ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)
|
|
|
ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
{The Wandering Jew 1893}
“Is Christianity Played Out?” - The Wandering Jew Controversy - 3
The Daily Chronicle. 1. Letter from ‘Anglican Priest’. Extracts from other letters. Editor’s announcement, closing the discussion.
IS CHRISTIANITY PLAYED OUT? THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—The Christianity of hell-fire and everlasting torture is most decidedly played out. It now only crouches as a thing of shame in the darkness of ignorance and bigotry, or lurks as a vague terror in the imaginations of the credulous and weak. If, in these days of popular education, you teach the Englishman with the average amount of logical power in the one breath that “God is Love,” and in the next breath that God is allowing the great stream of humanity to flow on age after age only for the most part to be lost in an ocean of irremediable despair, why, then it is scarcely to be wondered at that he rejects the whole scheme as a simple insult to his common sense. But this teaching has been delivered by Christian teachers as a vital component part of Christianity. The popular mind has been impregnated with the doctrine. ANGLICAN PRIEST. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—It is with a considerable amount of nervousness I presume to join in the controversy which is being conducted in your paper by so many learned and clever men. I am another working man, and this subject has an intense interest for me, believing as I do that it is the root of our whole social system. A SCEPTICAL WORKING MAN. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—When I was quite a “nipper” I learned to love Christ in my way from a patient and loving mother who loved Christ, and if I did not know Christ was a man should have thought he was a woman. We have been brought pretty low for the want of all earthly things, such as food, clothing, bedding, furniture, &c., through a drink-loving father (when sober, no better man in the world). It was no unusual thing to see our scanty home cleared—in fact, the “traps” had more rides than we had. What was her conduct through it all? Just to get us all together and pray to that Christ who never left her, even to the last, when she and I followed our father to the Queen’s Bench, where he died on a Christmas Day, at half-past three p.m., and when she had five to care for, three of whom were quite unable to help; and although in former years she had her head bandaged up, after being thrust through a window, yet for all this scarcely a murmur escaped her lips. She loved the man that treated her thus, and would say: “It was the drink, not father, that did it, sonny”; and then in after years how she kept us all together and died a happy death. I tell you I shall never forget it, although it is nearly fifty years ago; and how in after life I took upon myself the responsibilities of life, and have had to part with four boys out of six, and one by death. That beats all your sick monkeys; and when your head feels more like a pot of boiling lead than anything else, and when the doctor says, “I have done all I can,” and you watch beside the one who has stood by your side as you have fought life’s battles together, and you cannot articulate goodbye for very love, and when you think how she stood by you when all your little savings had gone in building societies’ failure, and said, “Never mind, we’ll pull through, mate.” I could go on like this much longer, but feel I must pull up by saying Christ is not played out and Christians neither. I know what I am saying. I’ve been on both sides, and would sooner be a Christian if there is nothing to follow; but I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him.—I am, dear Sir, A CHRISTIAN WORKING MAN. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—With your kind permission, I will step into the witness-box on behalf of Christianity. I was for many years a follower of the late Mr. Charles Bradlaugh and Mr. H. M. Hyndman, the leader of the Social Democratic Federation. Rather more than two years ago I was walking in Hyde Park in a very unhappy state of mind—in fact, that very night I intended to destroy my life. I had been asking myself, “Is life worth living?” While walking in the park I heard a voice say loudly, “Is life worth living? No; life apart from Jesus Christ is not worth living.” I looked about and discovered a gentleman preaching—Mr. Josiah Nix, of the West London Mission, the superintendent of which is the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes. In the great crowd that Sunday afternoon I noticed many ladies dressed like hospital nurses. Their presence reminded me of the months that I spent many years ago in children’s hospitals as an indoor patient and what they taught me there. The preacher’s remarks and the presence of “The Sisters of the People” made me think Mr. Josiah Nix was talking about the power of Jesus Christ to save. I followed the mission band to their hall at Wardour-street, and that very Sunday night I got converted. No, Christianity is not played out; and when I think of the changed lives, families made happy, freethinkers turned into followers of Jesus Christ, drunkards reclaimed, I trust I may be pardoned for wishing that the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, Mr. Josiah Nix, and the noble devoted “Sisters of the People” may be spared for many years to carry on their Christian work. I maintain that if the leaders of all Churches would follow their great Teacher, and take to the open air, much good may be done towards making a heaven on earth for many poor creatures. My old comrades of the Social Democratic Federation took to the street corners; hence the rapid spread of Socialism. WILLIAM J. L. HOOPER. