He took up the manuscript and read the remaining pages.
There was a cross-heading upon one, and it was this—
"THE REAL SOLUTION"
"The real solution, let me finally say, is indubitably this: I have hinted at it throughout the pages of this work. I have tried to lead the mind of the reader up towards the discovery of my own conviction. Now I state it.
"If human nature was naturally good, as Jean Jacques Rousseau believed it to be, then there would be no social problem. Human nature is not temperamentally good. It is temperamentally bad. Therefore, before we can reorganise Society we must reorganise character.
"And in what way is it possible to do this? Can it be done by Act of Parliament? Can it be done by articles in newspapers and reviews? Can it be done by the teaching of altruism at the hands of university settlements and propagandists? It cannot be done by any of these means.
"There is only one way in which the individual mind can be reached, touched, and influenced so strangely and so completely that the influence will be permanent, and the life of the individual will be changed.
"And that way is the Christian way.
"We must do again, if we are to realise the ideals which burn in our hearts, what the Christian Church did in the old days of the Roman Empire, and was meant to do in all ages, by means of the Old Faith 'once and for all delivered to the saints.' In those dim, far-off days the historian knows that Christianity succeeded actually in creating a new middle-class—just what was needed—of poor men made richer, and rich men made poorer in one common brotherhood. Its motto was: For all who want work, work! For those who won't work, hunger! But for the old and infirm, provision. And this the Church of Christ actually achieved, neither by denouncing nor inculcating dogma, but by insisting on and carrying out in practice its own remarkable dogmas. It is not the denial of the Real Presence at the altar, it is not its affirmation, it is not the question of the validity of the apostolic succession nor the denial of it, which will make it possible for an English world to save itself from the horrors of the present.
"It will be simply this: That those who believe in Christ as the most inspired Teacher the world has ever seen, as God-made-Man, come into this world on a great mission of regeneration, that we shall see our opportunity.
"Christianity and Socialism are inextricably entwined. Separate one from the other, as so many Socialists of nowadays are endeavouring to do, and one or the other—perhaps both—will fail of their high ideal, their splendid mission.
"Combine them, and success is real and assured. We shall all, in that happy day, begin to realise the kingdom of heaven; to re-echo in this world the dim echo of the heavenly harmonies which may then reach us from the new Jerusalem."
The duke put down the manuscript, and with slow, grave steps left his great library, crossed the famous marble hall, and went up through the enclosure of his gardens into the roar and surge of Piccadilly.
His face was curiously set and intent, as he walked to Lord Camborne's, in Grosvenor Street.
CHAPTER XVII THE COMING OF LOVE
They were dining quite alone at the Cambornes'—the duke, the bishop, Lord Hayle, and Lady Constance.
When he had changed and came down-stairs the duke went into the drawing-room. There were still a few minutes before dinner would be served. He found himself alone, and walked up and down the beautiful room with a curious physical, as well as mental, restlessness. He felt out of tune, as it were. The tremendous upheaval in his life which he had lately experienced was not likely to be forgotten easily. He realised that, and he realised also—more poignantly perhaps at this moment than ever before—how rude a shock his life had experienced. All his ideas must be reconstructed, and the process was not a pleasant one. From the bottom of his heart he caught himself wishing that nothing had happened, that he was still without experience of the new sides of life, to which he had been introduced by such an extraordinary series of accidents.