Another hope of the ages that has failed us in the hour of need is the Church. If all other saviours of society failed there remained the Church as by law established to rely upon as the great regenerating power in the land. Alas! the Church in our midst cannot cast out evil spirits. It has lost the gift of healing through respectability. It worships an ancient creed instead of the living Christ. Jesus of Nazareth is the great International Democrat of history. He was a tradesman's son and a working carpenter Himself. This fact shocks respectability. How many more people would be Christians if Christ had been born in a palace and not in a stable! This is the unsavoury feature of religion, and the exclusive dignitaries of the Church hover round it dubiously. They admit the historic fact with candour, but slither away silently from its indelicate associations as far as decency permits.
We have been told that bishops in gaiters and aprons harmonize daintily with the quiet cathedral close, shadowed by immemorial elms and the other minor glories of the Establishment; but bishops in gaiters do seem badly placed in a carpenter's shop, where their Lord and Master served His 'prentice years. The apron is an ancient figment of clothing bishops now wear in common with the working carpenter at his bench. It is a kind of retaining badge, signalling their humble origin and ancient descent.
Bishops, in general, are cultured and amiable men, more renowned for their learning than their piety. They are appointed by the State, and form the executive of the ecclesiastical machine to run the traditional piety of the land. They sometimes quarrel amongst themselves as to who is orthodox and who is not on the episcopal bench--quarrelling amongst bishops is only a human diversion--but touching the righteousness which is in the law they are all blameless men. There is something faulty in the religion they inculcate, for it does not grip the people. It is dreamy; it is not real. It is the vague pursuit of an unknown god ranging through a maze of decorative ritual and symbol, and there remain great arid spaces in our nature which it never fills up.
It has been said that the visible Church stands in the way of spiritual enlightenment of the people, just as stone idols of the heathen stand in the way of apprehension of God. What the eye sees before it the mind settles down upon, and roams no farther searching for a fuller vision of spiritual truth. The savage sees his stone idol, and never thinks beyond it religiously. It was his father's god, and it is god enough for him.
The good Churchman is equally content to know nothing beyond the religious ceremonials which the Church ordains in the place of God, the Spiritual Father of us all. These ceremonials, sanctified by long observance, quenched the religious thirst of his forefathers, and they quench his thirst and he is satisfied. The Church is tenacious of her hold on men, not suffering the allegiance of the people to be shifted back to God the Father. The Church is said to be the one and only sacred aqueduct through which Divine grace can flow. The curse of the community is the middleman. He takes a heavy toll of profit in every business that feeds the people bodily or spiritually.
The New Democracy must return to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth to lay a solid foundation on which to build social righteousness and national greatness. The secret elements of social rectitude slumber in the words of Christ, and the volcanic action of the war will blast them into life and power.
Jesus Christ was not a theologian or schoolman of the fossil type of Gamaliel or Calvin, learned in booklore, but ignorant of men. He was not a stump orator inflaming the radical passions of the masses, bating them into red fury by pictorially describing the wickedness of the classes. He proposed no easy road to riches as a trap to catch the envious poor. He did not sit in his study formulating a scientific creed to mystify people with a religion of words and phrases; He lived in the open air a noble life that men could see and believe in. It is the mind, not the soul, that asks a creed to help its faith; the heart believes without the crutches of theological formula to support it. He stood for goodness pure and simple, for rich men and poor men alike. His teaching is exemplified in His life, and His life is a beautiful and faithful commentary on His teaching.
The careless world did not relish this straight talk on goodness--indoor and outdoor goodness. It was too realistic, too personal in its touch; but men are growing sensible now as the world grows older, and with reawakened conscience ask for the truth instead of its theological counterfeit, which does not heal the wounded spot. Out of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth grow eternal principles that build up the best governments and the wisest laws, that train the finest citizens, and regulate society on a basis of righteousness and mutual honour. The seeds of all possible national prosperity and generous manhood lie embedded in these teachings. Nations may rise, flourish, and decay, but the nation with the blood of Christ in its veins is immortal and shall endure for ever. May it be the British nation!
XII
JESUS CHRIST THE LURE OF THE AGES