BOOKS.

"A STUDENT IN ARMS."*

WE are exceedingly glad that the friends of Donald Hankey, " A Student in Arms," have brought out this volume of his letters, and have linked it with the scheme for commemorating in Bermondsey—his special field of service—the man and the soldier. The proposal, described by Miss Hankey in the letter which we publish this week, is to place upon a sound and permanent foundation the Club in Bermondsey in which Donald Hankey worked, and was working at the outbreak of the war. The special aims and objects of the Club are set forth by Mr. Paterson, one of Hankey's colleagues, in an appeal which forms a Preface to the volume before us. It is sufficient to say here that cheques should be made payable to the Oxford and Bermondsey Mission Memorial Fund, and sent to the Oxford and Bermondsey Mission, 175 Long Lane, S.E. 1.

Though we are in the fullest sympathy with the proposed memorial, and sincerely trust that the Club will find generous helpers among the readers of the Spectator, what we are just now specially concerned with is the nature of Hankey's letters. Let us say at once that the first impression on the reader is that Hankey in his letters falls below the high literary inspiration which he displays in A Student in Arnie. In those memorable essays, the majority of which, as our readers will remember, were published in these columns, Hankey showed not only a spiritual and moral elevation of the highest order, but also a true distinction of style. Even if the essays had not touched our hearts so finely and to such fine issues, they must• have moved us by the poignancy, and yet reticence, of their style, by their penetration and insight into human motives, and by the intense vitality which characterized them. Yet the letters, if they do not on the surface display the same quality as the essays, reveal when carefully studied a nature free, noble, and humane, combined with a truthfulness deeply impressive from its singular intensity. Never was a human mind more true to itself, and more wedded to the desire for the truth at all costs, than was Donald Hankey's. One must not with him use such a word as " haunted." That suggests something terrific, sinister, secret•, or even remorseful ; and there was nothing but spiritual valour and spiritual openness in Hankey. Further, he was a man of no qualms, and no mystification. Nevertheless there was always before him, if not overshadowing him, the thought : " Have I got to the ultimate truth ? Am I facing the final fact 2 Am I sure that I have not evaded something because it is often more pleasant, or seems more pleasant, not to know ? Am I finding excuses for not probing things to the bitter end ? Am I, perhaps unconsciously, refraining from opening the very last door for fear that I might find nothing behind it, or else some- thing that would bring on me the tragedy of disillusionment ? "

• Letters of Donald Rankey. with Introduction and Notes by Edward Miller, M.A. London: Andrew Memo. ps. net.]

This desire for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth was Hankey's master-passion. It grew with him throughout his life. But with it grew also the assurance that the truth in the most absolute sense was not only worth seeking but was attainable. Indeed, by the end of his life all worries, anxieties, and misgivings in regard to the search for truth had faded from him, and he entered upon that happiness of mind which comes to those who dare all for the truth. He bad reached the point where the truth had made him free.

Hankey was essentially one of those men of whom Wordsworth wrote :- " And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love."

When once Hankey's spiritual secret, a very simple one in fact, is mastered, his whole nature becomes not only plain but intensely attractive. Remember, however, that when we talk about Hankey's strivings after truth, we must not imagine that he was one of those who, like Arthur Hugh Clough, were greatly troubled by the struggle for faith and hardly hoped for more than the mood he described in the famous line :- "And with much toil attain to half-belief."

The problem of faith, so oppressive to some natures, never troubled Hankey. His faith in the essentials of the Christian religion came to him without the slightest cloud or mist upon it. He was never embroiled in anything approaching doctrinal controversy either with others or with himself. Though we do it with much diffidence, we hazard the statement that he was sometimes, as it were, amazed at the unruffled placidity of his faith, and wondered whether he really had the right to be as serenely confident as he was. But this was, in any case, only a passing mood. Serenity, confidence, and a high valiance of the soul were the essentials of his nature.

The qualities we have just named are set out, with the humility and gentleness which come to the brave in soul as to the brave in the physical field of war, in the letters in which Hankey sets forth his credo. Take for example the following passage in a letter written while he was an undergraduate :— " I believe that Salvation is to realize the kingdom, or rule of Cod in one's own soul here and now. The man who has realized this is a member of the Kingdom already, and after death must still be a member. He is saved. The others, it seems to me, are probably all in the same boat, no matter what they have believed on earth. They are not members of the King- dom, though their striving to lead good lives, whether as Christians or not, must have brought them very near the Kingdom. But I can't believe that the many who have never had a chance of entering or have not quite succeeded in entering the Kingdom will either be shut out for ever, or be suddenly let in by an act of divine good nature. I think there must be further life, of growth, of service, perhaps of temptation ; and if further life, why not on this planet as much as in another part of the universe ? Transmigration ! I don't believe it's much good worrying about a future life ; what we are here for is to try and realize the Kingdom within ourselves. Of course no one can really ; but there comes in God's grace and man's faith. I believe that the desire of a man to .give up his own will, and surrender his life to God's will is, through Our blessed Saviour, taken for the fact, if it is really honest."

