第52章 THE NEW THEOLOGIAN(2)

Instead of supporting Christian missions to Korea or Japan,he ought to be at the head of a great mission in London for converting the English to Taoism or Buddhism.There his passion for the moral beauties of paganism would have free and natural play;his style would improve;his mind would begin slowly to clear;and he would be free from all sorts of little irritating scrupulosities which must hamper even the most Conservative Christian in his full praise of sweating and the sack.

In Christendom he will never find rest.The perpetual public criticism and public change which is the note of all our history springs from a certain spirit far too deep to be defined.It is deeper than democracy;nay,it may often appear to be non-democratic;for it may often be the special defence of a minority or an individual.It will often leave the ninety-and-nine in the wilderness and go after that which is lost.It will often risk the State itself to right a single wrong;and do justice though the heavens fall.Its highest expression is not even in the formula of the great gentlemen of the French Revolution who said that all men were free and equal.Its highest expression is rather in the formula of the peasant who said that a man's a man for a'that.If there were but one slave in England,and he did all the work while the rest of us made merry,this spirit that is in us would still cry aloud to God night and day.Whether or no this spirit was produced by,it clearly works with,a creed which postulates a humanised God and a vividly personal immortality.Men must not be busy merely like a swarm,or even happy merely like a herd;for it is not a question of men,but of a man.Aman's meals may be poor,but they must not be bestial;there must always be that about the meal which permits of its comparison to the sacrament.

A man's bed may be hard,but it must not be abject or unclean:there must always be about the bed something of the decency of the death-bed.

This is the spirit which makes the Christian poor begin their terrible murmur whenever there is a turn of prices or a deadlock of toil that threatens them with vagabondage or pauperisation;and we cannot encourage the Dean with any hope that this spirit can be cast out.Christendom will continue to suffer all the disadvantages of being Christian:it is the Dean who must be gently but firmly altered.He had absent-mindedly strayed into the wrong continent and the wrong creed.I advise him to chuck it.

But the case is more curious still.To connect the Dean with Confucian temples or traditions may have appeared fantastic;but it is not.Dr.

Inge is not a stupid old Tory Rector,strict both on Church and State.

Such a man might talk nonsense about the Christian Socialists being "court chaplains of King Demos"or about his own superb valour in defying the democracy that rages in the front pews of Anglican churches.We should not expect a mere old-fashioned country clergyman to know that Demos has never been king in England and precious seldom anywhere else;we should not expect him to realise that if King Demos had any chaplains they would be uncommonly poorly paid.But Dr.Inge is not old-fashioned;he considers himself highly progressive and advanced.He is a New Theologian;that is,he is liberal in theology--and nothing else.He is apparently in sober fact,and not as in any fantasy,in sympathy with those who would soften the superior claim of our creed by urging the rival creeds of the East;with those who would absorb the virtues of Buddhism or of Islam.He holds a high seat in that modern Parliament of Religions where all believers respect each other's unbelief.

Now this has a very sharp moral for modern religious reformers.When next you hear the "liberal"Christian say that we should take what is best in Oriental faiths,make quite sure what are the things that people like Dr.Inge call best;what are the things that people like Dr.Inge propose to take.You will not find them imitating the military valour of the Moslem.You will not find them imitating the miraculous ecstasy of the Hindoo.The more you study the "broad"movement of today,the more you will find that these people want something much less like Chinese metaphysics,and something much more like Chinese Labour.You will find the levelling of creeds quite unexpectedly close to the lowering of wages.

Dr.Inge is the typical latitudinarian of to-day;and was never more so than when he appeared not as the apostle of the blacks,but as the apostle of the blacklegs.Preached,as it is,almost entirely among the prosperous and polite,our brotherhood with Buddhism or Mohammedanism practically means this--that the poor must be as meek as Buddhists,while the rich may be as ruthless as Mohammedans.That is what they call the reunion of all religions.