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—Mr. Buchanan says he has no sympathy with that crude Atheism which holds up everything vital in Christianity to sport and ridicule, but does he realise that in a more polished way he is doing precisely what he judges in others? He draws a picture of the Jesus that he knows; he distinguishes between Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus the Christ (upon what authority he does not tell us), and presents to us a caricature which no one would recognise did he not put the name to it. What conceivable right has he to deny to the Lord Jesus Christ all he claims to be, and substitute a Jesus who exists only in his own imagination? Mr. Buchanan charges others with hypocrisy but encourages it in himself; for where is greater hypocrisy if the Jesus he described is the same as the one presented in the New Testament? The two cannot be genuine persons. If Jesus of Nazareth was not all he said he was, he is the biggest impostor the world has ever seen. A. E. _____
“H.” writes:—“I am not anxious to discuss the question whether Christianity is played out, for no two of your correspondents have yet agreed on a definition of Christianity. But the success or failure of Christ is a question transcending all others in importance. Much as I sympathise with Mr. Buchanan’s righteous anger at the selfishness of men and the vanity of human institutions, I prefer to believe, with Robert Browning, that ‘God’s in his heaven—all’s right with the world.’” _____
*** Notwithstanding the great interest which this discussion has aroused, we shall be obliged to close it to-morrow, as it is quite impossible for us to do justice to the enormous amount of correspondence which has reached us on the subject. We have received many hundreds of letters, a large number of which we should have been glad to publish if we could possibly have found room.—[ED. D. C.] _____
The Daily Chronicle. Editor’s announcement, continuing the discussion. 1. Letter from W. Bramwell Booth. Extracts from other letters.
IS CHRISTIANITY PLAYED OUT? *** We had hoped, in accordance with our announcement yesterday, to be able to close this discussion to-day, but, to meet the earnest wishes of a large number of our correspondents, we have decided to continue it till the opening of Parliament, when it will be impossible for us to find room for any more letters on the subject. —[ED. D. C.] _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—Your correspondent an “Anglican Priest” announces with the aggressive arrogance so largely adopted by the apostles of modern cant that the “Christianity of Hell-fire,” by which he means the Christianity taught by the Bible and by the Prayer-book of his own Church, “is played out.” Permit me as one of the “fanatics” who in his elegant phrase still “shriek it out in the streets,” to assure him that he is mistaken, and to tell him that it is the Christianity of humbug which, while it wears the garb and draws the pay of the English Church, writes down the plain teaching of her authorities—it is this wretched travesty of religion which is “played out” at last. Thank God Jesus Christ, the despised Nazarene, has power on earth to forgive sins. This is that which Mr. Buchanan does not know about, and that of which, therefore, he can no more give as reliable counsel than can a man deaf from his infancy explain to us the beauty and variety and power of human speech. The letters from himself and others in your columns illustrate wonderfully the truth of our Lord’s saying, “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” No doubt Mr. Buchanan is a well-meaning man, but the fact is that he and others of your critical correspondents are as ignorant of the Divine Jesus as, say, the courtiers of Spain were ignorant of America before Columbus sailed. That continent was very much of a fact notwithstanding, and happily there are hundreds of thousands of plain and honest men who can attest the power and presence of a Divine Christ in their lives as confidently as Columbus and his crew could speak of the New Land when once they had found it. If anything could be finally settled by mere human testimony this matter of a spiritual Christ would have been disposed of long ago. But apart from God there is no real knowledge, though there may be learning, just as there is no true progress though there may be movement. W. BRAMWELL BOOTH. