with both hands, while the car with its +freight of passengers went clanking past up the steep. There, with +helpless limbs, with his head bowed on his breast, he held on to the +paling, while the sunlight flooded the firth with molten silver--the +product of an ancient civilisation and a thousand years of +Christianity. In that remote era which ended in August 1914 we would +have passed him there without so much as a feeling of surprise. But +to-day we are as a man awakened from heavy slumber, stung by a sudden +dart to a new realisation. And we saw not that one solitary man sunk +in his sodden degradation, but the multitude which he represents, that +multitude whose drunkenness means destruction to their brothers +wrestling in the trenches with an unbeaten and ruthless foe. Two years +ago the call went ringing through the Empire, and from the far +North-West to the long wash of Australasian seas {99} an indomitable +race arose to war for the right. Statesmen and preachers summoned them +to a holy war, and they came with transfigured eyes. But, alas! a holy +war can only be waged by a holy nation. And as the eyes gaze at that +figure swaying on the paling, and on the mind there flashes the +realisation of what lies behind him, the heart can but cry in deepest +awe: May God have mercy upon us! + + +I + +There can come no moral resurrection for any except to those who +realise the evil of which they are partakers. It is not in the spirit +of Pharisaic censoriousness that we must judge that brawny workman +swaying on the paling, and all that he represents. For these men are +what we made them. It is the nation in its corporate capacity that +shaped and moulded these lives after that pattern. If we had set +ourselves expressly to produce this result, we could {100} not have +taken a surer way of attaining the end. We drove the people into the +congested and foul tenements of narrow streets. Let the well-to-do +classes try to realise the conditions of life to which men such as this +have been doomed. Let them picture to themselves what life can be like +in a one-roomed or two-roomed house in a crowded barracks. Imagine a +man and wife with an infant and two or more children, and often a +lodger, living in such a house. For them there is no change of air +either day or night; their bodies cannot be cleaned nor their clothes +washed; they are denied cleanliness in their whole environment; it is +impossible to cook appetising food or to serve it in a pleasing manner; +there is no escape for them from noise and squalor; they have no +privacy either living or dying; and there is always the spectre of want +hovering near.[1] What recompense has {101} the State provided for +them in their misery? What provision has been made that men and women +may escape for a little to breathe a purer air and feel that they have +part in a life richer than this? The State has not been wholly +unmindful of them. It has provided for them the public-house, and, +with paternal care, has multiplied these places of {102} recreation and +happiness where the mass of human misery is greatest. The State has +been lavish in its provision. In the Cowgate of Edinburgh it has +provided one public-house for every 200 of the population, though in +the leisured and rich districts there is only one licence for every +1300 of the population;[2] in the Cowcaddens of Glasgow it has provided +at the rate of thirty public-houses to the half-mile. It surrounds the +poor and the miserable with an atmosphere reeking with alcohol. The +trade in alcohol enfeebles the will, saps the resisting power, and then +trades upon that enfeebled will. {103} This is the door of escape from +misery which the State provides. Who can blame the people for availing +themselves of this national remedy for their woe pressed upon them by +the State at every corner? If the drunkenness of masses of the +population be a national weakness and a crying scandal, it is not their +fault. It is the State that is responsible, and as citizens of the +State we have each to bear our share of the responsibility and of the +shame. It is no use decrying publicans and brewers, for these are only +what we ourselves made them. Let us take ourselves to task and condemn +our own folly and our own sin. + +It was not enough that we provided the narcotic of drunkenness for the +man, but we set ourselves to alleviate also the lot of the woman. +There was a pressure of public opinion which prevented respectable +women from frequenting public-houses. Provision had to be made for +them. This provision was made in the legislation of Mr. Gladstone in +{104} 1860 and 1861 whereby grocers were licensed to sell alcohol. It +is only fair to say that the purpose of the legislation was not to +encourage the consumption of alcohol. In those days people were +obsessed with the idea that by multiplying the opportunities for +procuring alcohol, its consumption would decrease! The grocer's +licence was to safeguard people from the public-house! The result has +been the most disastrous of any legislation passed by sane statesmen. +It enabled women to obtain alcohol in a respectable manner, sanctioned +both by legislation and society, and to use it under conditions of +privacy, unhampered by any restraint. The State enormously increased +the facilities for drunkenness and strengthened the forces of +temptation by the multiplying of tens of thousands of liquor-selling +establishments. To these temptations the women in ever-increasing +numbers succumbed. When war broke out, and the men mustered to the +defence of their country, the {105} women were left the comfort of +alcohol. The result was an increase in the drunkenness of women, and a +corresponding increase in child mortality. + +Who can blame these women? With their husbands and sons summoned to +wrestle with death, what wonder that 'feelings of faintness' overtook +them, and that for those feelings they resorted to the only unfailing +remedy they knew--alcohol! These women live their lives under +conditions which make it impossible for them ever to be well. They +climb up and down weary stairs endlessly. There is no escape from +hopeless toil. The unhealthy conditions of life render them chronic +invalids. In the grocer's shop the State provides for them the +panacea. Here is exhilaration amid the worries of their drab +existence, and escape from the anxieties which oppressed them. And in +a little while they are slaves to the national remedy provided for +them. Their husbands often come back on leave to find {106} their +homes ruined--the larder empty, the fire dying for lack of fuel, the +children unkempt and ill-nourished. In many districts the allowances +made by the State to the dependants of its fighting men were but a +further State-endowment of the publican. It was for this that our +soldiers bared their breasts to the foe and looked death in the face. +This was the reward of their sacrifice, the guerdon of their wounds. +In their absence the State provided for their wives the solace and stay +of alcohol; but the State heeded not the fact that by so doing it +ruined the home and destroyed the children. If there be condemnation, +let the State be condemned; and from that condemnation for us, as its +citizens, there can be no escape. + + +II + +When we consider the results of the trade in alcohol, the wonder grows +how it is that this State-regulated monopoly {107} for the +manufacturing of paupers, lunatics, and criminals has been suffered to +continue so long. To it most of the evils which afflict the +body-politic can be traced. It nullifies all efforts at social +improvement. Philanthropic movements have poured out money like water +to improve the condition of the people, but faster than slums can be +cleared away or emptied, new slums are created and filled by the +victims of alcohol. The funds of Guardians and of Parish Councils are +mainly used to support those whom alcohol has impoverished. There is +the authority of Mr. John Burns, the late President of the Local +Government Board, for the statement that out of 100,000 applicants for +poor relief at Wandsworth during a period of twenty years, only twelve +were abstainers.... It not only fills our workhouses, it also crowds +our jails. According to the late Lord Alverstone nine-tenths of the +crime of this country was due to drink.... Insanity finds in it a +fruitful source. {108} Twenty per cent. of all the men and ten per +cent. of all the women in a London County Council asylum--the Claybury +Asylum--have become insane through alcohol.... The social evil is +mainly due to alcohol. Under its influence women descend to vice. +Half the infections of the social disease are traceable to the +weakening of the will power by drink.... Evil though it be in itself, +its evil goes far beyond itself, for it is the short-cut to all the +other vices.... It is one of the great causes of the decline of the +race in thus polluting the springs of life, poisoning and sterilising +them; but, far more, it is responsible for an enormous share of the +appalling infant mortality which destroys in many districts a fifth of +the child life in the first year.... It lowers the vitality and makes +the tissues more susceptible to attacks by the germs of disease, and +thus greatly increases the deathrate.... It multiplies coffins and +empties cradles.... Were this one monopoly abolished {109} and the +people delivered from the State-licensed temptations which are for ever +inviting them to their ruin, almost all workhouses and jails would be +closed and the nation delivered from the burden of pauperism and crime +which weighs so heavily upon it. Yet the nation in the time of its +greatest peril spends £180,000,000 a year upon the drink-traffic. This +is the price which it pays for the lowering of its own vitality and for +the weakening of its striking power. A government which connives at +that cannot be a government that is waging war really in earnest. +Shipping, food, coals, the railways, roads, and a host of men are in +great measure sacrificed to a trade which weakens the nation in face of +the enemy. + +The favourite argument in support of the liquor trade is the argument +that upholds the liberty of the subject. In a free country people must +be free to destroy themselves if they so wish, that others may be free +to use alcohol {110} without abusing it. If we are to aim at freedom, +let us have a freedom worth while. At present the nation is not free +to control or eliminate the greatest peril in our midst. We are +entrusted with the administration of our schools and roads and gas and +poor-rates, and we elect men who control these. But we elect nobody +who controls alcohol. We have as citizens no say as to whether the +grocer in the village will get a licence to corrupt our family life +with alcohol, or whether the poor places be crowded with public-houses. +That is in the hands of justices, and justices are created by a +mysterious power behind politics. In a free country this power of +planting down places for the sale of alcohol independently of the will +of the people is an anachronism by which the poor are enslaved. When +we speak of freedom let us consider this freedom--freedom for the +children of the poor to grow up untempted. Let us remember that the +race has now to depend mainly upon {111} the poor for its continuation +and for its virility. A nation that will doom the rising generation to +the atmosphere of gin and whisky round its cradles, seals its own doom. +The children brought up in its atmosphere will deem alcohol not only +inevitable but also desirable. They will be 'happy in the mire because +they are not conscious of the slough.' The true liberty of the subject +cannot mean racial destruction.... Recently a woman in a mean street +in London went to the public-house with a sick baby in her arms. +'While she was there it died, but she stayed on drinking and holding +the dead baby.'