LORD
OF THE WORLD
BY ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Dedication
CLAVI DOMUS DAVID
Preface
I am perfectly
aware that this is a terribly sensational book, and open to innumerable
criticisms on that account, as well as on many others. But I did not know how
else to express the principles I desired (and which I passionately believe to
be true) except by producing their lines to a sensational point. I have tried,
however, not to scream unduly loud, and to retain, so far as possible,
reverence and consideration for the opinions of other people. Whether I have
succeeded in that attempt is quite another matter.
Robert Hugh Benson.
Persons who do not like
tiresome prologues, need not read this one. It is essential only to the situation,
not to the story.
Prologue
"You must
give me a moment," said the old man, leaning back.
Percy resettled
himself in his chair and waited, chin on hand.
It was a very
silent room in which the three men sat, furnished with the extreme common sense
of the period. It had neither window nor door; for it was now sixty years since
the world, recognising that space is not confined to the surface of the globe,
had begun to burrow in earnest. Old Mr. Templeton's house stood some forty feet
below the level of the Thames embankment, in what was considered a somewhat
commodious position, for he had only a hundred yards to walk before he reached
the station of the Second Central Motor-circle, and a quarter of a mile to the
volor-station at Blackfriars. He was over ninety years old, however, and seldom
left his house now. The room itself was lined throughout with the delicate
green jade-enamel prescribed by the Board of Health, and was suffused with the
artificial sunlight discovered by the great Reuter forty years before; it had
the colour-tone of a spring wood, and was warmed and ventilated through the
classical frieze grating to the exact temperature of 18 degrees Centigrade. Mr.
Templeton was a plain man, content to live as his father had lived before him.
The furniture, too, was a little old-fashioned in make and design, constructed
however according to the prevailing system of soft asbestos enamel welded over
iron, indestructible, pleasant to the touch, and resembling mahogany. A couple
of book-cases well filled ran on either side of the bronze pedestal electric
fire before which sat the three men; and in the further corners stood the
hydraulic lifts that gave entrance, the one to the bedroom, the other to the
corridor fifty feet up which opened on to the Embankment.
Father Percy
Franklin, the elder of the two priests, was rather a remarkable-looking man,
not more than thirty-five years old, but with hair that was white throughout;
his grey eyes, under black eyebrows, were peculiarly bright and almost
passionate; but his prominent nose and chin and the extreme decisiveness of his
mouth reassured the observer as to his will. Strangers usually looked twice at
him.
Father Francis,
however, sitting in his upright chair on the other side of the hearth, brought
down the average; for, though his brown eyes were pleasant and pathetic, there
was no strength in his face; there was even a tendency to feminine melancholy
in the corners of his mouth and the marked droop of his eyelids.
Mr. Templeton was
just a very old man, with a strong face in folds, clean-shaven like the rest of
the world, and was now lying back on his water-pillows with the quilt over his
feet.
* * * * *
At last he spoke, glancing first at Percy, on his
left.
"Well,"
he said, "it is a great business to remember exactly; but this is how I
put it to myself."
"In England
our party was first seriously alarmed at the Labour Parliament of 1917. That
showed us how deeply Herveism had impregnated the whole social atmosphere.
There had been Socialists before, but none like Gustave Herve in his old age—at
least no one of the same power. He, perhaps you have read, taught absolute
Materialism and Socialism developed to their logical issues. Patriotism, he
said, was a relic of barbarism; and sensual enjoyment was the only certain
good. Of course, every one laughed at him. It was said that without religion
there could be no adequate motive among the masses for even the simplest social
order. But he was right, it seemed. After the fall of the French Church at the
beginning of the century and the massacres of 1914, the bourgeoisie settled
down to organise itself; and that extraordinary movement began in earnest,
pushed through by the middle classes, with no patriotism, no class
distinctions, practically no army. Of course, Freemasonry directed it all. This
spread to Germany, where the influence of Karl Marx had already -"
"Yes,
sir," put in Percy smoothly, "but what of England, if you don't mind
-"
"Ah, yes;
England. Well, in 1917 the Labour party gathered up the reins, and Communism
really began. That was long before I can remember, of course, but my father
used to date it from then. The only wonder was that things did not go forward
more quickly; but I suppose there was a good deal of Tory leaven left. Besides,
centuries generally run slower than is expected, especially after beginning
with an impulse. But the new order began then; and the Communists have never
suffered a serious reverse since, except the little one in '25. Blenkin founded
'The New People' then; and the 'Times' dropped out; but it was not, strangely
enough, till '35 that the House of Lords fell for the last time. The
Established Church had gone finally in '29."
