BOOKS.

FACING THE FACTS.*

" A SERIOUS inquiry into the conditions of religious belief and practice in contemporary England," consisting of a number of papers by different authorities, has been brought out under the editorship of the Rev. W. K. Lowther Clarke.

The first five essays are perhaps the most interesting. "The Present Outlook," by the Bishop of Hull; "The Upper Classes," by Lord William Gascoyne-Cecil; "The Middle Classes," by H. G. Wood; " Organized Labour," by the Rev. Conrad Noel; and " The Very Poor," by the Rev, Richard Free. The impression left upon the reader by all the writers taken together is discouraging. The Dean of St. Paul's writes of religious life at the Universities in a tone of deep, we had almost said bitter, depression and the Editor sees little to encourage the inquirer in the dull religious life of the country districts.

The Bishop of Hull, however, strikes a cheerful note, and it is he who stands first upon the list. He sees in " The Present Outlook" "much cause for anxiety, but none for timidity, certainly none for despondency." "It is true enough," he admits, " that if churchgoing is the one criterion, the majority of our countrymen are hopelessly irreligious." But the teat is wholly inadequate. While men believe in God and in prayer it is absurd to despair of religion, and he thinks the belief in these two dogmas has still incalculable power. Meanwhile he sees signs of a revival of a more definite form of Christianity. The old controversies are dying down and our author devoutly hopes that " the day ie not far distant when High Church' and Low Church' will be as obsolete as the Guelph and Ghibelline." Soon he thinks one subject of controversy and one only will divide the Christian world in England. Is Christianity a religion or a philosophy P A Church united in the former conviction and bent upon good works, deploring its former indifference to social questions, and full of the strength of the penitent, will, he believes, inflaence the multitude more powerfully and more universally than over in the past.

As our readers will have seen, the Bishop's outlook is general. All the other writers place before us such aspects of the problem as their particular experience gives them a rikht, to discuss, Lord William Gascoyne-Cecil's paper is t Facing the Fade or an ElLgliohntan's jEditecl 'by the Rev. W, E.

Lowther Clarke. London Tames Nisbet and Co. Tee. net. J

almost more social than religious. He divides the uPper classes " into the natural division• of the new 'and' the old." He begins by drawing a picture of " the old squire. " (He

does not mean the squire of the past, but the man, young or old, who has long traditions behind him.) The man he

describes is

"abnaed in every Radical newspaper, but in reality has a great deal of the Socialist about him ; in feet, the keynote of his thought is that he is a Socialist rather than an, individualist, though, of course, he would not recognize himself under this description. Ho disbelieves.-profoundly in looking at man from an individual standpoint."

In the matter of religion his point of view is also non-indi:

vidualistic. "He does not ask whether he needs the comforts of religion, he is sure that society needs religion, and if society needs religion ho, as one of the first in the, social

organization, must be there at his post, and so. the five minutes' bell has hardly begun when the church sees him in

his pew." He is no theologian, and " only holds a general view that men ought to be Christians." All the same " be is sure to quarrel with the Nonconformist minister," because " he can- not tolerate a man who represents any irregular system." He refuses—so we are assured—" to recognize any form of individ-

ualism," and does not " appreciate the individual spiritual needs of any man." The poor love him, however, and with reason "His vices are arrogance and love of. power, but they are out weighed. by his many virtues, his charity, his absolute integrity, his altruism, and, above all, his splendid conception of the social duty which the • rich, the strong, and the fortunate owe to their poorer neighbours."

This portrait is set over 'against that of . the new squire for whom our author has too evidently a .bittercontempt. The old man' of the. new order is bad enough, but he is honest and straightforward ; the typical son of such a man is bad indeed To take the older man first : his religious feeling is undeveloped . and be is indifferent to the claims both of Church and Chapel.

"To his mind Nonconformity and the Church are two competing purveyors of religion, and though he is very doubtful whether it is really right to subscribe to either, or whether they should not be left, like other salesmen, to prove the value' of their product by the price the public will give for them, he thinks if he has subscribed to one it is only fair that he should subscribe to the other."

His workmen are his "hands." He acknowledges no duty towards them beyond the duty of justice. " Love, mercy, pity belong either to romance or to the. woman's world." Ho is, as Lord William Gascoyne-Cecil tells us, a true individualist, "lie holds that all men are born equal, and that therefore those who fail fail because they, deserve to fail ; ho is very incredulous if the clergyman trios to persuade him that there exists such a thing as undeserved poverty; ho thinks that this is only the futile plea of the loser in the battle-to explain the reason of his loss, the reality being that he did not deserve to win.. These, views tend to make him a Liberal; ho is for each man trying for himself."

Unattractive as he is, however, be commands respect by the side of his son. (One ought to say here ,that the possibility of

his having a good son is allowed for and dismissed in a few words.) The young squire of the new sort has one ambition- " to belong to that mysterious assemblage called society."