[3] That dead baby in the arms of its alcoholic mother +in a public-house visualises the grim and terrible situation. It is +the personification of all the millions of baby lives throttled to +death by alcohol--of a race sinking to decay in its grasp. + + +{112} + +III + +We must not, however, forget that the Government of this country, while +the manhood of the race was perishing abroad, were not wholly +indifferent to the welfare of childhood at home. When they found that +ship-repairing and shipbuilding and the production of munitions were +hampered and delayed by drunkenness, they adopted restrictions of +various kinds. But in most cases these restrictions were worse than +useless. The Government surrendered its powers in the matter of the +greatest evil afflicting the nation, to a Board of Control. That +authority meant well. It sought to limit the consumption of alcohol by +limiting the hours of its sale. This Board forgot that a man can in +five minutes buy enough whisky to keep him comfortably alcoholic for +five months. To shut the public-house for certain hours meant for many +the laying in of a store of whisky when formerly a few {113} nips +sufficed. But no regulations made by man since the day of the Bourbons +equalled in sheer fatuity the decree that a man who wanted a gill of +whisky could not get it unless he bought a quart? With a wage that +passed his rosiest dreams, to secure the gill he of course bought the +quart. No wonder the consumption of alcohol increased to £181,959,000 +in 1915, as compared to £164,453,000 in 1914. This was the fruit of a +policy which aimed at producing sobriety. + +But there are some good results claimed by the Board of Control. The +number of convictions for drunkenness decreased! But what was the +price paid for this improvement in our streets? It was the greater +corruption of the home. The drinking was driven out of the +public-house into the house; the drunkard no longer offended the public +gaze in the street, he carried his vice and degradation into the bosom +of his family. Formerly his drunkenness was limited by certain hours; +now his drunkenness was {114} continuous while his store lasted. And +he took care it lasted. If the streets were partially cleansed, the +children were impregnated as never before by the atmosphere of alcohol, +and the women were taught to share in the drunken orgy. To-day the +claim is made that, at last, the consumption of alcohol is on the +decline. When four millions of men are with the colours, fighting +across the seas, it would be indeed marvellous if there was not a +decline in the sale of alcohol at home! + + +IV + +If some of the steps taken by the Central Control Board cannot commend +themselves to temperance reformers, there have been other policies +initiated by them which are undoubtedly in the right direction. The +prohibition of the sale of ardent spirits within certain areas has +inaugurated a new and beneficial national policy. The time may not be +yet come for a total prohibition of alcohol throughout the country. +{115} Those who know anything of the intolerable conditions under which +men and women live in the crowded, noisome tenements of our great +cities, realise that these people must have some way of escape from +their miserable environment. Total prohibition is the ideal to be kept +steadily in view, but before that ideal can be realised the people must +be prepared for it. The only way to prepare for the ideal is by a +reconstruction of the social order. New and sanitary housing for the +poor must precede the policy of total prohibition. But the time is +fully ripe for a prohibition of ardent spirits during the war and +during the period of demobilisation. And it is on this policy that the +Board have launched forth. In the district of Annan and in wide +stretches of the north of Scotland the sale of spirits is now +prohibited. In a recent visit paid to the Hebrides, I found among the +people a spirit of thankfulness that they have at last been delivered +from a great evil. Drunkenness has vanished among them. {116} A new +era of prosperity has been inaugurated. + +This policy, which has been made effective in the places where it has +been put in force, ought to be at once applied generally. It is +grotesque to endeavour to promote sobriety in patches, shut in by +geographical boundaries. It has not been applied in the places which +need it most. In the common lodging-houses and farmed-out houses of +the Grassmarket and West Port of Edinburgh there were found, by a +recent census, a population of 1383 persons of whom 518 were engaged in +war-work, It is futile to expect that these workers, living in an +atmosphere reeking with alcohol, can render the State the best service +they are capable of. And to these places come, every week-end, workers +from the naval base and soldiers on leave. And these workers and these +soldiers pass their brief holiday in that alcoholic atmosphere. The +result can only be deleterious to them and to the State. + +There are more sailors and soldiers to be {117} found in the poor +places of Edinburgh and Glasgow than in all the villages of the West of +Scotland put together. Why should the few be protected from the sale +of ardent spirits and the many left to be victims of temptation? There +is only one remedy--the general application to the country of that +policy which is now restricted to favoured areas. There must be equal +treatment for the whole country and an equal chance given to all who +are serving the State. + +The time to make that policy effective is now. While the nation is in +the midst of the great conflict for its existence, the people will +gladly welcome any restrictions which will strengthen the State in its +hour of need. The heart of the nation is prepared for sacrifice. But +when the danger is passed, the mood will change. It will not be so +easy then to make drastic changes in the habits of the people. And the +time when restrictions will be most necessary will be when the army is +demobilised. If restrictions are not {118} imposed now, it will be +impossible to impose them then. + +There is a growing feeling that the quickest road to the desired end +may be found in the nationalisation of the liquor trade. Many would +shrink from this policy if they thought that the State would become a +permanent species of glorified publican. But the end in view is the +transformation of the liquor trade. Only the State can achieve that. +The State, with full control, can make the public-houses centres of +recreation, with the temptation of spirits removed. And the way will +be clear for mending or ending, as experience will prove which is the +better policy. The true reformer will care far more for the reform +than for the means by which it is to be achieved. If the reform can +best be realised through State-ownership, then the sooner it comes the +better. + +If the remedy for the evils wrought by drunkenness does not, and +cannot, lie along the road of supplying more {119} facilities for the +sale of alcohol, we must at the same time never forget that the craving +for alcohol is a craving for a fuller life--for life lit up by colour +and social joy. Those who meet that hunger for a richer life with +nothing but a dreary 'don't,' with no remedy save that of the surgical +operation, expose themselves to jibes such as that bitter jibe of Lord +Macaulay: 'The Puritans objected to bear-baiting not because of cruelty +to the bear but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.' The aim +of the social reformer must be the substitution of true joy and +happiness for what is spurious. The State must make provision for the +social instincts of the masses. 'What are wanted,' writes Sir Thomas +P. Whittaker, a member of the Royal Commission on Licensing, 'are +places of the nature of free clubs, where men may sit and smoke and +talk and play games or read the papers. They should be open to the +public free, with small charges for the use of cards and the {120} +billiard-tables.... People should be made to feel as much at their +ease in them as they are in our public parks. The cost of maintaining +such places would not be great, and the social, material, and moral +advantages that would result would render them an excellent +investment....' It is along this road deliverance must be sought. +There is no use sweeping out the house unless the house is to be +occupied by fairer and more wholesome tenants than those expelled. + + +V + +There is one last serious aspect of this problem wherewith the +spiritual forces of the nation are faced, and that is the weakening of +the nation's soul which the new policy has entailed. Whosoever +considers the manner in which religion has lost its grip on the masses, +the passing away of all discipline, the decay of idealism, and the slow +but steady emptying of the churches, cannot but feel that the greatest +need of to-day is a revival of {121} religion. Unless the soul +controls the body, man atrophies and perishes. The Church for many +centuries has striven to garrison the nation's soul, and to bring the +body under discipline. But the Church no longer can bring its power +into play, for the churches are left deserted more or less. The +proportion of the industrial population who never enter a church's door +is vastly greater than is commonly supposed. Professor Cairns, a +careful and judicious observer, who would make no statement that could +not be verified, has declared that three out of five soldiers at the +front have had no connection with the Church. The toilers of our +cities are rapidly relapsing into that paganism out of which +Christianity rescued the world at the first. What the world needs is +God. It is only when the face of God is unveiled to the awe-filled +eyes of men that they can realise the foulness of moral degradation. +In the light of that holiness which marshals all the forces in {122} +the universe to war against sin, and in that light alone, does the soul +realise the awfulness of sin. When that realisation comes, then the +history of the world becomes mainly the history of sin--that dread +power which saps the vitality of nations, disintegrates empires, ruins +civilisations, and which brings upon proud capital cities the flaming +judgment of sword and fire. The function of the prophet is to keep +clear before the eyes of men the moral issues which are laden with life +or death. The mission of the Church is to replace the spurious and +fleeting joys of sin by the true and enduring joy of a life in unison +with God. + +But the State renders the Church impotent and makes the revival of +religion in our day impossible. That may seem exaggerated, but it is +true. For the State has driven alcohol into the homes, and has +consigned not only the husband, but often the wife also, to the +degrading influence of alcohol not only on Saturday but on Sunday. In +vain does the call {123} to return to God sound in the ears of a +population sunk in the torpor of alcohol. No prophet can rouse such a +people. 'If a man, walking in a spirit of falsehood, do lie, saying, +"I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink, he shall even +be the prophet of this people."'