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—Some will, doubtless, think it strange that a Theosophist should assert that not only is Christianity not played out, but also that it is impossible if ever should be. Such, however, is the position I assume, and I defend it thus: If Jesus spoke the truth when he said “The Kingdom of God is within you”—evidently that kingdom has nothing to do with physical boundaries or social arrangements. God may reign in the slave of a despot as easily as in a citizen of a democracy. God’s kingdom therefore is represented by the moral, not by the civil, law. Now in law is our only possibility of cognosing God. The domination of supreme caprice may be a necessary postulate for certain theological systems, but such a God is repudiated by our deepest and truest intuitions. Law therefore personifies God to us in nature— . . . the great First Cause consequently, in this sense, it is quite logical to say, “Whatever is, is right,” while whatever is, is wrong, may seem equally true to a person or a nation that habitually violates the “beautiful order” which is the true condition of happiness. The best could not be the best for all, if it harmonised only with the imperfections of one. Then, when Paul speaks of “Christ in us, the hope of glory,” does he not mean by Christ, that consciousness of Deity which alone constitutes a true manhood, and that bringing our personal wills into harmony with divine law is our sole hope of redeeming both man and nation from the ills that now afflict them? To trust in an external materialistic Christ seems dangerously like idolatry. R. B. HOLT, F.T.S. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—The brief summary of my discourse on Mr. Buchanan’s “Wandering Jew,” and the interesting correspondence which has appeared in your columns, does not quite accurately follow my line of thought. WILLIAM PEARCE. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—Is Christianity played out? Has the body of ethical doctrine known by that name ever had fair play, though Socialism now seems to be giving Christians a chance? But Churchianity, of whatever sect, the practice of the mere mechanics of religion has not ceased, and never will while people who claim to be specially saved go on making money like other people, sinning in systems like other people, enjoying the good things of this life like anyone else, and refusing to denounce bad laws or to help to change them because they derive personal profit through their continuance, and think they gain forgiveness and absolution by registering a number of attendances at a house of worship in which the pulpit is the paid slave of respectability. CHARLES E. BACON. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—Mr. Le Gallienne makes a remark in his last letter which surprises me—namely, his allusion to Mr. Buchanan’s “solitary backer, ‘M,’” and his “guffaw.” The latter word is rude, and Mr. Le Gallienne must be told quite frankly that although we fully appreciate his charming verse the only reason that Mr. Buchanan has a “solitary backer”—if indeed “M.” backed him at all—is that the contest is so painfully unequal. We, “M” and I, agree with Mr. Buchanan, but we cannot hit Mr. Le Gallienne when he is down. That is the only reason we are silent.—Yours obediently, N. _____
“E. L. T.” directs attention to what he considers to be the weakest point in Mr. Buchanan’s argument. When he maintains that Christianity has been telling us for nearly 2,000 years that “whatever is, is right,” he displays his inability to understand the substance of Christ’s teaching. The Christian doctrine is that everything in this world is wrong in consequence of the first man’s error. Hence the necessity of a Christ. “Whatever is, is right,” is a Deistic pronouncement following naturally on the theory that an Omnipotent Being overrules the universe. _____
The Echo, London. [Note: The following ‘interview’ was not included in the cuttings from the Liverpool Record Office but I thought it should be added here since Richard Le Gallienne refers to it in his next letter. Harriett Jay included most of it in Chapter 27 (‘The Wandering Jew’) of her biography of Buchanan, however she omitted the first paragraph.]
AN INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT BUCHANAN. BY ROBERT BUCHANAN. The Editor having asked me to interview myself, with a view to answering certain questions which might interest his readers, I have endeavoured, as delicately as possible, to approach my subject. At the moment when the request arrived, I was seated at my own supper table, listening to my good friend Malato’s disquisitions on the subject of Anarchy, and enjoying the brilliant sallies of one of the noblest-hearted, yet least understood, of men, Henri Rochefort. Having been engaged all day with George Sims, disputing whether the heroine of a forthcoming drama should hang herself with her own garters or poison herself with rat-powder, I was not in the most amiable of tempers; but under soothing assurances that the larger portion of the world, including all professional critics, was to be dynamited, I gradually yielded to temptation, and unbosomed myself to the cross-questioner. The first question suggested by the Editor, and put by myself to myself, was categorical. Father on Earth, for whom I wept bereaven, What I meant is expressed in my previous answer. I mean that it is impossible to love what is beyond our comprehension. To love God is to love the mystery of one’s own existence. “Who are the salt of the earth, and without whom These things restore our faith, at least for a moment. _____
The Daily Chronicle. 1. Robert Buchanan’s sixth (final) letter. Extracts from other letters. Gen. Booth on Christianity.
