“Not necessarily that,” said Lionel Derwent; “and much more than that. The New Testament makes no direct attack on property but as the root of other evils. Property would be harmless, if it did not foster the self-idolatry; this is the true curse. Even that poor cynic, La Rochefoucauld, saw that amour-propre was the principle on which our social fabric rests. The truth is, that the moment you have counters, everybody makes getting counters all the game. Now, the true game is emulation of the soul, or, even, of the body; of the real self, not the factitious one. Let us have healthy bodies, brave men, heroes, and poets; beautiful women, kind hearts, noble souls; not dukedoms and visiting-lists, landed-estates and money-appraisals. If diamonds are intrinsically beautiful, wear them, paste or real; but do not wear them because they are things difficult for the country curates’ daughters to get. But flowers are prettier, after all. And even then, it is the beauty, not the trinket, we are right to seek. God made a woman’s neck; the devil made the diamonds upon it.”
“It is a far cry from the New Testament to woman’s fashions,” said Mrs. Wilton Hay, maliciously. Mrs. Hay was a hunting woman and followed the hounds; and her neck had frequently been praised in the society newspapers. But Derwent took it innocently.
“True,” said he, simply; “and I say our churches do not dare to preach the words of Christ, but awkwardly fashion them into parables and symbolisms; in effect, they say, ‘Christ said it, but did not mean it.’ The Roman church, too, enriches itself; but this is nearer Christ, for she gives a part away. But our dissenting churches encourage their director-deacons and produce-exchange elders in taking what they can unto themselves, and even whitewash their methods for ever so slight a share of the plunder. But when Christ made that remark about a rich man, a camel, and the eye of a needle, he meant a needle’s eye, and not a paddock-gate. And when he said, ‘Sell that thou hast, and give to the poor,’ he meant now and here, not in some future state of civilization, nor yet by charitable devise. And when he said, ‘take no thought for the morrow—for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also—and your father knoweth you have need of these things,’ he had in mind both the future course of stocks and the necessity of brown-stone fronts and widows’ life-assurance. But our churches imply to us, ‘Christ was a good man; but he was no political economist. He did not foresee these things. Life has grown a more complex art than he could comprehend.’”
Mrs. Gower had shown signs of rapidly increasing distress throughout this harangue; and now she gave the signal for the women to depart. “It is so interesting!” whispered Mrs. Malgam, as she swept in front of Derwent. “Do tell me more about it after dinner.” Derwent bowed; and the six men resumed their seats; Van Kull and Birmingham talking horse; Arthur and Wemyss near Haviland and Derwent.
“I do not object to your conclusions, Mr. Derwent,” began Wemyss, languidly, “but to your remedy. Christianity is so far from being this, that it is the cause of that decadence we both see. And what more natural than that Christianity, having destroyed civilization, should perish, like another Rienzi, in the conflagration itself has kindled?”
“And I,” said Haviland, impatiently, “object not to the remedy, but to your conclusion. That, I take it, is communism. Now, communism is no part of Christianity.”
“Neither,” said Derwent, “is property. Christ, from his principle of non-resistance, admitted property in others; but his own disciples were to do without it. There have been two great religions—religions in the true sense religion, transcendental faiths, looking from this world to the next—and each was followed by a so-called religion which was really not religion, but looked to this world alone. Both the two religions aimed at the annihilation of the individual; the Buddhist by passive abnegation, the Christian by active emulation in the doing of good to others. The one is the negation of self; the other is its apotheosis. Therefore, Christianity has naught to do with property, which is the accentuation of self, by aggrandizement, by appendages. Christ recognized persons, not personages. Christianity came with a commercial civilization, and as an antidote to it, after the Jewish religion, which had asserted a divine recognition of property; and set up an earthly kingdom, that had to do with flocks and herds and landed-estates. And after Christ Islam came, with wars and conquests. So the Jews never recognized the Messiah; they looked not beyond into the next world.”
“And as a compensation,” interposed Wemyss, “they seem likely to obtain all that there is of this. But we are told that finally the Jews, too, shall become Christians—which lends a terror even to the millennium.” There was a general laugh; of which Derwent seemed to be unconscious.
“So the gospels,” Derwent added, “recognize no property save in the soul. This is what we are adjured to preserve, though we lose the whole world besides. A man’s truth and love, his sense of goodness and beauty, his courage and his pity, are his alone. Even his body is only his secondarily, and temporarily; his broad acres, his trees and rivers, are no part of him at all.”
“But it remains property—even if you sell it all and give it to the poor,” said Haviland.