[4] The Church is powerless against +thirty public-houses to the half-mile! Alcohol bars the door against +every movement for the social and spiritual uplift of the nation. If +the nation is to be saved, the nation must act. Arise, O Israel! + +We must look at our population in a new light and see them not as +makers of munitions but as sons of God. The horribly cynical attitude +of our rulers is that which regards men merely as munition-makers. +They survey them only from the low ground of self-interest. It is not +in relation to the peril of the hour that this problem has to be faced, +but in relation to man's high calling as {124} the son of God. These +men and women are our brothers and sisters, bearing the image of God, +and created to be heirs of an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled. +Can we go on working their ruin, damning them body and soul? A race +that will not cleanse the fountains of its national life, that will not +remove from its midst the forces of degeneration, that shrinks from +that moral surgery which will alone save the body-politic--such a race +cannot hope to go on swaying the destinies of the world. But this is +our confidence, that through the horrors of war the nation will waken +to the deep issues of life and death, and that the forces of moral and +social renewal will advance a hundred years in one day. We can hear +the marshalling of the forces in our midst which will transform and +enrich the nation. There is arising the cry of the coming victory: + + 'The King shall follow Christ, and we the King.' + + + +[1] In the _Record_, the official organ of the United Free Church of +Scotland, there appeared in the August number, 1916, a letter written +by a 'Special Constable' which gives a terrible word-picture of a slum +family: + +'Let me give a personal experience of one of the multitude of family +tragedies directly due to drink which come under my notice. A family +of eight persons--four of them adults--occupied a single room in a slum +area. + +'The eldest son, aged twenty-one years, was in the last stage of +consumption, and occupied the only bed in the room. On visiting the +house one morning, I found the lad lying on the floor, in a corner. He +had required to vacate the bed for his mother, and during the night +there had been born into these surroundings another of those immortal +souls who, in the words of Kingsley, "are damned from their birth." + +'The following day the mother was sitting at the fireside, and was +never back in bed till the son died some days later. It is hardly +necessary to add that the mother, the infant, and another girl followed +him at short intervals. On the day of the mother's funeral the husband +got drunk and had to be locked up--the twentieth-century method of +remedying evils of this kind.' + +[2] The distribution of licences in our cities is a crying evil. The +following are examples of the provision made in the wards of +Edinburgh:-- + + Number of Population to + Ward. Population. Licences. each Licence + + Morningside 24,320 18 1351 + Merchiston 24,436 21 1163 + St. Giles' 24,277 118 205 + St. Andrew's 11,166 87 128 + +In proportion to the poverty and misery of the population are the +licences increased. In the Cowgate of Edinburgh there are 12 licences, +and in the Canongate, 19. The same proportion applies to all our +cities. + +[3] _The Drink Problem of To-day_, p. 182. + +[4] Micah ii. 11. + + + + +{125} + +CHAPTER VI + +THE GREAT REFUSAL + +For the historian of the future who may essay the task of elucidating +the moral progress or decay of the British Empire, one date will stand +forth as a landmark--April 20, 1915. For it was on that day that the +House of Commons refused to follow 'the King's lead.' On the 6th April +it was announced that 'By the King's command no wines, spirits, or beer +will be consumed in any of His Majesty's houses after to-day.' No +announcement ever cheered the heart of a nation more than that. It was +as if an electric current had suddenly passed through an inert mass, +galvanising it into life. When Lord Kitchener and other leaders +loyally followed the King's example, the men who fought {126} a weary +battle for the emancipation of the nation from the yoke of alcohol, and +whose hearts were oft sickened by long-delayed hopes, felt that the day +of moral victory had dawned at last. The nation, delivered from the +enemy within its gates, would bring its full power to bear upon the +enemy that threatened its destruction from without. In house and mess +and restaurant alcohol was banished. But all these fair hopes were +rudely shattered when the House of Commons at the end of fourteen days +refused to banish alcohol from the precincts of Westminster. The dawn +of hope ended once more in gloom. + + +I + +It is only as yet possible to surmise as to the forces which led to the +great refusal. The nation, with the almost unanimous voice of its +wisest and best citizens, had called for the deliverance of the people +from alcohol by its total prohibition. Employers of labour, who {127} +had no sympathy originally for the prohibition movement, were converted +to it by the spectacle of the nation's marshalling of its forces being +steadily hampered by drunkenness. The leaders of all the Churches +pressed for it; the Press began to plead for it; Mr. Lloyd-George +openly declared that 'drink is doing us more damage than all the German +submarines put together'; and there is no doubt but that the King and +Lord Kitchener expected that their example would give an impetus which +would carry prohibition to victory. But the House of Commons shattered +that hope. The forces of reaction immediately began to raise their +head, and to the tables of the home and the mess alcohol slowly +returned to resume its fell sway. The nation that had braced itself +for social surgery was presented with soothing medicine in the form of +the Central Control Board. + +Though it is impossible to assign causes to these effects with +certitude, yet it is safe to say that this failure was the {128} fruit +of the party system. We have seen how the play of political parties +one against the other devastated the countryside. The party +politicians think primarily of votes, and anything that would cost them +votes is banned. They knew in what peril the nation stood before the +war, but they did not summon the nation to prepare for war and endure +hardness. That would have been unpopular--and would have cost votes. +They kept the nation in ignorance of its peril, and cowered before the +people whom they kept in the dark, terrified to use firmness lest the +firm hand on the reins should mean their unseating. They went further: +when Lord Roberts warned the State in prophetic terms, they held him up +to derision. The greatest calamity that ever befell the human race we +owe to the party politicians. + +Behind the party politician there is the caucus, and behind the caucus +the party funds. The power of money is proverbial, and behind the +party politician {129} is the exchequer supplied by his supporters. +That exchequer is replenished by the sale of honours. When Oleander, a +Phrygian and erstwhile slave, was the minister of the Emperor Commodus, +Rome saw the woeful spectacle of the rank of Consul, of Patrician and +of Senator exposed to public sale. We hold the decencies of life in +too high regard to do that. Secretly and decorously our senatorships +and the ancient orders of our knighthood are assigned. At one end of +the social scale national degeneracy makes the trader in alcohol a +plutocrat; at the other end the same national degeneracy makes him a +legislator and a pseudo-aristocrat. The alcoholic trade was too wise +to be on terms of friendship with one party alone; it sought +relationship with all. Nobody can object to the man who pays the piper +calling the tune. In Ireland the publican is even a greater power in +politics than he is in England. And the power behind the politicians +brought all its forces into play. When, in 1887, Lord Iddesleigh, +{130} superseded at last, fell dead in Lord Salisbury's waiting-room, +the latter, writing to Lord Randolph Churchill, exclaimed, 'As I looked +upon the dead man before me I felt that politics was a cursed +profession.' And Lord Salisbury knew. + +The party politician, even in the maelstrom of a world's devastation, +pursued his familiar course. Before the war he failed to warn the +nation and to prepare. In the midst of the war he still strove to keep +the nation in the dark. After months of calamities the nation was told +that all was going well, and the people were obsessed with the idea +that final victory was at hand. If the people only knew their peril +they would have made any sacrifice for their country and their homes. +But they were not told. And the party politician shrank from demanding +or enforcing a sacrifice which the nation did not realise to be +necessary because of its ignorance. The policy of pusillanimity +pursued before the war was still regnant. The politicians who shrank +{131} from demanding sacrifice in peace, shrank from demanding it in +war. They did not know the heart of the nation. There was no +sacrifice the nation would have shrunk from, if the demand were made. +The nation knew that it needed discipline, and it asked for discipline, +but asked in vain. And to-day the same pusillanimous policy sacrifices +prohibition to the fear that the munition-workers might give trouble. +They knew not, and they know not, the heart of this nation. But the +fact remains that to-day the nation is spending 180 millions or so a +year on alcohol, while the Government calls on the people to exercise +the greatest economy that the war may be waged to the end. It is a sad +and strange spectacle. + + +II + +It was fortunate for the cause of the world's freedom that there was +found in Europe a great nation which was not under the sway of party +politicians. {132} The German Emperor is reported to have said that +the next great European war would be won by the most sober nation. +When the war began and the Tsar issued his great rescript abolishing +vodka the Emperor is said to have exclaimed, 'But who could have +foreseen this wonderful coup!' Some day it will doubtless be the +accepted fact that the deliverance of the Russian nation from the +degenerating power of alcohol won the war. For through that great act +of a statesman's prevision the Russian Empire experienced a +resurrection from the dead. + +The statesmen of Russia knew the evil effects of alcohol. It was to +vodka that they mainly owed the defeat and humiliation of the Japanese +war. The manhood of Russia could not be rapidly mobilised owing to the +grip of alcohol on the race; and the operations were ever hampered by +its fell power. When the Russian Empire was called upon to fight for +its life, the Emperor resolved that this time it would fight +unfettered. {133} The sale of vodka was temporarily suspended, and the +armies were mobilised with rapidity and precision. Misery and poverty +were banished from the villages. The doss-houses and jails were +emptied. A great nation resolved to fight with all its vigour. Though +vodka constituted a State monopoly, and though Russia drew from it an +enormous revenue, yet that revenue was unhesitatingly sacrificed. 'We +cannot,' said the Tsar before the war, in a proclamation to his people, +'make our fiscal policy dependent upon the destruction of the spiritual +and economic powers of many of my subjects.' On August 22, 1914, the +Tsar issued an order that all vodka and other spirit shops should be +closed till the end of the war. When the beneficial results of this +policy were fully realised the Tsar made a final decision. 