IS CHRISTIANITY PLAYED OUT? THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—I had purposed to say nothing further until your discussion was concluded; but as I see that it is to continue, and that the disputants are wandering more and more from the point (illustrating daily my statement concerning the “nebulousness” of modern “Christian” views), will you permit me to interpose a few words? I notice with pleasure that Mr. Bramwell Booth, on entering the arena, thinks it quite enough to beat his brave old Drum. Having proved on another occasion how much I sympathise with the secular work which is being done by the Salvation Army, I am delighted to think that Mr. Booth credits me with good intentions, just as I credit him with what is far more precious—generous deeds. I care very little what religion a man swears by, so long as he is a philanthropist and a humanist, and I think that Mr. Booth and his fellow workers are appealing to the ignorant and helping them in the only way possible—by interesting them in their own physical welfare. This discussion, however, is not for them. ROBERT BUCHANAN. P.S.—May I take this opportunity of thanking the numerous correspondents who have addressed me personally, and among whom are many sincere “Christians,” for their helpful words of sympathy? I have found it impossible to answer them all individually, but I fully appreciate the generous spirit which has prompted them to write to me.—R. B. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—Mr. Buchanan’s foresight at least cannot be impeached. “The Wandering Jew” was in evidence at a great gathering of 3,000 or 4,000 “fanatics” who crowded Exeter Hall this afternoon. These men and women were evidently of opinion, if one might judge by their enthusiasm and fervour, that Christ-ianity was not played out. They were equally unanimous, judged by the same sign, in agreeing that one form of “Christianity” was played out—namely, toothless Christianity. Said the white-haired old “general” who is leader of this Gideon’s host, “Oh, this toothless Christianity, that is played out!” Then arose upon the air, as a response to this statement, a mighty chorus of “Hallelujah” and “Thank God.” Now it occurs to me, Sir, that General Booth, with that practical insight for which he has become famous, has struck to the root of this controversy. Is it not largely because the Church of Christ (?) has become toothless, and mutters and mumbles where she ought to speak and act out, that Mr. Buchanan has felt impelled (if not compelled) to raise this question? She has too often been the lisper of soft nothings; has forgotten how to smite iniquity with a fist of iron; has been more concerned about tithe, mint, anise and cummin, about washing of cups and platters, about new moons and Sabbath days and fasts, and has neglected the weightier matters of the law, to relieve the oppressed and fatherless, to unbind the heavy burdens, to break every yoke—in a word, has neglected love, justice, and mercy. A SALVATIONIST. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—I sincerely rejoice that you have seen your way to allow this profoundly interesting question to be further discussed in your columns. It is such a comfort to get away from the dreary St. Stephen’s play-actors and their doings for the briefest season. Not one of your correspondents, nor one of the preachers whose sermons were reported in Monday’s paper, has dared to face the real issue. To me at least that issue is as clear as a sunbeam. Christ, whatever else he may have been, was beyond all question an Anarchist-Communist, if ever there was one. It is true he sanctioned, though grudgingly, the payment of tribute to Cæsar, but that was only part of his marvellous, all-embracing philosophy of life. One may well pay taxes to the State if it is one’s duty when one’s coat is requisitioned to give one’s vest also. By the Shades beneath us, and by the Gods above, The Gospel of him who dared to say, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father, was to be without money and without price, and, lo! it has been converted by the “classes” into the subject-matter of one of the genteel professions! J. MORRISON DAVIDSON. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—Will you allow a puzzled church member to say a few words? From experience I am quite sure Christianity is not played out in its influence on thousands, and in my own case it is still a power for good. The question, however, will keep forcing itself on me. How can Christ be regarded as a success in regard to the whole world? We Christians call the heathen our brothers, if they are, God appears to have neglected them, for there is no other name given under heaven whereby a man can be saved but that of Jesus Christ, yet these millions never heard of our Saviour. Ministers, when they preach, speak as if all the world was comprised of Europe and America; they speak of Christ as the mighty Saviour of the world, yet for 1,800 years hundreds of millions of Chinese and others have been passing away in ignorance that Jesus ever trod this earth. Will any minister explain? Another thing that puzzles me is the question of “hell fire”! This term is seldom heard now in church or chapel. But why not? If it is in the Bible by what authority do our present pastors and ministers ignore it? They may have excellent reasons, but it is only fair they should let their less fortunate followers know by what process of reasoning eternal torment has been banished from their teaching of Christianity within the last twenty years. POOR CLERK. