THE IL.P.A. ANNUAL•
The R.P.A. Annual for 1917 contains articles by several distinguished men upon the probable effect of the war upon religion—" Will Orthodox Christianity Survive the War ? " The articles are, of course, all mate- rialistic in tone, though they vary slightly in standpoint and conclusion. The first, and perhaps the best worth reading because the most frank and uncompromising, is that by Mr. Arnold Bennett. His paper. we ought to say, appears under a dilorent heading. It is called "Religion after the War." His contempt for Christianity is un- bounded, and he believes his " ease " " is the common case of the tolerably educated human being." But the mass of men are not " tolerably educated." Some few are well educated and many have no education, in Mr. Bennett's sense. We suppose it is to such as these that ho indirectly alludes when he says : " On the general body of illusion the war has had no effect save perhaps to enlarge it." " A fear of freedom " is, he thinks, a natural outcome of war, and Christianity, " with its specious appeal to the spirit of intoler- ance and to the spirit of self-satisfaction," will find in this new fear new vitality. For his own part, " curiosity about a future life never incon- veniences me," ho writes. "I do not feel the need of a supernatural religion," and " I never prayed sincerely or without a sharp sense of the ridiculous." For such as ho the war marks an event " which in importance far transcends the war itself—the fall of the Christian religion." The Whence and the Whither have no importance in life as Mr. Bennett sees it or as he paints it. He cares nothing about them. That, we venture to say, is a humorous if not a very important con- clusion. The truth is, Mr. Arnold Bennett is bound to be humorous in all events. He is indeed almost funnier when he is grandly serious than when he is consciously provoking a laugh. The cream yf the joke in the present instance is that it is quite clear that Mr. Bennett has not the very haziest conception of what Christianity ie. His man of straw with the label, " This 'ere dummy is the Christian religion. Ain't it a fair old 'orror?" will no doubt fall with the war, but we fear Mr. Bennett will experience a bitter disappointment when it does. He may discover behind it the real thing, a very living thing, and a thing not nearly so easy to knock over as his own straw creation.
The other writers in the volume before us show more courtesy to the Christian point of view than does Mr. Bennett. For all that, we think what he says may be fairly considered to represent the result of their conjoint effort, with the exceptions of Professor Ray Lankester and Sir Harry Johnston. These last obviously feel a strong admiration for Christian ethics, and believe that the world will continue to be guided by them when the supernatural nonsense in which they are encased has rotted away. Mr. John Collier, Sir Bryan Donlie, Pro- fessor Bury, Mr. J. M. Robertson, and several others think that the day of religion is nearly done. There may of course be setbacks in the order of progress, but "serious rationalists" need not be greatly troubled by these. It is possible, they admit, that the war may not give religion its death-blow, but obviously, as they think, it is dying. They exhort their co-believers not to be in too much hurry. " The habit of religion passes aeonically." No really rational man, they are all sure, could believe in a good God after this war. Yet another con- tributor to the Annual—Mr. William Archer—takes the efficacy of • TA. R.P.A. Annual for 1917. London: watts and Co. pd. net.] prayer to be the touchstone of religion, and believes that its proved futility must clear men's minds of all that remains of faith. " To all this multitudinous and world-wide appealing and beseeching—this vocal and silent supplication for ever thundering round the Throne—the silent not the least audible, we may be sure, if there be any ear to hear— what answer is vouchsafed from the empyrean ? Never a whisper." Surely this somewhat involved utterance is strangely misplaced in • volume with scientific pretensions. Never a whisper ? But who is to judge? "None that Mr. Archer has overheard," would be a more modest and more convincing way of putting the matter. To say that no whisper of reply to prayer has been heard during this war is to make a statement which could be justified only by labours as arduous as those of the late Professor William James, who came to so completely opposite a conclusion. What a confirmed dogmatist is man, even when born again to scepticism: The contemptuous attitude of those "humanists" towards human emotion is strange indeed. But there have always been thinkers who have dreaded and despised human passion in half its forms—who desired to make human nature over again in a smaller and, they thought, bettor form. The extreme ascetics of the Middle Ages were in a position analogous to the militant materialists of to-day. They denied that a home, a citizenship, love, children, beauty, society, were rightly craved by the heart of man, and that these things would bring him, were daily bringing him, the truest of joy. They vowed these delights would turn to dust and ashes in his mouth, and that the only appetites which should be admitted were the appetites of the :Spirit. Let men seek, they said, for what was beyond death, for the undying things of the soul, for God, for forgiveness and life. There was something very fine in their point of view. The world acknowledged its truth, and with inspired justice gave respect to the dirty anchorites of the desert, though the natural man was revolted by their condition, the reason being, we suppose, that man is not wholly tbo natural man, never has been nor can be. The anchorite preached to the man in the street to refrain from all worldly pleasures, even those which could be defended as good and wholesome, and the latter listened with rever- ence and continued on his way. He thought the anchorite a groat man, a learned man, a courageous man, a man to support and be proud of—but that was all. He continued to plough and reap and marry and beget children, to follow his arts and his crafts, just as if the anchorite had never spoken. He accepted the good things God gave him, though he looked up a little to the man who could face life without them. We believe that in the same way tho world of to-day is treating and will treat tho materialists. They listen respectfully to what they teach, admire the pluck which can put a good face upon life without the help of God or the hope of Heaven, shiver a little lest what the materialist shouts may bo true, accept tho whispered assuranoe of an inner voice that it is not the whole truth, and tell the materialist that they cannot live by bread alone, just as they told the anchorite that they could not live without it. Ordinary men are obstinate spiritualists—and obstinate sensualists. They have made up their minds that they will receive at the bands of God all the alleviations appointed to tho human lot, eternally respectful and disobedient to the voices which forbid.
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