'I have +decided,' he announced, 'to abolish for ever the Government sale of +vodka in Russia.' Russia was thus finally delivered from the greatest +of its enemies--the enemy {134} that destroyed its homes. And Russia +has accepted its deliverance with a joyful heart. At first M. Bark, +the Finance Minister, was 'staggered when prohibition was suggested.' +After six months' experience of its results he declared: 'If I proposed +to reopen the vodka shops there would be a revolution.' Thus was +effected the greatest social reform in the history of the world. +'Since China proscribed opium,' was the verdict of a _Times_ editorial, +'the world has seen nothing like it. We have been well reminded that +in sternly prohibiting the sale of spirituous liquors, Russia has +already vanquished a greater foe than Germany.' + +And so it proved. Through vanquishing alcohol Russia found a power +which is now vanquishing Germany. On eyes cleared from the fumes of +vodka there rose the vision of God. The Russian went forth tying his +knapsack on his back as one who took up the Cross. They endured +defeats which might have {135} overwhelmed them, but they were +unconquerable. Through hardships and privations undreamed of the +Russian soldier retained his health and fighting power. Though he +often confronted the enemy with no weapon but his bare breast, he never +despaired. Wounds which in other campaigns would have been inevitably +fatal, healed, and life conquered death. Though oft deprived of +sufficient food, he endured fatiguing marches, and in the midst of the +nervous strain of defeat and retreat he remained cheerful, determined, +and confident of victory. At last, with 'firm faith in the clemency of +God,' the Russian hosts turned at bay and stood fast. When the clouds +were darkest, it was as if the sun broke forth when the news was +flashed through the world that the Russians had stormed Erzerum. +To-day Armenia is freed, and the great surge of the Russian hosts is +rolling west. For the Russians knew that a holy war could not be waged +by a drunken nation; {136} and in the power of self-sacrifice they have +snatched victory from what seemed irretrievable defeat. While Britain +continued to sacrifice its strength and its wealth at the shrine of +alcohol, while the wives and the children of the men who were fighting +and dying were left to the comforting of publicans, while the +munition-workers were hindered and marred by the lure of strong drink, +while the best of the manhood of the British race called in vain for +deliverance from the yoke of the national bondage, Russia in the might +of a great renunciation was gathering its forces and advancing to +victory. Autocracy has delivered Russia from the bondage of centuries; +democracy has surrendered its power to the party politician, and the +party politician has kept Britain still enslaved. + + +III + +It would be difficult to overestimate the evil consequences for the +future of {137} the race which will inevitably ensue from the great +refusal. Let me endeavour to make clear one of these evil +consequences. Had the House of Commons on April 20th of last year +resolved to follow the King's lead, instead of spurning it; had it made +that lead effective, what would have been the result? One effect would +have been that to-day we would have had an army delivered from the bane +of alcohol. The King's officers and the men who wear his uniform would +have followed the King's example. + +It is the commonplace of much of the speaking from religious platforms +that we are to have a new era inaugurated when the men come back from +the war. The religious life of the nation is going to be quickened; +its moral forces are to be vastly strengthened; there is to be a new +earth when the war is over--if not a new heaven. These hopes are, +however, doomed to disappointment. It is not the ranks of those who +are striving for temperance that will receive {138} reinforcement when +the great army comes home. + +Let any one who thinks that we are on the verge of a great social or +religious revival consider the facts. (The difficulty is that we fail +to face facts and delude ourselves with vain imaginings.) The great +fact to which we blind ourselves is that the manhood of the nation, for +the first time in its history, has been brought into the atmosphere of +alcohol, and acclimatised to that atmosphere to the number of between +four and five millions. In that remote period before August 1914, the +British army was a volunteer force mainly recruited from 'the +adventurous and the derelict.' The recruiting area was largely the +congested wards of our great cities. The men who enlisted did so, in +the great majority, after they had already acquired a taste for the +exhilaration of alcohol. It was in the circumstances expedient that in +the canteen provision should be made, under military supervision, for +their being supplied {139} with a purer alcohol than the public-houses +provided. The results were beneficial rather than otherwise. + +The strange thing, however, is that the canteen system which was +necessary for the small voluntary army should have also been imposed by +the Army Authorities upon the full manhood of the nation when they +sprang to arms in defence of King and country. Though no trainer would +ever allow the use of alcohol by those preparing for any athletic +sport, though the man who would excel at football or racing or boxing +or shooting, as a first step eschewed all alcohol, the Government of +this country provided alcohol as an integral part of every camp where +the heroic of the race set themselves to endure hardness. 'The greater +endurance of the non-alcoholic soldier or worker is now not a matter on +which there can be or is any difference of opinion.'[1] For the youth +of the nation, {140} wearied with the hardness of unwonted exercise, +away from the influence of mothers and loved ones, warned by the +Secretary of State for War against alcohol, the Government provided the +narcotic of alcohol. Millions came within the sphere of its baneful +influence who never would have been so exposed in days of peace. And +not only so, but though it has been scientifically established that +alcohol lowers the vitality, a paternal Government, in the mud and +misery of the trenches in Flanders, provided for each soldier the +sustenance of rum, though from such a stimulus no benefit could accrue. +'Small doses of alcohol ... cause ... a distinct flushing of the skin +due to dilation of the cutaneous capillaries, the skin becoming first +warmer and the blood in the internal organs cooler than before the +alcohol was taken. After a time the skin temperature falls, but there +is no corresponding increase of temperature of the blood in the +internal organs. This means that the body has {141} lost heat by the +skin. The evaporating moisture of wet putties and stockings carries +away a further amount of heat, whilst the contracting wet materials +exerting pressure on the lower limbs, after a time tend to compress +vessels in the skin, and especially to interfere with the return of +venous blood and lymph to the larger veins and lymph channels. The +lowered temperature and the impaired nutrition due to this obstructed +circulation together are accountable for the "trench foot." ... A man +is not at his best, whether working or fighting against enemies or +diseases, if he is taking alcohol. Lord Roberts knew this, and His +Majesty the King, Admiral Jellicoe, and Lord Kitchener appreciate it. +How soon will the nation realise it?'[2] + +The Government supplied the soldiers in the camp and in the trench with +the means of decreasing their fighting efficiency. To the 'tot of rum' +can be {142} traced a proportion of the cases of unstable nervous +equilibrium which the war has produced. Men who were total abstainers, +pledged Rechabites, and others were swept by a paternal Government into +the ranks of those who derive from alcohol a false exhilaration. 'The +national conscience,' writes Lieut.-Colonel Woodhead, 'has not yet been +thoroughly aroused to the importance of the issues at stake--that in +peace or in war intemperance is the link in the chain of our national +life which gives greatest evidence of weakness and most cause for +anxiety.' Against stupidity the gods themselves fight in vain. Though +every laboratory worker and every physiological chemist tells us, with +the cold precision of science, that alcohol is not a stimulant but a +depresser, that the elation it produces is simply that of a narcotic, +that it diminishes the energy and dulls the enthusiasm of man, that it +leaves the mind and body more exhausted than before--yet the stupidity +entrenched in high places cannot learn {143} the lesson. It trains the +armies on alcohol; it seeks to sustain the embattled hosts with alcohol. + + +IV + +The great refusal of April 20, 1915, meant that this national +organisation for the training of the manhood of the race in the use of +alcohol went on unhindered. Of all the products of the great war this +is the most amazing. Let any one consider the situation and judge. In +every camp and barracks the visitor will find the State-established +monopoly of the canteen. The canteen is set up by the State, and the +taxpayer provides the building, rent and rate and tax free, for the +contractor, who runs the canteen. Abroad, the canteens are almost +exclusively in the hands of one co-operative society, whose board of +management is mainly composed of officers in the Service and some of +them recently heads of regimental institutes. 'Clearly there is a +great deal of "military" money invested in it. {144} Surely it is not +a good thing that a society of this kind should have the privilege of +making a good deal of money out of supplies to the private soldier.'[3] +Whatever be the system of administering the canteen, whether by the +regimental officers or by contractors, the fact remains that behind the +canteen are the resources of the nation. And the contractors of the +canteen supply in some cases amusements. 'I know of a camp where the +contractor supplied the singers, and not very desirable ones +either.'[4] Recreation is thus used to encourage the consumption of +alcohol by the army. + +While the taxpayer is thus behind and supporting the canteen, the +counteracting forces are left to the support of the charitable. The +Y.M.C.A. or Church huts are there not by right but by favour, and +whatever attractions they provide are provided by means of voluntary +contributions. The State provides the means {145} of degeneration; it +is left to the voluntary effort of private citizens to provide the +means of healthful recreation. It is truly a strange world. + +Do the parents of the youth of this country realise the situation? +Henceforth every boy when he reaches the age of eighteen is drafted +into a camp. And there the State makes provision for acclimatising him +to the atmosphere of alcohol. To frequent the canteen is manly, and +few will be able to resist. It means that by the million the future +citizens of this country will acquire a liking for alcohol. They find +there the door of escape from weariness and monotony, a false joy of +life and a meretricious colour lighting up drab and grey days. +Hitherto the youths of this country were protected by the slow +evolution of beneficial restrictions. In Scotland the public-houses +were shut on Sundays. The young men were protected on at least one day +in seven. But when at the age of eighteen they put on the King's +uniform that protection ceases. {146} The public-house is shut, but +the canteen is open on Sunday. Not even on one day in seven is there +protection from temptation for the youths of this country now +conscripted. The fathers and mothers who give their sons to their +country do not realise the provision a grateful country is making for +darkening their souls by the fumes of alcohol. If they realised it, +there would arise a demand before which even those who refused to +follow their King would bow. Without that national demand there will +be no escape from the consequences of the great refusal. Those who +delude themselves with the hope that out of the great war will come a +moral and religious revival will have a rude awakening. Out of the +social conditions now upheld by a beneficent Government there cannot +emerge any ethical revival. The ranks of those who have learned the +narcotising benefit of alcohol and who will naturally turn to the same +comfort, will be greatly multiplied. + + +{147} + +V + +Let me conclude with a personal experience. On a car in one of our +great cities in this last summer, a man sitting beside me began a +conversation. Though he was a stranger to me, he began to speak out of +a heart sore distressed. His son had been home on leave. 'Every night +he was at home he was under the influence of drink. Before he enlisted +he did not know the taste of alcohol.... When he went away back, he +was drunk leaving the station.... A few days later word came that he +was killed.... The last we saw of him was his going away drunk.... +His mother is in sore distress.... She is old-fashioned in her faith +and she cannot get out of her mind the words that drunkards cannot +enter the kingdom of God. What do you say?' Thus he spoke in +disjointed sentences, palpitating with emotion. All I could say was +that hell was not for such as his son, in my {148} opinion; but that +hell was essential for the due disciplining of those who maintained the +conditions which made his son a drunkard. But how many are there +to-day in this country like that poor father and mother? They gave +their all: this is their reward. + + + +[1] Lieut.-Colonel Woodhead, M.D., LL.D, _The Drink Problem_, p. 79. + +[2] Lieut.