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—It might be well before the Christianity controversy closes to suggest that Mr. Buchanan and his co-disputants remind one of the knights who quarrelled at the crossways over the suspended shield, which was gold on one side and silver on the other. The parties are not on common ground, and argument by quotation from the Gospels is quite futile when the accuracy of these sacred records is itself in dispute. Mr. Buchanan ought at least to say whether he accepts the Gospel life of Christ as a correct history, or whether he takes the view of Matthew Arnold in “Literature and Dogma,” that the disciples did not themselves understand the character and the sayings of their Master, and consequently were bad reporters of his words and deeds. Those who hold different views on that point obviously cannot argue. Apart from the theological question, there can be no doubt about the spirit of Christianity being an absolute fact. Many a man has been described as naturaliter Christianus. It seems rather like a debating society problem to ask whether Christianity in that sense has made the world better since the era of Christ. But if that question be answered in favour of Christianity, it logically follows that Christianity has not lost its force, and the mere questioning of its power or existence only furnishes an opportunity to testify to both. Mr. Buchanan, I should think, is as good a Christian as any one else, although he has hardly learnt to be tolerant in his ideas or moderate in his expressions. He seems to be a parallel to Elijah, when he exclaimed in the wilderness as a prophet of Jehovah, “I only am left.” It is idle to question whether churchism or chapelism be coincident with Christianity. Would it not be better to lay aside useless religious recrimination and apply a little common sense in studying the tide of the centuries and the change in the spirit of the present age?—Yours, &c., Q. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—I have not, being a working man, received a college education, and therefore I feel I have no right to take part in this discussion. My experience is like the working man whose letter appeared a few days ago in your columns. Life without Christ to me is hopeless, and not worth living. When young I was led into materialistic beliefs, and I lost faith in all religion. I cannot tell you, Mr. Editor, the years of wasted energy and misdirected efforts such teaching brought me. But about six years ago I put faith in Jesus, and to me he has been no failure, but become life itself. Divines may laugh, and learned men discuss conversion and the new birth, and smile and shrug their shoulders at the poor man’s testimony, but God has wrought in my soul this change through faith, not in another world, but faith in Jesus. W. HOLLINS, _____ THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—Will you please find a corner for me? I am a bricklayer, and the little I know about reading and writing is only what I have picked up here and there as best I could. But I have read some of the letters on “Christianity Played Out.” I was brought up in a neighbourhood where the drink demon was the god of every home. Not knowing anything of religion, never going to a Sunday-school, it is no wonder I became a slave to drink—the curse that followed me wherever I went. I have tried times out of number to get free from the cursed bondage of drink. Often have I wept in despair. I have left my home and gone about the country, thinking that among strangers I might do better; but after years of travelling I came home worse than ever. Did ever Mr. Buchanan get like that? I think not. And, of course, he cannot understand another truth which I have enjoyed for the last nine years—that is, my complete deliverance from drink, and love for it gone out of my life, though I am every day mixing with those who drink. Who has brought all this about? The very Christ that some make so little of. What is there to keep me from falling a victim to drink again? I am just as weak; the drinking-houses are all around me the same as ever; the old companions are ever ready to buttonhole me, and many places where I go to work ask me to have drink. Mr. Buchanan, I believe, has a kind heart. I believe he would feel pity in that heart if he saw me drunk after nine years of temperance, and my dear wife and children depending on me for all they get. Mr. Buchanan might pity but he could not help me. No mortal man could. But I am kept through the mighty power of the Living Christ, who can save all the drunkards in the world. Therefore, with the kind heart I believe Mr. Buchanan to have, if he cannot understand the Lord Jesus Christ, he will praise him for what he has done for me, a fellow creature. Dear Sir, it is hard work for me to write—do forgive the faults.—Yours respectfully, A BRICKLAYER. ______