Ideals he has none: "It is hard to talk about his religion hematite it is non-existent," and " the man who surrenders wealth for duty's sake would appear to him merely an, idiot." For his poor neighbours in the village he cares nothing. Once more our author bids us look at the old squire—at the man whose money is not new—and compare him with the modern product. " No Christian can admire his pride of birth, all wise men must condemn his intolerance. Yet I yearn for the ideal which every detail in his life expresses of a noble socialism that compels every man who stands higher than his fellows to amend his time in seeking the welfare of the community." Surely both pictures are greatly overdrawn.

We feel a certain relief in turning to humbler people. What is the religious portion of " The Villa Dweller"? Mr. Wood's account of it is rather sad :- "He retains side by side in his mind fragments of. Christian doctrine and fragments of popularized science, along with, poli- tical prejudice, and, it may be, artistic conviction. 13tit the whOle is an uncoordinated jumble of incompatibles. It does net seeni as if any coherent non-Christian interpretation of 'life is winning its way to acceptance in the English middle classes, -Rather then; attitude towards traditional doctrine is that there. is something in. it, but they are not prepared to say howmuch." ' "

In Wood's belief the times are ripe for "a master theo- logian" who will once more offer Christianity to the world in an acceptable form. It is abundantly plain, to his mind, that interest in religion has not decreased despite the dread of dogma and the love of material comfort, but to those who doubt the fact his proofs will not seem very convincing.

If we take this book as true we shall find that the spiritual life has an even worse enemy than material comfort, and that is. material discomfort. Mr. Free, in writing of "The Very Pbor," argues that extreme poverty tends, and always must tend, to secularism. Ameliorate the physical condition of the poor and the natural hunger of man in a normal condition for a religion will reassert itself. At present in the lower orders the better off are the more religious. This writer is hopeful. Much may be done, he believes, to free the religious impulse of the masses by preaching, by example, and by legislation. " After twenty years of the very poor I am confirmed in the belief that their condition is mainly due to causes external to themselves." This is how he sums up his position : "Let us give the victims of poverty hope in this life, and they will be the more ready to believe in and prepare for the life of the world to come."

Mr. Conrad Noel's chapter on the religious condition of the sipper workman does something to confirm Mr. Free's view. "The orthodoxies," he admits, " are in the melting-pot," but a vein of strong religious feeling interwoven with demo- cratic enthusiasm is manifest. Both in Anglo-Catholic and Dissenting communities he sees signs of revival, though in their usual form neither Anglicanism nor Protestantism has got much grip of the working man. Still he would have his readers realize that

"a growing Anglo-Catholic section, intellectually and morally powerful out of all proportiOn to its numbers, is frankly demo- cratic, not only in its accidental sympathies, but in its essential philosophy of religion, and Churches actuated and infused by this Ottliolic democratic Modernism aro not only making distinct head- way among intellectually vigorous artisans, but are actually becoming centres of thought and spiritual energy towards which the whole democracy is looking with awakened interest."

Among Nonconformists the " Adult School" movement and "-The Brotherhood "—a development of the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Movement—are making amazing strides. The membership of the latter alone is more than half a million. The aim of both societies is " the moral, spiritual, social, and physical welfare of their fellows in the name of Jesus Christ." Greater stress is laid upon conduct than upon creed, and " the new evangel withdraws attention from while still affirming the existence of a next world."

It is surprising to find the picture of religions life in the country, supplied by the editor of this volume, painted in far more gloomy colours. The churches are emptying, and what is called Church work is a failure. Meanwhile the villages

are more moral than they were. The writer tells us for our consolation that in spite of his past churchgoing the labourer Was never very religious. The Reformation was, he says, an

upper-class movement, and there never was a golden age of the Church ; the happy holy peasants of the Middle Ages were a figment of the imagination of the early Tractarians. "If Christianity be true," our author continues, "there must be a way to reach the labourer's soul, but we have not found it," Depressed by this article we turn to Dr. Inge on the question of the religious life of the universities, only to be still further east down. We hear about "race exhaustion" and " the progressive elimination of the superior stocks."

"An asset of incalculable value, of which the old Universities are the best custodians, exists in the secular moral ideal, the standard of gentlemanliness, the northern European code of honour. This is really native growth, the natural religion of the Englishman, not part of the intellectual loot of the Roman. Empire, the miscellany of ideas which our barbarian ancestors carried off from Palestine, Athens, and Rome," We do not believe this code has ever satisfied or will ever satisfy a single- religious craving. To suggest its

doing so is to offer the broad stone of honour to men who ask bread. There is hardly a dull page in this book : a true effort has been made to face the facts. It is fret& almost to a fault. The depressed but interested reader can only hope that the hopes of the Bishop may prove better founded than

the apprehensions of the Dean. The moat astonishing of the facts which here face the reader is this, that the flame of religious life burns far brighter in the towns than in the actuary. What is-the meaning of this'? 'Dees it not suggest

that such religious feeling as exists in England to-day is of the nature of revival rather than, as the pessimists hold, of survival.