-Colonel Woodhead, M.D., LL.D., _The Drink Problem_, p. 81. + +[3] A correspondent in _The Times_, April 22, 1916. + +[4] _Ibid._ + + + + +{149} + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SLUM IN THE MAN + +The misery which the slow evolution of urban and industrial +civilisation has wrought in the crowded areas of our cities is manifest +to the least observant eye. The pitiful condition of the man in the +slum makes its clamorous appeal to the conscience of the race. But +there is a condition even more pitiful. It is that of many of the +dwellers in the spacious squares and terraces where the rich and the +leisured are segregated. They are far removed from the slum where the +miserable are massed; but they have created a slum in their own souls. +And of the two, the condition of him whose soul is a slum is truly the +more grievous. + + +{150} + +I + +They have everything that life can desire of material good. These +houses stretching for miles in their regular uniformity are replete +with appliances of luxury and comfort such as a Roman emperor might +have sighed for in vain; every desire of their heart they have the +power and the will to gratify;--and yet life is dreary. The people +that ought to be supremely happy are on the whole miserable. They have +reduced life to a series of sensations. But the dread spectre of +satiety dogs the footsteps of the devotees of sense. If they were mere +animals they would be perfectly happy. Their misery is that they are +endowed with souls. And the starved soul will not let them rest. + +What has pauperised the rich is this--they have lost the sense of God. +Their fathers were saved from the tyranny of their senses by the fact +that they kept open the window towards the {151} Infinite. But the +growth of knowledge and the triumphs of science gradually shut that +window, so that now scarce a glow of light penetrates to the dusty and +dark recesses of the soul. The soul no longer thrills with the Divine; +all the thrill they can know is that of gratifying the body. And that +way leads only to the self-loathing of repletion. To escape from +themselves they rush in clouds of dust along the roads, demanding +'speed in the face of the Lord.' But all in vain is a sated body +hurled from London to Brighton, for at the end it is sated still. + +With the shutting of the window towards the Infinite, all restraint +vanished. So long as there remained a sense of a moral order in the +universe which could only emanate from a Moral Governor, and so long as +the soul felt that the way of life lay in conformity to the will of the +Unseen Ruler, life was kept under control. The will never wholly +relaxed its effort to keep the outgoings of life {152} in unison with +God. But, then, there came the startling realisation that there was no +God, or, if there was, that He was a mere negligible factor. The +processes by which things came to be as they are could be explained; +and because they could be explained, of course, God had nothing to do +with them! God was steadily pushed further and further away. Back +from a mythical Eden some five thousand years ago, He was pushed into +the recesses of ęons that made the brain reel to contemplate; away from +a heaven which seemed quite near, He was removed far off into the +abysses of heavens which had become astronomical. Everything could be +explained--it was only a question of time when life would yield its +secret. As the universe grew wider and wider there was in it no place +for God. In that world which once He was deemed to have created, now +He was superfluous. And the restraints which the thought of Him +imposed were thrown to the winds. {153} History once more repeated +itself. 'They treat it,' wrote Bishop Butler of religion in his day, +'as if ... nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject of +mirth and ridicule, as it were, by way of reprisals for its having so +long interrupted the pleasures of the world.' The dawn of the +twentieth century found a generation which far outstripped the +eighteenth. By its headlong plunge into the vortex of pleasure it was +determined to avenge itself for the days when life was disciplined by +the thought of the judgment-seat of God. + +Alongside of this emancipation from the restraints of religion there +was a singular development of interest in religious matters. Never +were there so many books published regarding the sources of +Christianity and the authenticity of that various literature which +composes the Bible. And votaries went on incessantly tunnelling the +great barrier which shuts us in from what lies beyond the visible, and +they even heard, {154} as it were, the tapping of those who drove a +tunnel to meet them. But all that activity was wholly divorced from +that religion which is inherently spirit and life. It was the interest +of the antiquarian in the earthen vessel which holds the treasure, not +the interest of the soul in the treasure itself. The frame was the +object of endless discussion and speculation, but the eyes were blind +to the picture enclosed by the frame. They thought that they were +engaged in the works of religion, while their work was as remote from +religion as the labour of one who would set himself to expound the +glory and wonder of art by explaining the texture of canvas and +analysing the chemical components of paint. And, while the ancient +documents were studied more and more under the microscope, the image of +the Son of Man faded more and more before the eyes of men, and the +ideal of love of duty was left as lumber under accumulating dust: +religion had a place in the social {155} scheme, but the place was the +museum of antiquities. It was no longer a power in life; it had become +a matter of mere historic interest. + + +II + +The new atmosphere in which men lived made it impossible to present the +Christian appeal to them as that appeal came home to the heart of +humanity for nineteen centuries. For the life-blood of religion was +ever the passion of love and gratitude evoked by the forgiveness of +sin. But the sense of sin died in the heart, and a generation that +knew not sin could only wonder at the meaning of a gospel which +proclaimed the forgiveness of sin. No golden age lay behind when man +was sinless; there was no 'fall' from a high estate, and consequently +no restoration was needed. The spiritual tale of man's first sin was a +matter of mockery; and the teaching of prophet and saint regarding +iniquity was but 'an obsolete and fanatical {156} eccentricity.' Walt +Whitman has given expression to man's new attitude: + + 'I could turn and live with animals, they are so + placid and self-contained, + I stand and look at them long and long; + They do not sweat and whine about their condition; + They do not lie awake in the night and weep for their sins.' + +Nothing was, in fact, further from the thought of the latter-day +generation than to lie awake weeping for their sins. 'As a matter of +fact,' writes Sir Oliver Lodge, 'the higher man of to-day is not +worrying about his sins at all, still less about their punishment; his +mission, if he be good for anything, is to be up and doing.' That is +an absolutely correct diagnosis. So little does the 'higher man of +to-day' worry about his sins that he sinks into the slough of animalism +undisturbed by any thought of wrong. Having sacrificed every canon of +Christian morality, he goes forth out of his house where the peace is +unbroken by the clamorous voices of children, and {157} he pursues his +mission of being 'up and doing'--directing his energies in Whitechapel +to keeping alive the children of the diseased and the miserable. This +is the fine fruit of our 'higher man': having destroyed in his home +that race whose product he is, unrepentant of his crime, he devotes +himself to saving the race in the slum. His mission to be 'up and +doing' savours of the slime--but he knows it not. His whole life is +the proof that he has forgotten the meaning of iniquity, and that he is +incapable of worrying about his sins. + +In all the books wherein the life of to-day is portrayed there move men +and women whose consciences are no longer troubled by the thought of +any wrong. With a photographic accuracy Arnold Bennett has set forth +the lives of men and women emerging from the gutter into ease and +riches, but the world to which they attain is a world where the thought +of God ceases to inspire or disturb. He indeed pauses in a moment of +grim {158} satire to visualise a soul in the throes of realising sin. +The heroine of three books, Hilda Lessways, shuts her ears to the call +summoning her to her mother's bedside, only to find her dead when +selfishness suffers her to arrive. From the house where her dead +mother lies she goes to the station to meet a relative and comes face +to face with a well-dressed epileptic. She watches him, almost +shuddering. He stares at her with his epileptic eyes ... and she +rushes home a nervous wreck. 'She knew profoundly and fatally,' +expounds Mr. Bennett, 'the evil principle which had conquered her so +completely that she had no power left with which to fight it. This +evil principle was sin itself. She was the sinner convicted and +self-convicted. One of the last intelligent victims of a malady which +has now almost passed away from the civilised earth, she existed in the +chill and stricken desolation of incommutable doom.' Our author knows +his world, and in that world only the sight of an epileptic {159} +convinces of sin. And the realisation, as might be expected, only +throws the victim more surely into the grip of sin. For that world +knows no longer any God who saves from sin. + +There is no ground left on which religion can appeal to the conscience +of such a generation. In the eighteenth century Wesley and Whitefield +sent through the decaying masses of England a vitalising breath as they +proclaimed the joyful gospel of deliverance from sin, and men arose +from the mire with lives transfigured. In our day religion can find no +such approach and no such triumph. For like the whispering of an idle +breeze is a proclamation of sin's forgiveness to those who know no sin. +For us it is but a childish malady which we have long outgrown. The +passion of sin forgiven will no longer thrill our souls. + + +III + +And this life which our modern writers describe is one of appalling +dreariness. {160} As the new generation grow in knowledge every ideal +vanishes; as they move upward in the social scale they shut out God. +The Chapel loses its power; men wear Wesley's clothes but know not his +spirit. Arnold Bennett makes us see the dying epoch. He describes the +whole town assembled in the market-square to celebrate the centenary of +Sunday schools. The vast crowd sing 'Rock of Ages' and 'There is a +Fountain filled with Blood.' The volume of sound is overwhelming. +'Look at it,' says Edwin Clayhanger to Hilda Lessways; 'it only wants +the Ganges at the bottom of the square.' 'Even if we don't believe,' +she replies, 'we needn't make fun.' And amid the singing crowd, mocked +at and jostled, struggles Mr. Shushions, the oldest Sunday-school +teacher in the Five Towns, who long ago had rescued the Clayhangers +from the workhouse, but now had 'lived too long' and 'survived his +dignity.' 'The impression given was that the flesh would be unpleasant +and uncanny to the touch.' It is a grim {161} picture of an effete +life still moving, mummified and repulsive, among men. + +The old ideal was dead; but there was no ideal new-born. Life was +dreary, but happiness was still pursued. When the family would move to +the new house where science surrounded them with all the appliances of +comfort and luxury, then Edwin Clayhanger was convinced he would find +happiness. The day comes and they move to the new house. But that +very morning there is a quarrel with his father. He had been ingenuous +enough to believe that the new house somehow would mean the rebirth of +himself and his family. 