"And the
religious effect of that?" asked Percy swiftly, as the old man paused to
cough slightly, lifting his inhaler. The priest was anxious to keep to the
point.
"It was an
effect itself," said the other, "rather than a cause. You see, the
Ritualists, as they used to call them, after a desperate attempt to get into
the Labour swim, came into the Church after the Convocation of '19, when the
Nicene Creed dropped out; and there was no real enthusiasm except among them.
But so far as there was an effect from the final Disestablishment, I think it
was that what was left of the State Church melted into the Free Church, and the
Free Church was, after all, nothing more than a little sentiment. The Bible was
completely given up as an authority after the renewed German attacks in the
twenties; and the Divinity of our Lord, some think, had gone all but in name by
the beginning of the century. The Kenotic theory had provided for that. Then
there was that strange little movement among the Free Churchmen even earlier;
when ministers who did no more than follow the swim - who were sensitive to
draughts, so to speak - broke off from their old positions. It is curious to
read in the history of the time how they were hailed as independent thinkers.
It was just exactly what they were not…. Where was I? Oh, yes…. Well, that
cleared the ground for us, and the Church made extraordinary progress for a
while - extraordinary, that is, under the circumstances, because you must
remember, things were very different from twenty, or even ten, years before. I
mean that, roughly speaking, the severing of the sheep and the goats had begun.
The religious people were practically all Catholics and Individualists; the
irreligious people rejected the supernatural altogether, and were, to a man, Materialists
and Communists. But we made progress because we had a few exceptional men - Delaney
the philosopher, McArthur and Largent, the philanthropists, and so on. It
really seemed as if Delaney and his disciples might carry everything before
them. You remember his 'Analogy'? Oh, yes, it is all in the text-books….
"Well, then,
at the close of the Vatican Council, which had been called in the nineteenth
century, and never dissolved, we lost a great number through the final
definitions. The 'Exodus of the Intellectuals' the world called it -"
"The
Biblical decisions," put in the younger priest.
"That
partly; and the whole conflict that began with the rise of Modernism at the
beginning of the century but much more the condemnation of Delaney, and of the
New Transcendentalism generally, as it was then understood. He died outside the
Church, you know. Then there was the condemnation of Sciotti's book on
Comparative Religion…. After that the Communists went on by strides, although
by very slow ones. It seems extraordinary to you, I dare say, but you cannot
imagine the excitement when the Necessary Trades Bill became law in '60. People
thought that all enterprise would stop when so many professions were
nationalised; but, you know, it didn't. Certainly the nation was behind
it."
"What year
was the Two-Thirds Majority Bill passed?" asked Percy.
"Oh! long
before - within a year or two of the fall of the House of Lords. It was
necessary, I think, or the Individualists would have gone raving mad…. Well,
the Necessary Trades Bill was inevitable: people had begun to see that even so
far back as the time when the railways were municipalised. For a while there
was a burst of art; because all the Individualists who could went in for it (it
was then that the Toller school was founded); but they soon drifted back into
Government employment; after all, the six-per-cent limit for all individual
enterprise was not much of a temptation; and Government paid well."
Percy shook his
head.
"Yes; but I
cannot understand the present state of affairs. You said just now that things
went slowly?"
"Yes,"
said the old man, "but you must remember the Poor Laws. That established
the Communists for ever. Certainly Braithwaite knew his business."
The younger
priest looked up inquiringly.
"The
abolition of the old workhouse system," said Mr. Templeton. "It is
all ancient history to you, of course; but I remember as if it was yesterday.
It was that which brought down what was still called the Monarchy and the
Universities."
"Ah,"
said Percy. "I should like to hear you talk about that, sir."