GEN. BOOTH ON CHRISTIANITY. Large as were the gatherings which marked the first of “Two Days with God,” in connection with the Salvation Army, the meeting held yesterday in Exeter Hall must be regarded as having eclipsed them in point of numbers.—General Booth conducted the morning service, and in the course of his address dwelt still further with the necessary concomitants for “A religion for the times.” Proceedings were resumed after a short interval, and the hall was crowded in every part.—After the usual prayer-meeting and opening service, the General delivered a rousing address, in which he dealt principally with a question which is being argued out in the columns of The Daily Chronicle. He was naturally opposed to those who say that Christianity is played out. Such a statement was contrary to the fact. Christianity was not played out, it was being played in, and being played in through the medium of the Salvation Army. His remarks on the subject were received with great enthusiasm, and were evidently endorsed by his immense audience. At the evening meeting, General Booth advanced once more to the attack, and gave a lengthy and characteristic address. Basing his remarks upon the story of Elijah, the prophet who told Ahab the will of God, he said that what Christianity needed in the present day was that the truth should be told in the same manner. That was what the Salvation Army wanted—to be able to stand up, and, reckless of consequences, tell the truth to the world. There was only one way of telling the truth. They might talk about their “pleasant afternoons.” They had nice sermons, intellectual treats, and so on; they made the Church a sort of educational and scientific medium; some wanted to make it a sort of club, in which men and women could meet and talk. That was the sort of thing which was generally advocated, and when a man came, Elijah-like, and told the people the truth, they said they would soon make an end of him. “Art thou the man that troubleth Israel,” they said. And he replied, “It is not I but thou and thy father’s house which have forsaken God.” He (the General) had a message to them from God, and he had to ask them how long they were going to be making up their minds whether they would serve God or Baal, and how long they were going to leave the matter unsettled.—The service closed with singing and the benediction. —To-day there will be a series of services for officers only at the Congress Hall, Clapton, at which the General will speak. _____
The Daily Chronicle. 1. Percy Dearmer’s second letter.
IS CHRISTIANITY PLAYED OUT? THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—Mr. Le Gallienne is less ignorant than Mr. Buchanan, and is mainly in the right. But why will not these gentlemen acknowledge that they have not sufficient theological knowledge for the work they are trying to do? They have not even read their brief, and so fall easy victims to Mr. Foote, who has. Mr. Le Gallienne’s history is even worse than his theology. He says “Reform of a Church has apparently always to come from outside.” Will he give one instance of this? As a matter of fact, it never has, not even if we bound our vision, as Mr. Le Gallienne does, by the Reformation. The Puritan revolution reformed no Church; it set itself to reform the nation, and was followed by a century and a half of unblushing immorality, but it was in no sense the reform of any Church. He mentions Wesley; but it is notorious that Wesley’s movement, so far from coming from without, was a movement almost exclusively of Church of England clergymen. Nor was it marked, as Mr. Le Gallienne most strangely asserts all reformations to have been, by an abandonment of symbolism: quite the contrary. And has there been no reformation in the present century? Has it not been marked by this very symbolism, so much that there is not a Dissenting chapel in England that does not bear some trace of this same symbolism?—which it is curious, by the way, to find a poet condemning. Our point against Mr. Le Gallienne is that we include him whilst he excludes us—that he is too narrow for us, in short. He is impatient with us for being interested in the dispute about inspiration, just as a man who was unversed in art would be impatient with the dispute about impressionism, simply because he does not know enough about it. Do let Mr. Le Gallienne be diffident, or when he grows older he may fossilise into another Mr. Buchanan. PERCY DEARMER. