"Everyone must be struck with the appalling ignorance of the simplest religious truths. Probably 80 per cent, of these men from the Midlands had never heard of the sacraments…. It is not only that the men do not know the meaning of 'Church of England'; they are ignorant of the historical facts of the life of our Lord. Nor must it be assumed that this ignorance is confined to men who have passed through the elementary schools. The same verdict is recorded upon those who have been educated in our public schools…. The men are hopelessly perplexed by the lack of Christian unity." [104]
In my opinion these statements are exaggerations, but that was not the view of the Commission. As regards Scotland, it has recently been stated at the Lothian Synod of the United Free Church that in 1911 at least 37 per cent. of the men and women of Scotland were without church connection. [105]
In 1870, of every 1,000 marriages, 760 were according to the rites of the Established Church, but in 1919 the proportion had fallen to 597. During the same period civil marriages without religious ceremonial increased from 98 to 231 per 1,000. [106] These figures are an index of the religious complexion of the country. The Protestant Churches are being strangled by the development of a germ that was inherent in them from the beginning, and that growth is Rationalism. The majority of the upper, professional, and artisan class can no longer be claimed as staunch Protestants, but as vague theists; and amongst these educated people, misled by false ideas of pleasure and by pernicious nonsense written about self-realisation, the practice of birth control has spread most alarmingly. This is an evil against which all religious bodies who retain a belief in the fundamental facts of Christianity might surely unite in action.
In a Catholic country there would be no need, in the furtherance of public welfare, to write on the evils of birth control. The teaching of the Catholic Church would be generally accepted, and a moral law generally accepted by the inhabitants of a country gives strength to the State. But Great Britain, no longer Catholic, is now in some danger of ceasing to be even a Christian country. In 1885 it was asserted, "England alone is reported to contain some seven hundred sects, each of whom proves a whole system of theology and morals from the Bible." [107] Each of these that now survives gives its own particular explanation of the law of God, which it honestly tries to follow, but at one point or another each and every sect differs from its neighbours. On account of these differences of opinion many people say: "The Churches cannot agree amongst themselves as to what is truth; they cannot all be right; it is, therefore, impossible for me to know with certainty what to believe; and, to be quite honest, it may save me a lot of bother just at present to have no very firm belief at all." This means that in Great Britain there is no uniform moral law covering all human conduct and generally accepted by the mass of the people. As the practice of artificial birth-rate control is not only contrary to Christian morality, but is also a menace to the prosperity and well-being of the nation, the absence of a uniform moral law, common to all the people and forbidding this practice, is a source of grave weakness in the State.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII
A NEO-MALTHUSIAN ATTACK ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
As was proved in a previous chapter (p. 120) artificial birth control was originally based on Atheism, and on a philosophy of moral anarchy. Further proof of this fact is to be found in the course of a most edifying dispute between two rival Neo-Malthusians. This quarrel is between Dr. Marie C. Stopes, President of the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress, who is not a Doctor of Medicine but of Philosophy, and Dr. Binnie Dunlop, who is a Bachelor of Medicine: and when birth controllers fall out we may humbly hope that truth will prevail. Dr. Stopes maintains that artificial birth control was not an atheistic movement, whereas Dr. Binnie Dunlop contends that the pioneers of the movement were Atheists. The beginning of the trouble was a letter written by Dr. Stopes to the British Medical Journal, in which she made the following statement:
"Dr. Martindale is reported in your pages to have given an address to medical women in which she pointed out that the birth control movement in England dated from the Bradlaugh trial in 1877. Had she attended the presidential address of the Society for Constructive Birth Control she would have learned that there was a very flourishing movement, centring round Dr. Trall in 1866, years before Bradlaugh touched the subject, and also a considerable movement earlier than that. This point is important, as 'birth control' has hitherto (erroneously) been much prejudiced in popular opinion by being supposed to be an atheistical movement originated by Bradlaugh." [108]
Dr. Stopes, who has been working overtime in the attempt to obtain some religious sanction for her propaganda, is ready not only to throw the Atheists overboard, but also to assert that a flourishing movement for artificial birth control centred round the late Dr. Trall, who was a Christian. Her letter was answered by Dr. Binnie Dunlop as follows:
"Dr. Marie C. Stopes, whose valuable books I constantly recommend, protests (page 872) against the statement that the birth control movement in England dated from the trial of Charles Bradlaugh in 1877—for re-publishing Dr. Knowlton's pamphlet, The Fruits of Philosophy because the Government had interdicted it. She must admit, however, that there was no organised movement anywhere until Bradlaugh and the Doctors Drysdale, immediately after the trial, founded the Malthusian League, and that the decline of Europe's birthrate began in that year. It may now seem unfortunate that the pioneers of the contraceptives idea, from 1818 onwards (James Mill, Francis Place, Richard Carlile, Robert Dale Owen, John Stuart Mill, Dr. Knowlton, Dr. George Drysdale, Dr. C.R. Drysdale, and Charles Bradlaugh), were all Free-thinkers; and Dr. Stopes harps on the religious and praiseworthy Dr. Trall, an American, who published Sexual Physiology in 1866. But Dr. Trall was not at all a strong advocate of contraceptive methods. After a brief but helpful reference to the idea of placing a mechanical obstruction, such as a sponge, against the os uteri, he said: