Here are some imaginary interviews on
. . . the recently discovered traces of an actual historical Flood: a discovery which has shaken the Christian world to its foundations by its apparent agreement with the Book of Genesis. . . .
The Dean of St. Paul's remarked: "I do not see that there is any cause for alarm. Protestantism is still founded on an impregnable rock: on that deep and strong foundation of disbelief in the Bible which supports the spiritual and intellectual life of all true Christians today. Even if dark doubts should arise, and it should seem for the moment as if certain passages in the Scripture story were true, we must not lose heart; the cloud will pass: and we have still the priceless possession of the Open Bible, with all its inexhaustible supply of errors and inconsistencies: a continual source of interest to scholars and a permanent bulwark against Rome. . . ."
Mr. H. G. Wells exclaimed: "I am interested in the Flood of the future: not in any of these little local floods that may have taken place in the past. I want a broader, larger, more complete and coordinated sort of Flood: a Flood that will really cover the whole ground. I want to get people to understand that in the future we shall not divide water, in this petty way, into potty little ponds and lakes and rivers: it will be one big satisfying thing, the same everywhere. Après moi le Déluge. Belloc in his boorish boozy way may question my knowledge of French; but I fancy that quotation will settle him."*
[* March 30, 1929.]
On the favourite topic of modern advertisement, having read an essay which said that good salesmanship made "everything in the garden beautiful," Gilbert again thought of Genesis:
There was only one actor in that ancient drama who seems to have had any real talent for salesmanship. He seems to have undertaken to deliver the goods with exactly the right preliminaries of promises and praise. He knew all about advertisement: we may say he knew all about publicity, though not at the moment addressing a very large public. He not only took up the slogan of Eat More Fruit, but he distinctly declared that any customers purchasing his particular brand of fruit would instantly become as gods. And as this is exactly what is promised to the purchasers of every patent medicine, popular tonic, saline draught or medicinal wine at the present day, there can be no question that he was in advance of his age. It is extraordinary that humanity, which began with the apple and ended with the patent medicine, has not even yet become exactly like gods. It is still more extraordinary (and probably the result of a malicious interpolation by priests at a later date) that the record ends with some extraordinary remarks to the effect that one thus pursuing the bright career of Salesmanship is condemned to crawl on his stomach and eat a great deal of dirt.*
[* March 23, 1929.]
The relation between Belloc and the paper, as between Belloc and Gilbert himself, was a unique one. Not indeed its "onlie begetter," he was equally with Cecil begetter of the original paper and its first editor. He was Gilbert's chief guide to the historical and political scene of Europe. Both men shared, had fought all their lives for, their ideas of Freedom, the Family, Restoration of Property and all that is involved in Catholic Christianity. And Belloc said repeatedly that he had no platform for the continuous expression of these ideas. Such books as his Cruise of the Nona found still as wide a public as had The Path to Rome a quarter century earlier, and in those books his philosophy may be read. But he had, too, urgent commentaries on Foreign Affairs and Current Politics—and for these G.K.'s Weekly became his platform as completely as the New Witness had been in the past. To Gilbert this appeared one chief value of his paper: in an article from which I quote in the next chapter he gives it as one of the two reasons for which he toiled to keep G.K.'s Weekly in existence.
Week by week Belloc on Current or Foreign Affairs wrote of what was happening and what would presently come of it. And who can say reading those articles today that it would not have changed the defeats of this war into victory at a far earlier date had our statesmen read and heeded—the analysis for instance of the peril of the aeroplane, of the threat to the Empire from Japan, the importance of keeping Italy's friendship in the Mediterranean, the growing strength of Germany and the awful risk we took in allowing her to rearm, in failing to arm against her?