YOUNG MAN’S CHRISTIANITY

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 226, 20 June 1936, Page 23

YOUNG MAN’S CHRISTIANITY

Beverley Nichols’s Quest

For Realities

“The Fool Hath Said,” by Beverley Nichols (London: Jonathan Cape).

This book reveals the soul of a terribly earnest young man who, having found Faith’s treasure after gloomy and unsettling years given to the quest, now seeks to share it with those of his generation who are “gentlemen of disbelief.” For that reason "The Fool Hath Said” is much more than a defence of Christianity, if it is Christianity that needs a'defence at all to-day. If that were all Beverley Nichols had attempted he would have contributed little that could be new to the tremendous literature on religious subjects. What is more, ’it is doubtful if be would be read.

The majority of people nowadays have small patience with controversial Christianity. That went out with the Great War. Now they demand a fighting faith, a marching faith. This book presents Christianity on the attack, with a militant Christian storming the trenches of Rationalism and tearing aside the entanglements alike of honest doubt and dishonest Some readers may conclude from the early chapters that this admirable Christian soldier has slashed his way too impetuously through obstacles that have halted the giants of dogma and doctrine through the 1900 years on the heated battleground of theological controversy. Be that as it may, but there can be no conflict of opinion that he argues his case brililantly, in his friendly, conversational style. He carries believer and sceptic along by his deep sincerity and persausive eloquence, leaving no room for doubt that it is a fine thing—the only thing—to be found fighting on the side of Christ. Among questions of black doubt that have vexed the spirit of most of us are these:—

"How can God—if there be a God—conceivably take any special and particular interest in this peculiarly insignificant planet?” “Why does God permit wars, suffering, cruelty?” ,

"By what conceivable reason can we call God ‘good’?” Mr. Nichols faces up to them manfully, shirking nothing. And he calls in high authority in science to assist him in answering the first of these, for instance. Such names as Sir Arthur Thomson, Sir Arthur Eddington, Sir Ambrose Fleming. If he is aware of ticklish objections to the Faith that the ordinary Christian has probably not heard about, but that the nationalist knows all about, he states them. It will appeal to intellectual people that Mr. Nichols resorts to reason as far as man’s finite mind will take him. After that it is faith for him. The more formidable his opponent the more Mr. Nichols appears to relish the contest for Christ. Take, for example, Professor Charles Guignebert, whom he calls the “big noise of Rationalism.” He has studied Professor Guignebert’s “Jesus” and does not think much of it. The professor’s question, "Lacking the help of the historical life of Jesus, is there at least a possibility of arriving at some knowledge, of his character and his fundamental ideas? rouses him to a burst of contemptuous eloquence. Mr. Nichols gives some space to showing that after all it is for the good of us all that there is doubt and perplexity. He argues:

If tlie Bible were as simple -ns, let. us say, yesterday’s issue of “The Times,” if we could personally consult the men who had written it, if we could go round the comer to a news reel theatre ajifi see Christ raising Lazarus . . . all merit would have been taken from faith. In a world without doubt, Christ would descend, with a dull and sickening thud, to the level of a policeman. He would be, at best, a sort of sublime magistrate.

The novelist has a chapter on that wonderful movement, the Oxford Group, and. in it describes his own transition from hostility, through scepticism to conviction of the enormous influence it is having in offering personal Christianity as the living force it should be in everyday life. He depicts here the Gospel in action, and his observations should help to remove prejudice against the group.

In the second part of the book the writer presents an excellent sermon on sex. With complete frankness he states an overwhelming case against promiscuity and for self-denial. His solution of the problem for the individual is common-sense and is in accord with the mind of Christ. When Mr. Nichols goes on to interpret what he feels to be Christ’s attitude to war he is on extremely thin ice. He has made his own position clear in his much-discussed novel, “Cry Havoc,” and has declared himself an out-and-out pacifist. In “The Fool Hath Said,” he puts the Bishop of Txmdon and army chaplains through a scorching cross-examination on what they said during the Great War, but a significant change of front is there for those to see who can read between the lines. Mr. Nichols has to admit in an interpolated paragraph that, "since writing this book a number of circumstances have contributed to change certain of my views on Christianity and Empire.” He obviously alludes to the League of Nations in relation to the Italo-Ethiopian war. Summing up this book, the Dean of St. Paul’s said recently:—

“It is written for bright young people, and with that kind of wit which appeals to them. Will they read it? They will be missing good entertainment if they do not. but they will lie missing something far more important—a message from one who has struggled to find spiritual reality and has succeeded.”