“And Satan finds some mischief still.
For idle hands to do.”
Bishop Jeremy Taylor, who wrote that Classic, “Holy Living and Dying,” who had a nagging wife who made him flee from home and youthful lusts, said “That no idle rich healthy man could possibly go to Heaven.” No doubt it is difficult for such a one. You will remember the Saviour told us that the Camel getting through the eye of a needle is more likely. Usually, earthly judgments on heavenly subjects are wrong. Observe Mary Magdalene, and the most beautiful Collect for her Saint’s Day which was in our First Prayer Book of 1540. This was later expunged by the sacerdotal, pharisaic, self-righteous mandarins of that period. The judgments of this world are worse than the judgments of God. When David was offered three forms of punishment—Famine or the Sword or Pestilence—he chose the pestilence, saying, “Let us now fall into the hands of the Lord; for his mercies are great; and let me not fall into the hand of man.” At the moment of making this note of which I am speaking I am looking at two very beautiful old engravings I rescued from the room here allotted to the Presbyterian Minister! One of them is the “Woman Taken in Adultery” and the other is “Potiphar’s Wife”! My host tells me it was a pure accident that these pictures came to be in the Minister’s room; but such events happen to Saints. Wasn’t there “The Scarlet Letter”—that wonderful book by Hawthorne?
I observe in passing how wonderfully well these Presbyterians do preach. Our hosts have a beautiful Chapel in the house, and they have got a delightful custom of selecting one from the Divines of Scotland to spend the week-end here. Their sermons so exemplify what I keep on impressing on you—that the printed word is a lifeless corpse. Can you compare the man who reads a sermon to the man who listens to one saturated with holiness and enthusiasm speaking out of the abundance of the heart? No doubt there is tautology, but there’s conviction. Two qualities rule the world—emotion and earnestness. I have said elsewhere, with them you can move far more than mountains; you can move multitudes. It’s the personality of the soul of man that has this immortal influence. Printed and written stuff is but an inanimate picture—a very fine picture sometimes, no doubt, but you get no aroma out of a picture. Fancy seeing the Queen of Sheba herself, instead of only reading of her in Solomon’s print! And those Almug trees—“And there came no such Almug trees, nor were seen until this day.”
To a friend I was once adoring St. Peter (I love his impetuosity)—I am illustrating how earthly judgments are so inferior to heavenly wisdom. St. John, who was a very much younger man, out-ran Peter. Up comes Peter, and dashes at once into the Sepulchre. Those men in war who get there and then don’t do anything—Cui bono? A fleet magnificent, five times bigger than the enemy, and takes no risks! A man I heard of—his wife, separated from him, died at Florence. He was on the Stock Exchange. They telegraphed, “Shall we cremate, embalm, or bury?” “Do all three,” he replied, “take no risks!” Some of our great warriors want the bird so arranged as to be able to put the salt on its tail. But I was speaking of my praising St. Peter. What did my friend retort (the judgment of this world, mind you!)? “Peter, Sir! he would be turned out of every Club in London!” So he would! Thank God, we have a God, so that when our turn comes we shall be forgiven much because we loved much.
From this Christian homily I return to what I rather vainly hope is my concluding interview.
Before beginning—one of my critics writes to The Times saying I am not modest—I never said I was. However, next day, Sir Alfred Yarrow mentions perhaps the most momentous thing I ever did—that is the introduction of the Destroyer; and the day following Sir Marcus Samuel writes that I am the God-father of Oil—and Oil is going to be the fuel of the world. Sir George Beilby is going to turn coal into Oil. He has done it. Thank God! we are going to have a smokeless England in consequence, and no more fortified coaling stations and peripatetic coal mines, or what coal mines were. And then, I was going to give some more instances, but that’s enough “to point the moral and adorn the tale.”
“Seekest Thou Great Things for Thyself? Seek them not!” (The Prophet Jeremiah.)
You have given me a list of subjects which you think require elucidation in regard to my past years—a résumé especially of the incidents which claim peculiar notice between 1902 and 1910; and you ask me to add thereto such episodes from the past as will enlighten the reader as to how it came about that those big events between 1902 and 1910 were put in motion.
It’s a big order, in a life of some sixty years on actual service—with but three weeks only unemployed, from the time of entry into the Navy to the time of Admiral of the Fleet.