An even more striking expression of faith is that contained in another letter of the undergraduate period. Here Hankey deals with the Christianity of the future. Memorable is the passage dealing with the special sense in which our Lord is the Son of Cod:— "I must now go on to try and say what I think must be the Christianity of the future. To begin with, I firmly believe that what our Lord taught about God was true. I firmly believe that the happiness and beauty of man is wholly dependent on his being ' in communion with' his heavenly Father. I don't believe that there is any happiness, or true progress, except in so far as a man is able to understand his Father's will, and to conform himself to it. I firmly believe that such communion is possible, and that it includes not only a turning of man to God, but a hand held out to help by God. When a man has this communion with God, and when he is doing God's will, I think he is part of the Kingdom of God.' The kingdom is within him. The rule of God is established within his heart. This Kingdom is what our Lord came to found. I don't think we can know anything about God, except as He is reflected in our Lord's teaching and life, and attitude towards men. I think there is no doubt that our Lord was ' the revelation of the Father.' As to our Lord's deity,' I don't see how we can define it more than He did. He showed in some of the parables that He claimed to be the Son of God.' I believe that, but its exact metaphysical meaning I can't get hold of. I think it means that He was essentially of the same nature as God, and that He could not help being different from other men, and ' One with the Father' in a way that no one else ever was. I believe that .a man who had seen Christ had seen the Father. I mean that Christ was, if one may say so, the will of the Father expressed in terms of man, and I don't see how else Cod could be made intelligible to man. So, when I worship, I worship the Father, but it is through Christ. I worship the Father as Christ has shown Him to me, and in no other way at all. I have no other way."

The theologian may smile at the boyish naivebl, of portions of Hankey's unveiling of his faith, but if ho is a wise man and a good man as well as a learned man he will not fail to remember that it is out of the mouths of babes and sucklings that we may expect the Divine message.

Though we have chiefly dwelt, as undoubtedly Donald Hankey

would have liked us to dwell, on the religious aide of the book, it must not bo supposed that this is all it contains. By far the greater share of it is taken up with a very pleasant story of a young Englishman's life told in youth's language and without the slightest priggishness or overemphasis on the theological side. Indeed, there was nothing that Hankey detested more than theology in the sense of religious formalism. He was on the road to earn the nickname which was once attached to that notable Broad Churchman, " Hang-Theology-Rogers." Had ho earned the name of " Hang-Theology-Hankey " the fact would have caused no misunderstanding to any of his friends.

Hankey began his life as an officer in the Royal Artillery, his first post being at Mauritius. Though in no sense unhappy in the Army, he found his vocation not to be there, and decided to go to Oxford with a view to taking Orders if at the end of his time he felt so inclined. He did feel inclined to take Orders, but he also felt that before he took the final step he must know more of men, that he must in fact qualify in the school of the world at large. Accordingly he not only took part in the Ber- mondsey Mission, but travelled in order to ascertain for himself the conditions under which boys whom he encouraged to emigrate would live. The war found him at work again in the Bermondsey Club, and working hard. That Hankey would spring to arms was a foregone conclusion, for the flame of patriotism burnt high in him. In the Army, though an excellent soldier, he showed that desire to be quite sure that he was doing the right thing which we have described in dealing with his spiritual campaigns. In the first place, though ho had been an officer before the war, he insisted upon entering the Army as a private. He rapidly became a sergeant, but because he thought it was best, in the

special circumstances of his unit, he voluntarily went back to the ranks. Then under pressure he became an officer in the Artillery. Believing, however, that he could not do the best work as a gunner, he got himself transferred to the Infantry.

Every one who has read A 'Student in Arms will realize what an admirable officer he became. Regret is useless, and the last thing to be associated with Donald Hankey ; but yet one may be pardoned if one thinks how extraordinarily interesting it would have been had Hankey been placed in command of a battalion and allowed, as very possibly be would have been allowed during the war, a free hand. We believe that Hankey

might have turned his command into one of the most potent fighting units that the world has ever seen—a new body of Ironsides, in spite of his anti-Cromwellian bias. But remember that he would have accomplished this by example and moral suasion, never by mere compulsion or fear. The battalion would have seemed to the cynics, if not like a Sunday-school, at any rate like a Lads' Club. Yet all the same they would have been the best of fighting men. Not only would they have learnt as one man to " stand firmly and charge desperately," but also " to make some conscience of what they did." We may be sure that they would have deserved to the full Cromwell's final comment : " Truly they were never beaten, and wherever they were engaged against the enemy they beat continually."