'Strange delusion! The bath-splashings and +the other things gave him no pleasure, because he was saying to himself +all the time, "There is going to be a row this morning. There is going +to be a regular shindy this morning."' They come to the new house but +they cannot sit down to dinner together. + +'Father thinks I've been stealing his {162} damned money,' snaps out +the son in a barking voice, and refuses to meet him at table. And the +father takes his dinner alone. The end of the ghastly quarrel is that +the son gets an increase of half a crown to his weekly wage! That is +the measure of the 'new birth' which he had so fondly anticipated. He +does not realise that after being emptied from vessel to vessel, +however much larger and more beautiful the vessels become, filthy water +remains filthy water still. + +What is there left to those for whom the vision of God thus fades? The +fathers amassed money, and they had the joy of conflict, and a sense of +duty. But the sons have not the joy of conflict. They inherit houses +built for them, and money for which they have not toiled. What are +they to do? Their fathers found endless interest in Church and Chapel, +and they gave of their wealth. The sons no longer believe in Church +and Chapel. They have no traditions of social service. They regard +the class from {163} which their fathers sprang with aversion and with +fear. Their favourite topic of conversation is the shortcomings of the +working-classes. One whole winter they denounced the iniquity of the +State making any provision, however pitifully small, for the decayed +veterans who fall out of the ranks of toil; another winter they +declaimed with bitterness against the crime of the State making +provision through insurance for the ill-health of their servants and +employees! They have little taste for books, and money cannot buy the +sense by which beauty floods the heart. There is nothing left them but +self-indulgence. To that they sacrifice everything. Food and clothes +and physical pleasure fill up the circuit of the days. Then weariness +seizes them. They become the captives of boredom. They rush hither +and thither. They carry to the Highlands a life which is intolerable +hi London; they bring back to London a life which is intolerable in the +Highlands. They live lives isolated from the {164} joy and innocence +of childhood--for that is the ideal they have made their own. They +rush after anything which will promise the 'easier and quicker passing +of the impracticable hours.' They still maintain some connection with +the Church, but their attitude is that of patronage and not of +allegiance. The preacher must be an echo of their voices or they will +have none of him. There must be no preaching of stern duty or of +judgment to come--that is antiquated! When they come to church there +must be the gospel of soothing rest--fulsomely administered in a +saccharine form! Religion must be a narcotic; its end that they may +forget. But even then it must be in the smallest doses and at long +intervals. Thus their places in church are getting emptier and +emptier, and the day of worship saw their cars stand in serried rows by +wayside inns. They have created for themselves a grey, dull world. +'If they do abolish God from their poor bewildered hearts, all or most +{165} of them,' wrote Carlyle, 'then will be seen for some length of +time, perhaps for some centuries, such a world as few are dreaming of.' +And that is what they were fast doing when the thunder of the guns +echoed doom. They were without God and without hope in the world. + +To some this may appear an exaggerated and distorted picture. It may +in fact be pointed out that in these last years there was a greater +activity of social service directed towards the help of the poor and +miserable than ever before. That is true. But it is true also that it +was wholly ineffective. It was the activity mainly of ignorance. It +was the throwing of half-crowns to the starving; it was not the giving +of love. They gave charity; they did not give themselves. They +acquiesced with hardly a protest in the social organisation which +inevitably swelled the ranks of the poor and increased the burden of +their misery. By that social organisation many of them profited. They +gave doles; but it was {166} to pacify their poor consciences. They +instituted 'charity organisation societies,' making charity as it were +a deal on the Stock Exchange. If only they had thought of it they +would have instituted a 'Divine Spirit Organisation Society.' The one +would not be more irreverent than the other; for charity is the fruit +of the Spirit. They were to have charity without the Spirit--so they +adopted the methods of the market-place. By means of ledgers and +visitors they were to separate the deserving poor from the undeserving. +Their charity was to be directed towards the deserving. They forgot +that there could not be such a thing as charity for the deserving--only +justice! There was the noise of much machinery, but the noise was made +by a handful. The rest gave only of their lucre. And all the time, +while they studied the social problem and organised charity, the +measure of human misery went on increasing. The rich grew richer and +the poor grew poorer, amid the greatest activity of social {167} +reformers. It was all futile because it was uninstructed. It only +palliated the pain; it never sought to dry up the fountains of human +misery. The professional charity organisers saw the human wrecks being +borne on the flood to doom, and from the banks, in security, they threw +them life-belts. But they never thought of plunging themselves into +the wild waters and breasting the flood at the risk of their own lives +that they might save. Man cannot save man without blood, and there was +only water in their veins. + + +IV + +That life manifested the slum at its core in sundry unmistakable forms. +Its literature was largely the record of man wallowing in the mud; and +that Art which aforetime made humanity kneel at the shrine of the +Mother and the Child became the handmaid of vice. In the name of Art +the new generation demanded freedom, but the freedom was a {168} +freedom divorced from modesty and reverence. Only the play or the song +that evoked the unclean laugh now crowded the theatre. But most +striking of all was the manner in which they sought to escape from the +ennui which afflicted their souls. Weird and vulgar dances had their +day; grotesque attire claimed its devotees; but the chief way of escape +was that which led to the feet of charlatans. A whole group of new +religions sprang up; mysteries from the Ganges vied with mysteries +imported from Chicago, and both found multitudes to seek after them. +The growth of centuries, the slow evolution of truth handed down by the +saintly and the wise--that was as nothing weighed against the dictum of +a woman in America or a Hindu in Benares! + +On a grey winter afternoon, some three years ago, I happened to arrive +at one of our most beautiful cities--a city that justly prides itself +on its culture. As I walked along the world's most beautiful street I +was struck by the sight of a long {169} line of motors that overflowed +up a roadway leading to the turreted hill. I asked a motor-man what +was happening that day. 'There is a black prophet,' said he, pointing +his thumb over his shoulder, 'preaching in the Assembly Hall.' I +needed no further explanation. I know nothing about the said prophet +except that he isn't a Christian. That was of course the secret of his +power. Because he wasn't, the leisured and the cultured sat in serried +ranks at his feet. Perhaps he would give them what they had +lost--peace! And there came the memory of another civilisation sinking +into decay when the mysteries of the Nile and the Orontes established +themselves on the banks of the Tiber, and the weary citizens of Rome, +sated by a world's luxury, deemed no charlatan emerging from the East +too gross for acceptance or his mystery too incredible for belief. In +the dawn of its decay Rome bestowed 'the freedom of the city on all the +gods of mankind.' In {170} our day London and Edinburgh have followed +along the same road. The God all-holy and loving, the All-Father--we +have cast Him off. But no superstition is too mean for us to kneel at +its shrine. History is truly a monotonous record. Nations and empires +have all gone the same road to perdition. And they never knew they +were treading it. + + +V + +Such was the condition of the nation when the trumpet of judgment +sounded and civilisation went reeling into the furnace. The +slum-dwellers and the slum-infected were alike shaking back into +paganism and the beast. For the time we have emerged from the greater +horror of sin into the horror of war. But what is to happen after? +Saved as by fire, are we to hug our slums again? + +Surely it cannot be for the perpetuation on earth of life after this +order, that five millions of men have arisen {171} and faced death. If +we are to be worthy of the price that has been paid for our +deliverance, by a resurrection from the dead we must cleanse our souls +and transform our slums. It is not for us as we are, or for our cities +as they now are built, or for a State that denies to its children the +decencies of life, or for the continued reign of that plutocracy that +has darkened the windows of the soul--not for the continuance of these +have our brothers died right joyfully in the glory of their youth. It +was for another England, another Scotland--the kingdom of the heart's +desire wherein shall be found no more either the slum-dweller or the +slum-lover--that they fought and died. When we think of them we know +what the early Christians felt when they said one to the other, 'We are +bought with a price; we are no longer our own to do as we like; we are +His.' And we--we are _theirs_. We must be worthy of them. We dare +not any longer leave their children in noisome slums; we dare not {172} +any longer suffer our own lungs to inhale the vapours of the spiritual +slum. To show that we are in some little measure worthy of the price +paid for our life, paid for the Britain that shall be, we will arise +and straightway rebuild--until our cities shall be the cities of God, +and our straths and valleys shall be filled with the songs of happiness +and love and praise. They will not then have died in vain! + + + + +{173} + +CHAPTER VIII + +BEHIND YOU IS GOD + +The greatest need of our day is the reinforcement of the soul. Our +mistake has been that we thought the supreme good was the development +of the brain. We went on steadily increasing our power over the forces +of nature, but we neglected to develop the soul-power which could +control and direct the material power thus created. The result has +been the greatest catastrophe in history. The industrial civilisation +which we reared through the painful toil of a century, is passing in +the smoke of the howitzer shells. And the end is not yet. Unless man +becomes master of himself, it can bring nought but misery that he +should master nature. The war of the future will be war in the air. +From the {174} experience of one or two air-craft raining destruction +on a city one can imagine that dread future when thousands of air-ships +and aeroplanes will rain bombs like hail on doomed cities. The old +security of this sea-girt isle has vanished for ever. In the air there +are no frontiers which can be fortified or guarded. Every fresh +triumph of science will be only a new engine of destruction, a new +weapon of devilry. Humanity will be driven underground, burrowing like +rats. It is quite conceivable not only that civilisation should perish +but that the world itself might be destroyed. The development of +power, without the development of soul to control it, means ruin to +mankind. The amazing thing is that men should to-day declare with +passionate conviction that the future safety of England depends on the +increase of that knowledge which has given us the poison clouds of +chlorine gas, without ever a word to indicate that salvation can only +come through the {175} development of self-mastery and +self-control--even through the soul. We have stood for two years in +the centre of the maelstrom of human history, and have heard the +hurricane of judgment sweeping through the world, but as yet we have +not heard the still, small voice of God. + + +I + +The lesson we have to learn is that the power of the soul must be +enforced. And that can only come by laying hold upon God. The power +that ever lay behind human progress, that worked out law and order and +security, has in all ages been the power of religion--of God. But +religion has been in our day