NATIONAL IDEALISM AND RELIGION

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably pastille.- The most suitable length is that of one of our "News of the Week" paragraphs. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym.—Ed. THE SPECTATOR.f [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]

SIR,—May a convalescent who has been perusing some back

numbers of The Spectator venture to add to the admirable comments on the letter signed Patricia Gilbert-Lodge, by the Headmaster of Sherborne and Dr. Geikie-Cobb and Mr. Muntz ? That frank utterance, with so much of which one can find points of sympathy, is after all perhaps not so

modern as it may seem, otherwise than that age-long problems present themselves in a fresh guise to 'each new generation. It is the outlook of the materialist in all ages and many of us have experienced something of it in our turn.

But " materialist " ? " We arc not selfish." Is unselfish-

ness a material quality ? Is the thought that dictated the letter material ? Are the joy of life, the desire " to love one another and to be of use in the world," are these material qualities ? Must they not come under another category and are we away from the mark if we regard them as signs of a nature that pure materialism has never succeeded in satisfying ?

And then for self-confidence as the great motive and spring

of right action ; is it so certain that " the only person who will never desert us is ourself " ? Alas, how many of us have found, and sometimes . by bitter experience, that oneself has a sad way of letting one down and there is better reason for confidence in a " not-ourself " who " though we are faithless abideth faithful." It is this sense that through

the ages since human history began has found man, in the memorable words of Matthew Arnold's close of his fine essay on Marcus Aurelius, " agitated, stretching out his arms for somethingbeyond—tendentemque mama ripae ulterioris amore." Miss Gilbert-Lodge may hesitate to endorse the translation " agitated " ; but she may find a shade of meaning in amore that a little thought will enable her to endorse.

It is quite plain that most of Christ's teaching had been- taught before Him and He Himself admitted it, as Mr. Wallace points out ; but even thus the teacher who picks up and puts together and impresses with a fresh spirit and motive old truths is in fact a new and original teacher, and an earnest seeker for truth can hardly fail to find a new experience offered in Christ's answer to the request, "Lord, teach us to pray," " When ye pray say ' Our Father which art in heaven ; hallowed be Thy Name.' " But the essential point about Christ is not that He taught what He did, but that He lived it and died for it ; and so He has become the one inspiring leader for tens of thousands who, accepting that teaching and example, try to follow it. Here again may I quote from Matthew Arnold's essay already alluded to, the earlier pages of which bear so well on the subject before us ? The distinction of Christian morality " is not that it pro- pounds the maxim, ' Thou shalt love God and thy neighbour' with more development, closer reasoning, truer sincerity, than other moral -systems ; it is that it propounds this maxim with an inspiration which wonderfully catches the hearer and makes him act upon it." • And why are our age-long religious forms so repugnant ;?.

Granted our services are sometimes stodgy and many of •the hymns we have been accustomed to unreal to us (and it is often the laity rather than the clergy who are most averse from change), there are evidences on all hands of a happier selection of hymn and psalm and lesson, and the introduction of prayers with a more modern note. The point I wish to make, however, is that almost everywhere, in art of all . kinds, including. architecture specially, in the countryside, in history, in literature, even in science, the -note of antiquity adds an almost universally -recognised charm. Who would prefer to read Hooker's. Students' Flora, for example, to Anne Pratt. with her references to Gerrard and Parkinson ? Why should religious services be held in contempt because they retain this touch / Is it not possible to fay hold of a spiritual truth and. use it under an ancient form ?

Einally, no Church wants to force men to believe anything. IThat we would like to do is to be of some little help to those

who want to be unselfish, loving to others, helping the world on and finding themselves thwarted by difficulties around.

want of adequate vision, of sufficient determination, of sufficient humility, look for a help that may lie—must lie—

in the source of life, giving it its meaning and purpose ; anxious also to learn to know a little more and to help others to know a little more of what lies around our partial light. For even the materialist only knows in part. Is it not wisdom to look for a knowledge that may be ours when we know men as we are known ?

May I add a sentence or two upon Mr. Clough Williams-Ellis' letter ? I think he has some ground of complaint, but not by any means so much as he supposes, nor for the reason he alleges.

"Respect for persons and for vested. interests " never stands in the way of preachers expressing their minds today—or very rarely—nor is there any " absence of respect for beauty and unauthorised happiness." There is little enough of the bleak legacy of the Reformation and the Puritan " left. What may account in some small measure for what Mr. Williams-Ellis deplores is lack of imagination, but chiefly it is resentment at the idea, pretty prevalent, that the pulpit is a general adver- tising station for any and every ideal that people are anxious to put before the public. It isn't that, and Nits never intended to be it.

Nevertheless, though Mr. Williams-Ellis has apparently- not noted it, protests against the destruction of the beauty of the countryside, and support for efforts to preserve its

amenities, have repeatedly been made in public speech and by letters' to the Press by diocesan Bishops from .the Arch- bishops downwards, and there have been pulpit references. Among the members and officers, of local Societies for the Preservation of Rural England the country over, there are numbers of prominent churchmen, clerical and lay, who are conspicuous by their efforts. But that this is a practical application of the Christian spirit to the conditions of life analogous to the opening of museums and picture galleries and the rebuilding of the slums I freely admit, and I have no doubt that several of us will lay to heart the appeal made,

and endeavour to remedy what may have been lacking.—