WESLEYAN MODESTY.
[To MR EDITOR OP TILE "SPECTATOR." SIR,—A letter of no importance in itself may sometimes: gather a fictitious importance from the fact of its admission• into a paper of high repute. This is the only reason why I ask you to allow me to reply to one which I noticed in your- issue of the 7th inst.
Some meddlesome person, who is quite ready to seize the- advantage of a veiled identity, there evinces an inordinate. desire to correct a minute error, of no moment whatever, into• which your reviewer of my book, "Scenes throUgh the Battle- Smoke," had inadvertently fallen,—a correction which he fears my "modesty" would. "compel me to leave unspoken."' It may be noted that this ingenuous gentleman does not wait. to see whether I should or not, but interpolates his own. coy-- rection in the very issue which follows the error. As a matter of fact, I certainly should not have dreamt of making any such correction. I do not believe for a moment, that your reviewer used the word " Anglican " in any really significant sense ; from the tenor of his remarks, I judge that the word " Christian," or perhaps " Protestant," would have carried his meaning. At least, so I read it.
But, in the second place, I am not accustomed to wave the flag of my own particular denomination in the eyes of the world on every conceivable occasion, in season and out of .season. It is this contemptible spirit of sectarianism which is so disgusting to all right-minded men. The fevered struggle for pre-eminence, and the bitter conflict between the Churches, to secure the exaltation of one's own particular section, is the spirit and practice which call forth from the world the .satirical remark : "See how these Christians love one another."
Had your correspondent known a little more of Army work, he would have understood that there a Chaplain is a servant of God first, of the Queen next, and of his own particular Church after this ; hence the differences between the Pro- testant " religious parties " is much less thought of in the service than out of it. In this very Afghan Campaign, I had at one period, by the General's orders, to minister not only to 'the Wesloyans and other Nonconformists, but to all the Protestants of the force; and at my Sunday morning parade ,service had nearly three thousand Church of England men. And am I obtrusively to thrust forward my own religious denomination in a book which aims only to be of general Topular interest ? It would surely be in singularly bad taste. The public care little about who or what I am in particular -detail : they may, however, be interested to know something of the " scenes " which came under my observation in the two --campaigns through which I served.
In parting from your officious correspondent, the " Immodest Wesleyan," whose motive is at least open to question, allow :me to congratulate him on his most apt choice of a lawn de plume. This, at any rate, is above criticism.--I am, Sir, &c., ARTHUR MALL
Previous page