a matter of contempt. It was merely a +'grotesque, fungoid growth which clustered round the primeval thread of +ancestor worship,' more or less a 'pathological phenomenon closely +allied with neurosis and hysteria.' There are few things more pitiful +in human weakness {176} than the contempt expressed by the scientist +and the learned for that power of the soul which created the +civilisation of which the contemners are the fine fruit! + +Though religion has been contemned, yet it cannot be denied that those +forces which create abiding races and powerful empires are the very +forces which have never been found to exist apart from the sanctions of +religion. The development of the Roman Empire was profoundly +influenced by its religion. To religion virtue owed its power, and +from it patriotism drew its inspiration. And that religion claimed a +supernatural origin--the source of its might was in the Unseen. When +religion became a matter of public ridicule and the gods an 'object of +secret contempt among the polished and enlightened,' and the +philosophers 'concealed the sentiments of an atheist under their +sacerdotal robes,' then the restraints of morality were flung aside and +Rome went headlong to ruin. It was the same in Greece; {177} the same +everywhere. All religions have issued their commands: 'And God spake +all these words, saying...' And so long as men felt the supernatural +behind the mandate, they trembled and obeyed; when behind the mandate +they discerned only superstition, they surrendered to their base +desires. Morality can only be based on the Divine. Its commands are +operative when these commands are recognised as those of the Moral +Governor of the universe. If these commands do not affect issues +beyond the grave, if they have no sanction in the eternal order, then +there is no value in obeying them, and no crime in disregarding them. +Rather is there a merit in flouting them--the mere products of +ignorance and superstition. To despise them and disregard them was the +mark of an emancipated and superior mind! Thus it ever came that first +the supernatural vanished and afterwards morality vanished. And thus +has it been also in our day. + +The amazing thing is that men should {178} ever have been blind to +this--that, however much God may hide Himself at the end of other +avenues of approach, at the end of this He stands forth clear before +our eyes. There is nothing predicated regarding God which we cannot +doubt and deny save this, that there is operative in the world a moral +order conformity to which means life and disobedience death. It is +thus with individuals and thus with nations. Let a man surrender to +evil, and instantly nature begins to marshal its forces against him and +digs for him the grave. The road by which humanity has marched is +marked by the ruins of empires and civilisations upon which destruction +came through the very same laws that we see working to-day, if we +choose to look. Whatever race or empire surrendered to the base, +sacrificed purity to sensuality, the good of the common weal to its own +selfish ends, made selfishness and pleasure its aim, upon that race or +empire, sooner or later, fell the consuming sword and the {179} +devouring flame. There is no sentence in all literature more pregnant +than that which tells how the stars in their courses fought against +Sisera. So it has been and ever will be. The whole forces of the +universe are arrayed against evil, and carry on a ceaseless war against +it. It is because of this divine surgery that humanity has been saved +from a corruption which would have entailed the world's destruction. +All history is the proof that there is a mandate which means life or +death for individuals and nations. Along this road we can touch the +hand of God and see the sword of His divine justice. Righteousness is +the law of the world, the will of the Supreme Ruler who orders the +universe that righteousness must at last prevail. The source of +morality and all righteousness is--God. + + +II + +It is manifest, then, that there is but one safety for individual or +race, and {180} that lies in getting into line with the Moral Order of +the world--with God. But the startling thing is that though we have +come through a discipline such as no generation ever experienced +before, at the end of two years of it there is no sign that we have +learned our lesson. The measure of our blindness is that politicians +summon the nation to cultivate its brains that it may be saved, without +ever a hint that salvation lies along the road of character and +morality--the road that leads to God. (If salvation lay in the brain, +the Greeks would have saved the world, for theirs was the greatest +brain-power ever developed on the earth.) And even the Church is +uncertain, and fails to summon the nation with clear and uncertain +sound back to God. For it is manifest that there can be no penitence +where there is no consciousness of transgression. There can be no +return except for those who realise that they have strayed. + +The first step, then, back to God must spring from the soul wakened to +the {181} realisation that it has sinned and that God is fighting +against sin. But so far from the nation realising its true state, the +amazing fact is that the nation is hypnotised with the sense of its own +righteousness. It is only conscious of its own shining virtues. It +has drawn the sword for freedom and in defence of little nations. It +is waging a 'holy war.' Self-blinded, unable to believe that virtues +such as shine on its face could suffer repulse, in days of humiliation +and of defeat it has shouted 'Victory.' And from pulpit after pulpit +the doctrine is propounded that this war is not a judgment of our sins; +that to speak of war as a judgment of sin is 'antiquated.' The Church +has thus cut itself adrift from the teaching of prophet and seer, and +the Bible, which is aflame with the judgments of God upon sin, is but +the antiquated record of unenlightened ages. Thus the conscience of +the nation is narcotised. And it is manifest that a nation whose +conscience is chloroformed can hear no {182} call summoning to +repentance. When the Church is blind to the sword of God flaming in +the heavens, how can any expect the nation to behold it, and, +beholding, to repent? + +This obsession that we are not living in a great day of divine judgment +is all the stranger when we consider that every day of our lives is a +day of divine judgment, and that we are ever standing at the bar of the +great assize. No sooner does a man sin than judgment begins to +operate. Let him surrender to intemperance, and the judgment of +disordered nerves and enfeebled frame is immediately declared. And so +with every violation of the divine order. And the judgment ever +operative against the individual is also ever operative against the +nation. It requires but little thought to see how the national sins +brought on the nation the judgment of these dread days. + +For what was it that brought down upon us the cataclysm of war? It was +the degeneration into which the nation {183} had fallen. Like all +empires we had risen from poverty, through hardship and discipline, to +riches, and in days of luxury we lost our soul. We gave ourselves to +pleasure and self-indulgence. We worshipped at one shrine--that of +Mammon. We refused to bend the back to discipline or to exercise +ourselves in enduring hardship. We annexed a fourth of the world's +surface, but we were determined that we would have the world without +paying the price. With an army equal in size to that of Switzerland we +were holding against the rest of mankind an Empire which included most +of the world's riches. Our rulers knew of our danger, but they dared +not summon the people to arms, because whoever did so would risk +office. Those who were on the watch-towers saw the enemy mustering, +but they gave no warning, for the spoils of office were dear. Prophets +arose to warn us, but we meted out contempt to them. That was our +fashion of stoning them. (We have, {184} however, improved upon the +chosen race, for the very men who stoned them are already rearing +statues in their honour!) Crowds of thirty thousand would assemble to +shout and gamble over football matches, but the few days requisite for +the training of our Territorial forces were not to be endured! We +ceased to produce the population that could possess the vast +territories we held. We could think of nothing but the vapourings of +politicians who sacrificed the State to their faction. When Europe was +an armed camp and Germany was piling up armaments, we were preparing +for civil war in Ireland. Vision and genius were dying among us. For +the devotees of Aphrodite and Mammon are blinded to the stars. A +nation which sinks into degeneration, and which, holding the world's +wealth, refuses even to prepare to guard its riches, is loudly inviting +the robber. Germany concluded that we were degenerate and a negligible +factor. Does any one think that, if we had begun to prepare after +{185} Agadir, there would have been war? If Germany had for one moment +thought that the British fleet would have been arrayed against it, and +that Britain would have marshalled five millions of men to fight to the +death, there never would have been a war. It is not enough to say that +in that case the war would only have been postponed, for a war averted +is not necessarily a war postponed. Pendjeh and Fashoda might at least +teach us that. + +Do not let us blind ourselves to the facts. One source of this war is +in ourselves. We bewail the horrors of war; what we ought to bewail is +the horror of sin. For war is only a symptom of the hidden disease, as +raving is the symptom of fever. And one of the sources of the blood +and tears that overwhelm the earth is our sin. The horror of the +battlefield pales before the horror of sin in our streets, sweeping +souls to death. Our surrender to pleasure, our pursuit of vanity, our +sacrifice of the State to party, of the race to our ease, our refusal +to {186} make the sacrifice that would make the Empire secure--these +are the conditions which made war inevitable and which evoked it. As +alcohol and the drunkard's palsied limbs are cause and effect, sin and +judgment; so the national sin and the horrors of war are cause and +effect, sin and judgment. Only the self-blinded are unable to discern +that they are living in a great day of judgment: judgment on Germany +for its greed and lust and covetousness: judgment on Britain for +wasting at the shrine of self-indulgence that wealth committed to it +for the serving and the uplifting of the world. And if the Church +cannot see the divine judgment, then it cannot call the nation to +repentance. For the nation, unconscious of wrong, will but say along +with the Church: 'I am rich and increased in goods and have need of +nothing.' After the war it will rush down the slope faster than ever +before. The real fact is that the vision of God is hid from us by the +mists of our sin. We cannot {187} imagine the sword of the divine +judgment unsheathed over the world, for a sword hanging from heaven +must be gripped by some hand. And if there be no hand of God, how can +there be a sword of His justice? + + +III + +The one way of salvation for the human race is that of conformity to +the righteous will of God. On the side of those who seek to walk along +that road all the forces of nature fight; against those who resist the +will of God all the forces of the universe are marshalled. Those who +would conquer must walk with God. To return to God is the only hope. +Let us try and realise the truth of this. + +The greatest danger threatening the race is, as we have seen, that of +racial suicide. The mentally developed have made the devitalising of +life a code of conduct. Unconscious of sin, they have made sin a +science. For the race that sets its face towards this goal there +awaits {188} nought but ruin. The problem is how to save the race from +the coffin. + +A great many remedies have been proposed, but almost all of them are +not only futile but pernicious. A system of bounties to parents for +each child would be no inducement to the classes which