"Presently,
father…. Well, this is what Braithwaite did. By the old system all paupers were
treated alike, and resented it. By the new system there were the three grades
that we have now, and the enfranchisement of the two higher grades. Only the
absolutely worthless were assigned to the third grade, and treated more or less
as criminals - of course after careful examination. Then there was the
reorganisation of the Old Age Pensions. Well, don't you see how strong that
made the Communists? The Individualists - they were still called Tories when I
was a boy - the Individualists have had no chance since. They are no more than
a worn-out drag now. The whole of the working classes - and that meant
ninety-nine of a hundred—were all against them."
Percy looked up;
but the other went on.
"Then there
was the Prison Reform Bill under Macpherson, and the abolition of capital
punishment; there was the final Education Act of '59, whereby dogmatic
secularism was established; the practical abolition of inheritance under the
reformation of the Death Duties -"
"I forget
what the old system was," said Percy.
"Why, it
seems incredible, but the old system was that all paid alike. First came the
Heirloom Act, and then the change by which inherited wealth paid three times
the duty of earned wealth, leading up to the acceptance of Karl Marx's
doctrines in '89 - but the former came in '77…. Well, all these things kept
England up to the level of the Continent; she had only been just in time to
join in with the final scheme of Western Free Trade. That was the first effect,
you remember, of the Socialists' victory in Germany."
"And how did
we keep out of the Eastern War?" asked Percy anxiously.
"Oh! that's
a long story; but, in a word, America stopped us; so we lost India and
Australia. I think that was the nearest to the downfall of the Communists since
'25. But Braithwaite got out of it very cleverly by getting us the protectorate
of South Africa once and for all. He was an old man then, too."
Mr. Templeton
stopped to cough again. Father Francis sighed and shifted in his chair.
"And
America?" asked Percy.
"Ah! all
that is very complicated. But she knew her strength and annexed Canada the same
year. That was when we were at our weakest."
Percy stood up.
"Have you a
Comparative Atlas, sir?" he asked.
The old man
pointed to a shelf.
"There,"
he said.
* * * * *
Percy looked at the sheets a minute or two in
silence, spreading them on his knees.
"It is all
much simpler, certainly," he murmured, glancing first at the old
complicated colouring of the beginning of the twentieth century, and then at
the three great washes of the twenty-first.
He moved his
finger along Asia. The words EASTERN EMPIRE ran across the pale yellow, from
the Ural Mountains on the left to the Behring Straits on the right, curling
round in giant letters through India, Australia, and New Zealand. He glanced at
the red; it was considerably smaller, but still important enough, considering
that it covered not only Europe proper, but all Russia up to the Ural
Mountains, and Africa to the south. The blue-labelled AMERICAN REPUBLIC swept
over the whole of that continent, and disappeared right round to the left of
the Western Hemisphere in a shower of blue sparks on the white sea.
"Yes, it's
simpler," said the old man drily.
Percy shut the
book and set it by his chair.
"And what
next, sir? What will happen?"
The old Tory
statesman smiled.
"God
knows," he said. "If the Eastern Empire chooses to move, we can do
nothing. I don't know why they have not moved. I suppose it is because of
religious differences."
"Europe will
not split?" asked the priest.
"No, no. We
know our danger now. And America would certainly help us. But, all the same,
God help us - or you, I should rather say - if the Empire does move! She knows
her strength at last."
There was silence
for a moment or two. A faint vibration trembled through the deep-sunk room as
some huge machine went past on the broad boulevard overhead.
"Prophesy,
sir," said Percy suddenly. "I mean about religion."
Mr. Templeton
inhaled another long breath from his instrument. Then again he took up his
discourse.
"Briefly,"
he said, "there are three forces - Catholicism, Humanitarianism, and the
Eastern religions. About the third I cannot prophesy, though I think the Sufis
will be victorious. Anything may happen; Esotericism is making enormous strides
- and that means Pantheism; and the blending of the Chinese and Japanese
dynasties throws out all our calculations. But in Europe and America, there is
no doubt that the struggle lies between the other two. We can neglect
everything else. And, I think, if you wish me to say what I think, that,
humanly speaking, Catholicism will decrease rapidly now. It is perfectly true
that Protestantism is dead. Men do recognise at last that a supernatural
Religion involves an absolute authority, and that Private Judgment in matters
of faith is nothing else than the beginning of disintegration. And it is also
true that since the Catholic Church is the only institution that even claims
supernatural authority, with all its merciless logic, she has again the
allegiance of practically all Christians who have any supernatural belief left.