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—The crux of the difficulty lies here: the only authority we possess on Christianity is our Bible, and, according to the plain letter of that Book, the late Mr. C. H. Spurgeon and the orthodox school are unquestionably nearer the truth than Mr. J. Page Hopps and the heterodox school. But by a consensus of opinion among thoughtful men to-day this teaching is simply found to be impossible. No one, save the Salvation Army, ventures to do more than hint Mr. Spurgeon’s eschatology, and even General Booth virtually abandons it by his social scheme. A real belief in eternal torments for unsaved, but saveable men, excludes all worldly considerations. A few years ago a thrill of indignation went through society because two or three dozen ineffable poltroons stood on the banks of the Serpentine and allowed a child to drown before their eyes, but what was that compared with the spectacle before us, on the orthodox assumption? Millions of people going down to a fate compared with which drowning is delight, and on the banks of the appalling “Serpentine” tens of thousands of nominal Christians, too intent on worldly gain and self-enjoyment to even cast a glance at the perishing multitude! This is the supreme anomaly—this the crux of the whole difficulty. A generation or so back a noted infidel uttered these words: “Did I truly believe, what myriads say they do, that the knowledge and practice of religion in this life influences destiny in the next, the spirit of truth be my witness! Religion should be to me everything.” Just so. No words can adequately portray the criminality of the orthodox dweller in ease and luxury. Jesus Christ’s “certain rich man” lifting up his eyes “in torment” is scarcely equal to the necessities of the case. ARTHUR CLAYDEN. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—I see that Mr. Buchanan, writing again in your columns, raises the question of miracles. When Mr. Lecky penned his “History of Rationalism,” he was able to take for granted that miracles were universally discredited among sensible people; and yet Lord Brougham had already seen a cloud rising in the cloudless skies of scepticism, though no bigger than a man’s hand, and “that cloud,” he said, “is modern Spiritualism.” Now, it is only by refusing to investigate the great body of evidence afforded, say, in the publications of the Society for Psychical Research and elsewhere (for instance, in occultist or theosophical works), that scientific rationalism can take up this free and easy position as regards the abnormal phenomena we term miracles. There is no doubt that the growth of the Christian Church is very difficult to explain, as Christian apologists have contended, without admitting either that Christ rose from the dead, or that he was universally believed by Christians to have done so. Nor can the record of miraculous events be eliminated, without arbitrary violence, from the historical portions of the New Testament. That the belief in their occurrence powerfully influenced the followers of Christ in the inferences they drew from his own words and career as to their Master’s nature and work, it is moreover impossible to deny. But we must remember that the alleged miracles of Jesus are on the whole only eminent, arresting assertions, and instances of beneficent power—by them he fed the hungry, enhanced innocent pleasure, healed disease, brought back life where death had apparently triumphed. And these effects may be either regarded as resulting from the interposition of occult forces equally subject to law as those with whose operation we are more familiar, or as produced by the wonder-working creative energy of a divinely-beneficent imagination. RODEN NOEL. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—One aspect of the case has not yet been put, for the statement of which I should like strongly to plead permission. The distinction between Christianity as the doctrine of Christ, and that which, under the guise of orthodox and other Christianity, has been preached and practised in his name, has already been sufficiently pointed out; but the relation of that hydra-headed departure from the truth of Christ to the teaching of Christ himself, and the reason and law of such declension, have not even been hinted, germane as these things are to the question discussed. THOS. CHILD. _____
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE. SIR,—Is not the statement of Mr. W. Bramwell Booth that “Christianity taught by the Bible” is the “Christianity of Hell-fire” much more “aggressively arrogant” (to use his epithets) than any made by an “Anglican Priest”? Statements are not proofs. I defy him to produce one single passage in the original Greek as a proof of his statement. When such awful issues are at stake one must consult the original, and not an inaccurate or misleading translation. Such dogmatic assertions as his have driven, and are still driving, numbers into agnosticism and atheism.—I am, your obedient servant, A VICTIM. _____
“Is Christianity Played Out?” - The Wandering Jew Controversy continued
or back to The Wandering Jew - main page
|
|
|
|
|
|
|