have already +surrendered to this degeneration. Such a policy would only encourage +the further multiplying of the poor and the unfit. And the remedy is +not to be found in the multiplication of agencies for the preservation +of child life. The conservation of the child in the slum will not +compensate for the destruction of the child in the mansion-house. A +policy which aims at the survival of the unfit cannot enrich the race. +Such methods are to be commended, but they are mere palliatives. When +the bone needs to be scraped, it is futile to go on applying poultices. + +The true remedy is in the realisation of God and in the return of the +nation to Him. It is when the soul is awakened {189} to God that men +realise the heinousness of sacrificing life to selfishness. For God is +the fountain of life; and it is not merely the physical life that is +atrophied by racial limitation. The blow is in reality aimed not at +the race but at God. + +For from God all life proceeds, and the whole universe is the process +of His self-realisation. The glory of earth and sea and sky are the +glory of the outgoing of the divine energy. But the highest of all the +processes of the divine self-realisation is in man. In the world there +is nothing great but man; and the world is enriched for God by His +children. There is no limit to His creative energy, no failure in His +imagination, for each new life is different, and each fresh and new. +In His children God realises Himself as love and tenderness. They are +the only things that can love and laugh and cling. The music of their +joyous merriment is God's best anthems. Each new human life is a +temple of the Holy {190} Ghost. Through them the divine life grows +more and more. And to each is committed some separate element of the +divine treasure, for each is as different from others as if it alone +were created. When men, then, set themselves to suppress human life, +they are setting themselves to suppress God. It is the great tide of +the creative life that they set themselves to dam. The joyousness of +the creative genius that ever creates but never repeats itself, they +bring to nought. They deny to God on earth the temples for His +indwelling. Only when the soul realises God thus brooding over the +face of the world, thus waiting for the fulness of the divine +enrichment, will men realise the heinousness of life-suppression. +Lives based on the code of morals which prefers coffins to cradles are +lives which fight against God, and as such are doomed to be ground to +powder by His judgment. When God, the source of all life, is once +realised, then the soul of the life-destroyer must shrink back in +horror and dismay. {191} 'Woe is me, for I am undone,' will be the cry +of his lips. Men can conquer their fellows, but there is only the +devouring of hell for those who fight against God. When God ceased to +be a reality, the destruction of life was but a natural sacrifice to +our ease. There being nothing higher than ourselves, then to ourselves +let us sacrifice even life. When God in His divine majesty will again +shine forth before the soul, and the eyes behold the Divine Life +everywhere waiting its realisation, then human life again shall become +precious and desired, and the race will measure its felicity by the +multitude of its children. The silent terraces will again ring with +joyous voices. The race, with its fountains of life overflowing, will +again go forth to vivify the earth. + +If only the world were realised as of God, all our difficulties would +vanish. Think what it would mean to the man who has devoted a whole +parish to his own recreation. The green places where {192} little +children called to each other are covered with pheasant coops! The +places where children could grow in health are given over to birds. +Let such a man once see that the world was created that love might +increase and be multiplied, that on it God might realise His creative +energy in the highest form, and he will be stricken with shame and +convicted of sin. Childhood and innocence he has vanished from his +land that his ears might hear the whirr of the flying of grouse, and +that he might have the joy of killing. When the vision of God arises +upon him he will abhor his selfishness and set himself to repair the +desolation that has been wrought. He will have no rest until the green +places again are filled with the glory and the radiance of life. The +slums will be emptied and the now silent places peopled anew, when the +nation realises again that God created the world to be the home of His +children. + +In this return to God is the solution to be found of all our +difficulties. For {193} in this return is the discovery of our common +sonship, and of the law of love. + +We are at present divided into classes with warring interests waiting +for peace to begin the strife again. The body-politic is fissiparous +and there is nothing to bind it together in the unity and consistency +of steel. Here is the element through which the disintegrated elements +can be united into a weapon that can win victories. At the feet of God +there comes the knowledge that all we are brethren, and that the one +law is love. It is love that unites. It is love that bridges chasms +and throws down dividing walls. Love does not throw doles to the +perishing, it gives itself. Love never says, 'You carry my burden,' +but rather, 'Let me carry your burden.' To the eye of love, man is no +longer a mere crank in the great machinery of labour, a unit in the +vast mass designated the 'lower classes'--he is a brother. And love +will not give a brother over to be the prey of vice, {194} or surrender +him as a victim to monopolies that destroy him. Love will sacrifice +and fight for the brother's life. The remedy for all our ills lies +here--in our return to God. + + +IV + +To many the preaching of repentance is the dreariest of all things. It +is but the voice summoning them to the impossible--to mourn for sins of +which they are unconscious. They cry out for life--and they are +offered tears. + +But far from being compact of all weariness and sorrow, repentance is +the most thrilling of all that the soul can experience. It is the +essence of all romance. For what is it but this--the turning back to +God. And in turning to God comes the vision of the glory of life. The +eyes are illumined with radiance when they behold no longer processes +and laws--but God. Who can compute that enrichment when suddenly the +veil is rent and from some hill-top the eyes behold {195} no longer +meadow and moorland and the gleam of waters afar, but the Life behind +them all--God; and everything created, the green sward and the clouds +swimming in glory, the mist-caressed mountains and the great sea +heaving in all its waves, become but one vast transparency through +which God flashes His splendour on the enraptured soul. And in this +return to God the soul is ever led on from glory to glory. That is the +alluring power of Christianity. The Shepherd of souls leads us ever on +until we come to the Cross and realise that the God of heaven and earth +is the God of sacrifice; that His love stoops to agony that He may +save. And onward from the Cross He leads until on our enraptured +hearts there rises the vision of the Cross abiding still in the heart +of God, and our eyes behold over all the universe the sheen of that +love which still stoops to death that it may save. As we tread the way +back, and go on ever nearer to the hidden fire, we feel the flame of +His love filling all our {196} being. And beauties undreamed of leap +into light at each bend of the road. To come to God is to journey from +death to life. The world has nothing great comparable to this. + + +V + +But to return to God means not only a transfigured soul in a +transfigured world, it means also a transfigured life. To turn the +face Godward is to change one's ideal, and the change of ideal +eventuates in a change of life. When the new light illumines the +secret places, the soul, quickened by the fellowship of God, sees the +unclean with new eyes, and sets itself to conquer whatsoever is +unworthy of God. National repentance with us will realise itself in +peopling the waste places, in emptying the slums into the country, in +destroying the vested interests in the vice of the people, in making a +healthy and beautiful life the birthright of every citizen. For the +Church that will give itself to the realisation of this {197} +repentance there will never be the stagnation of monotony. Life will +be electric with conflict, triumphant at last with victory. + +It is the thrill and romance of life--this experience of the soul to +which we are summoned. It heralds every great day of God. 'Repent, +for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,' is the herald of every dawn. It +is a message to be preached with yearning and wonder and love, and not +with clenched fists. It can be preached with fierceness, but that will +little avail. The prophet can call to the people: 'Return, for the +precipice is in front of you and destruction yawneth at your +feet--return.' But terror is feeble to move the heart. Better far is +it to call to the people as Hosea called to Israel: 'Return, for God is +behind you; your own God who saved you again and again when there was +none to help, who bore you and carried you through the terrible +wilderness.... Return, God is waiting for you, just behind you.' The +gospel of repentance is the gospel of the love of {198} God. When the +soul realises the love and the tenderness and the glory of God waiting +to enrich and save--then the soul will return. The greatest adventure +in life is just this: the way of repentance leading back to God. If +only the Church would voyage forth anew on this enchanted sea, the day +of its power would again dawn. + + +VI + +If there be, thus, the wonder of riches untold, the gleam of virgin +peaks summoning our feet to climb, a glimpse of the land afar, and the +clear shining of God's face in the call to repent, let us not forget +that there is also something very terrible bound up with it. And the +terrible thing is that it is possible so to disregard it that at last +it becomes impossible to obey it. In vain did the prophet call, 'O +Israel, return unto the Lord thy God,' for their paralysed wills had +become incapable of effort. 'Their deeds will not let them return,' +was at last the prophet's {199} mournful verdict. To every nation +there comes, after long decline, the stage when recovery is impossible. +When the warnings of the wise have been flouted and disregarded; when +the prophets have not been stoned but treated with mere contempt; when +there is no discernment because there is no longer any consciousness of +sin; when no call of the divine is audible any longer even when God +speaks by terrible things and the heavens are shaken; when the hearts +steeped in self and surrendered to the flesh can see no longer the +beauty of purity,--then the call to repentance is heard as one hears +voices in sleep. Their deeds will not let them return. + +It is not very far away from us that last irrevocable stage when +national repentance becomes impossible. A nation such as this, that +spends over half a million pounds sterling a day on alcohol when the +greatest crisis in the world's history requires all its strength and +all its resources; that turns grain into a {200} waste when food is so +dear that the poor can scarcely buy; that cries out for economy and +offers daily at the shrine of Bacchus the ransom of a province; that +suffers vice to wound and slay its children, narcotising its conscience +the while; that in God's terrible day empties its churches and crowds +its music-halls; that sacrifices its children to the Moloch of its +pleasure, or to the greed of its property exploiters; that suffers its +people to be massed in slums until the body-politic becomes a +gangrene,--for such a people the last stage, where no return is +possible, cannot be far removed. Arise, O Israel, and return to the +Lord your God, ere the day of repentance sinks into night! + + + + + Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. 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