An athletic-looking young man, rosy-cheeked and clear-eyed, who had been listening with a somewhat supercilious smile, now joins in
the debate. “There would be no need for you to bother about drink if you could persuade people to give up flesh-eating. Vegetarianism is the cure of all ills. It drives away disease and the craving for stimulants, it gives you pure blood and a desire for the really simple life. I live in a tent on ninepence a day and sleep in the open. I grow my own fruit and vegetables and do my own cooking. Thoreau is my master and Carpenter my friend. I hate smoky cities with their slums and their shambles and your whole sickly civilization.”
“Sickly!” repeats a Christian Scientist, with reproachful emphasis on the word. The speaker is a woman of sixty, whose face bears the stamp of successful self-discipline and a sound physique. “I have seen vegetarians who looked extremely sickly. Before I became a Christian Scientist I, too, sought health by various systems of diet. Now I know that all disease is but an error of mortal mind, and in Science and Health, by Mrs. Eddy, we are told——”
She was not allowed to finish her sentence, for a Congregational minister, famous for his pulpit denunciations of sin, has risen and
gravely waves his hand to ensure a respectful hearing. “All you people,” he says, in a voice vibrating with solemn indignation, “are pursuing fleeting shadows. The kingdom of God is within. This false cult of health by self-hypnotism, or health by living like the beasts in the field, gives undue weight to things which, after all, relate to the body. It is the soul of man that is important, not where he lives or what he eats. We need the fear of God and the thirst for His mercy; we need the Divine guidance which will transform and sanctify our social relations.”
“And pray how has the Church dealt with the war?” cries the pacifist who has now risen, his eyes ablaze with denunciation of the minister. “The Christian Church—established or unestablished—is nothing but the handmaid of the politician and the State, the servile echo of capitalists and diplomatists. You talk of Divine guidance and the sanctification of life. How do you respect life and the teaching of Jesus Christ? Jesus said, 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.' You, His professed followers, bless war and its
orgies of hate. You stand by hypocritically thanking God for your own sanctity, whilst Christians drench battlefields with the blood of Christians. The abolition of war is the reform to which you should all bend your lives and direct your prayers. Even now you have not learnt your lesson. Your social order, your laws, your constitution, your personal liberties, your lives and those of your children, are thrown to the Juggernaut of war, and yet you continue your futile pursuit of shadows. Without peace there can be no reform.”
I have joined in the debate, I have heard all these voices. They are familiar to me with the familiarity of the songs of our childhood. Their sentiment is true, oh so true! yet so sadly inadequate. The reformers are valiant and true, and every one has hitched his waggon to his pet star. Happiest are those who do not encounter the cross-influence of rival stars or see the irony of our human limitation of sight and achievement. The blood-red cross of the crusader will stand no admixture of colour. The soul dominated by one idea gains ground. Henri Dunant, Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth Fry, General Booth, Josephine Butler—these succeed by dint of their singleness
of purpose. The narrowness serves to concentrate the strength and accelerate the work.
The reformer may be bigoted and unreasonable, but he must be an optimist whilst pursuing his object. He must believe in life and in the inherent goodness of the earth. He must be a stranger to the dyspeptic melancholy through which Carlyle saw the world as a “noisy inanity” and life as an incomprehensible monstrosity. Macbeth is called to denounce life as “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,” and “signifying nothing.” Macbeth must be shunned by the reformer as the monk repels the visits of Satan in the desert. He must share the hopefulness of Sir Thomas More. Utopia is possible here, now, and everywhere, though execution is likely to be the penalty of too close application to principles.