There are a few faddists left, especially in America and here; but they are
negligible. That is all very well; but, on the other hand, you must remember
that Humanitarianism, contrary to all persons' expectations, is becoming an
actual religion itself, though anti-supernatural. It is Pantheism; it is
developing a ritual under Freemasonry; it has a creed, 'God is Man,' and the
rest. It has therefore a real food of a sort to offer to religious cravings; it
idealises, and yet it makes no demand upon the spiritual faculties. Then, they
have the use of all the churches except ours, and all the Cathedrals; and they
are beginning at last to encourage sentiment. Then, they may display their
symbols and we may not: I think that they will be established legally in
another ten years at the latest.
"Now, we
Catholics, remember, are losing; we have lost steadily for more than fifty
years. I suppose that we have, nominally, about one-fortieth of America now - and
that is the result of the Catholic movement of the early twenties. In France
and Spain we are nowhere; in Germany we are less. We hold our position in the
East, certainly; but even there we have not more than one in two hundred - so
the statistics say - and we are scattered. In Italy? Well, we have Rome again
to ourselves, but nothing else; here, we have Ireland altogether and perhaps
one in sixty of England, Wales and Scotland; but we had one in forty seventy
years ago. Then there is the enormous progress of psychology - all clean
against us for at least a century. First, you see, there was Materialism, pure
and simple that failed more or less - it was too crude - until psychology came
to the rescue. Now psychology claims all the rest of the ground; and the
supernatural sense seems accounted for. That's the claim. No, father, we are
losing; and we shall go on losing, and I think we must even be ready for a
catastrophe at any moment."
"But-"
began Percy.
"You think
that weak for an old man on the edge of the grave. Well, it is what I think. I
see no hope. In fact, it seems to me that even now something may come on us
quickly. No; I see no hope until -"
Percy looked up
sharply.
"Until our
Lord comes back," said the old statesman.
Father Francis
sighed once more, and there fell a silence.
* * * * *
"And the fall of the Universities?" said
Percy at last.
"My dear
father, it was exactly like the fall of the Monasteries under Henry VIII - the
same results, the same arguments, the same incidents. They were the strongholds
of Individualism, as the Monasteries were the strongholds of Papalism; and they
were regarded with the same kind of awe and envy. Then the usual sort of
remarks began about the amount of port wine drunk; and suddenly people said
that they had done their work, that the inmates were mistaking means for ends;
and there was a great deal more reason for saying it. After all, granted the
supernatural, Religious Houses are an obvious consequence; but the object of
secular education is presumably the production of something visible - either
character or competence; and it became quite impossible to prove that the
Universities produced either - which was worth having. The distinction between
[Greek: ou] and [Greek: me] is not an end in itself; and the kind of person
produced by its study was not one which appealed to England in the twentieth
century. I am not sure that it appealed even to me much (and I was always a
strong Individualist) - except by way of pathos -"
"Yes?"
said Percy.
"Oh, it was
pathetic enough. The Science Schools of Cambridge and the Colonial Department
of Oxford were the last hope; and then those went. The old dons crept about
with their books, but nobody wanted them - they were too purely theoretical;
some drifted into the poorhouses, first or second grade; some were taken care
of by charitable clergymen; there was that attempt to concentrate in Dublin;
but it failed, and people soon forgot them. The buildings, as you know, were
used for all kinds of things. Oxford became an engineering establishment for a
while, and Cambridge a kind of Government laboratory. I was at King's College,
you know. Of course it was all as horrible as it could be - though I am glad
they kept the chapel open even as a museum. It was not nice to see the
chantries filled with anatomical specimens. However, I don't think it was much
worse than keeping stoves and surplices in them."
"What
happened to you?"
"Oh! I was
in Parliament very soon; and I had a little money of my own, too. But it was
very hard on some of them; they had little pensions, at least all who were past
work. And yet, I don't know: I suppose it had to come. They were very little
more than picturesque survivals, you know; and had not even the grace of a
religious faith about them."
