IDEALISM AND RELIGION
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—The Rev. Professor Maurice Relton returns to the charge. Or rather he once more evades it with brave words. It is odd that he began his first letter with a reference to the clouds of war overhanging a steadily darkening Europe. For the first letter you printed in your last issue begins on exactly the same note : " the steadily deteriorating inter-
national situation . . . gives every observer an alarming sense of helplessness and futility. . . . Above all, the brave talk About peaceful change . . . remains talk ! " It is precisely the same with Professor Helton. He uses brave words about " the supreme task of Evangelism," about " the manifold treasures hidden in a Catholicism purged of mediaeval abuses," about " a Liberalism re-interpreting and re-stating the revealed truth of Christianity." But where do all these wonderful " isms " exist ? Dr. Gore as an exponent of " Catholicism " denies almost in Coto the entirely historical narratives of Genesis to Daniel. The Archbishop's Chaplain, the latest Bampton Lecturer, as entirely denies the historically attested supernatural machinery of all the four Gospels. To.use the language of Dr. Gore and The Guardian, it seems to be all `` inspired myth ". and " sacred legend." The Archbishop of York's latest ally on the Board of Commissioners to investigate the relationship between Church and State (Dr. C. C. J. Webb) has just published a denial of our Lord's Virgin Birth and Resurrection, of His institution of the Last Supper and His Virgin Birth. Thus the heads of the English Church are losing Church Schools at a rate of 116 per annum just as they have lost eleven-twelfths of the national attendance at Church : at Sittingbournc only 3 per cent. of the population go to church. -
Again, since the publication by you of Professor Maurice Relton's original letter a singularly enlightened series of letters from all quarters and from every angle has appeared ; while the Prealent of the United States has called attention to the universal " lapse from faith " among all countries of the modern world. That he thinks has got to be overcome so that the faith of the Christian nations at least be recovered. Since Professor Maurice Relton's original letter the Govern- ment have decided to do away (by only part-accommodation) with tithe ecclesiastical. In the interval the Bishop of Durham allows me to quote a saying of his own which lie had forgotten—to the effect that the religion of today (which Mr. Relton asks the nation to return to as the only true " Catholicism," "Liberalism," "Evangelism ") is as dead as the religion of Rome before Luther blew his trumpet Now, Sir,
" Who shall decide when doctors disagree ? " especially if they be doctors of divinity I I think Professor Relton eminently fitted for that " re-statement and re- interpretation " of the sacred documents which the time; demand owing to the latest attestations of science at the hands of Langdon, Garstang, Pinches, Yahuda. But this means an honest difference with the out-of-date suppositions of Gore's New Commentary published by the S.P.C.K. and largely paid for the Anglo-Catholic E.C.U. In short, Sir, it means that Professor Maurice Relton must be prepared to give the nation the fruits of the new learning and not the old, truth and not prejudice, fact and not theory. Will he do it? Or will he, like Erasmus, continue to circle between both worlds uncertain on which to perch ?
" Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike."
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