Percy sighed
again, looking at the humorously reminiscent face of the old man. Then he
suddenly changed the subject again.
"What about
this European parliament?" he said.
The old man
started.
"Oh!… I
think it will pass," he said, "if a man can be found to push it. All
this last century has been leading up to it, as you see. Patriotism has been
dying fast; but it ought to have died, like slavery and so forth, under the
influence of the Catholic Church. As it is, the work has been done without the
Church; and the result is that the world is beginning to range itself against
us: it is an organised antagonism - a kind of Catholic anti-Church. Democracy
has done what the Divine Monarchy should have done. If the proposal passes I
think we may expect something like persecution once more…. But, again, the
Eastern invasion may save us, if it comes off…. I do not know…."
Percy sat still
yet a moment; then he stood up suddenly.
"I must go,
sir," he said, relapsing into Esperanto. "It is past nineteen
o'clock. Thank you so much. Are you coming, father?"
Father Francis
stood up also, in the dark grey suit permitted to priests, and took up his hat.
"Well,
father," said the old man again, "come again some day, if I haven't
been too discursive. I suppose you have to write your letter yet?"
Percy nodded.
"I did half
of it this morning," he said, "but I felt I wanted another bird's-eye
view before I could understand properly: I am so grateful to you for giving it
me. It is really a great labour, this daily letter to the Cardinal-Protector. I
am thinking of resigning if I am allowed."
"My dear
father, don't do that. If I may say so to your face, I think you have a very
shrewd mind; and unless Rome has balanced information she can do nothing. I
don't suppose your colleagues are as careful as yourself."
Percy smiled,
lifting his dark eyebrows deprecatingly.
"Come,
father," he said.
* * * * *
The two priests parted at the steps of the
corridor, and Percy stood for a minute or two staring out at the familiar
autumn scene, trying to understand what it all meant. What he had heard
downstairs seemed strangely to illuminate that vision of splendid prosperity
that lay before him.
The air was as
bright as day; artificial sunlight had carried all before it, and London now
knew no difference between dark and light. He stood in a kind of glazed
cloister, heavily floored with a preparation of rubber on which footsteps made
no sound. Beneath him, at the foot of the stairs, poured an endless double line
of persons severed by a partition, going to right and left, noiselessly, except
for the murmur of Esperanto talking that sounded ceaselessly as they went.
Through the clear, hardened glass of the public passage showed a broad sleek
black roadway, ribbed from side to side, and puckered in the centre,
significantly empty, but even as he stood there a note sounded far away from
Old Westminster, like the hum of a giant hive, rising as it came, and an
instant later a transparent thing shot past, flashing from every angle, and the
note died to a hum again and a silence as the great Government motor from the
south whirled eastwards with the mails. This was a privileged roadway; nothing
but state-vehicles were allowed to use it, and those at a speed not exceeding
one hundred miles an hour.
Other noises were
subdued in this city of rubber; the passenger-circles were a hundred yards
away, and the subterranean traffic lay too deep for anything but a vibration to
make itself felt. It was to remove this vibration, and silence the hum of the
ordinary vehicles, that the Government experts had been working for the last
twenty years.
Once again before
he moved there came a long cry from overhead, startlingly beautiful and
piercing, and, as he lifted his eyes from the glimpse of the steady river which
alone had refused to be transformed, he saw high above him against the heavy
illuminated clouds, a long slender object, glowing with soft light, slide
northwards and vanish on outstretched wings. That musical cry, he told himself,
was the voice of one of the European line of volors announcing its arrival in
the capital of Great Britain.
"Until our
Lord comes back," he thought to himself; and for an instant the old misery
stabbed at his heart. How difficult it was to hold the eyes focussed on that
far horizon when this world lay in the foreground so compelling in its
splendour and its strength! Oh, he had argued with Father Francis an hour ago
that size was not the same as greatness, and that an insistent external could
not exclude a subtle internal; and he had believed what he had then said; but
the doubt yet remained till he silenced it by a fierce effort, crying in his
heart to the Poor Man of Nazareth to keep his heart as the heart of a little
child.
Then he set his
lips, wondering how long Father Francis would bear the pressure, and went down
the steps.
