FROM A SUBURBAN BALCONY

Evening Star, Issue 20310, 19 October 1929, Page 2

FROM A SUBURBAN BALCONY

‘THE CHRIST OF THE ENGLISH ''HOAD - r :V I have been interested in reading this book. It is-likely it would never have, been written had it not been for Dr Stanley Jones’s ‘ The Christ of the Indian.’ It was a somewhat daring venture to mate the attempt. For .Dr Jones’s bqpk is ,‘a rare achievement; ■ It has had an immense circulation, possibly one of the “best seders” of our time. And it deserves it. The writer is a, master of a lucid, epigrammatic, and effective stylo. Moreover, the subject was new,; it was treated in a novel way, and it was largely the story of personalities, his own and others, which is always more interesting than abstract discussions or historic reviews.- ‘The Christ of the English Road’ is anonym mous. It is bjf “ Two Wayfarers,’’ Who: they are wo don’t know. And out of that fact emerges one of the disabilities under which’' they labour. Stanley Jones excites ■interest"by c the:story of hisstrange personal experience, -through which he was led to take up _and tell of, the work of which his: book is the record. - Everybody is interested in the story of a personal experience. , But the “ Two . Wayfarers ” have no story of their own to‘excite our interest in the opening pages. It-is sometimes good that the appeal of truth should come on its own merits. Nevertheless, at is always m<>re effective and scutes a far larger audience if it cam be related to an individual experience. The' work of the “Two Wayfarers ” labours under another difficulty. They deal with what is comparatively well known, vlt is the mark of genius to make the ron mcnplace interesting, to flush with new light and life the - customary and habitual. Dr Jones’s- book dealt with the distant 1 and _ the strange. The' Indians who .reveal their thought and character in his pages are something new to the average reader, and so his attention is attracted—and, imbed, one may say fascinated —by Dr. Jones’s style and method of dealing with his subject. The “Two Wayfarers” had not these advantages in their subject. -. And I must candidly confess their work does not grip me like the other. Their style lacks distinction, and tneir subject sometimes sinks to tbe levM of platitudes. Nevertheless, in spite of their handicaps, they have managed to produce an instructive and suggestive book. * ♦ , ... * _ .... ~, In some ways the. ground has been covered before, but in larger and less accessible books. Their purpose is to show that the Englist nation is the creation of Christ’s" iiiilurice and spirit as . distinct from creeds- and doctrines about Him. ' In the accomplishment of this design they trace the development of English character and civilisation from its origin in the early British Church and the advent of the AngloSaxons, who came Worn the,dark 1 westsof Germany, and who had never heard of Christianity till they caihe in contact' with it on English soil.. The issue of it all was that “ the messengers of Chr .s----tianity welded these islands into a spiritual whole long before the kings or statesmen had been able 1 to glvo them the shadow of political unity.” This is evident from the testimony of English literature from Piers Plowman, Lanfranc, Duustan, ’ Bede, etc., onward. After the nation . had been consolidated, mainly by the efforts of the early missioners and Christian Church, it was they again who kept watch over its development and guided its feet to its destiny. “It was the church which preserved the learning of the ancient world, formulated the laws of the country, inspired its architecture and literature, ruled its kings, and provided its charities.” And at least the early history of the monasteries is a history of beneficent service alike for their members and the crmnuinity generally. When corruption crept in Wickliff fired the enthusiasm of the English people, and he gave them for the first time the story of Jesus in their own language. Green, in his * Short History of tlib English ’ people, lias traced out in detail the extraordinary influence which the Bible in the speech of tlie common people exercised over them. “This familiarity with its grand poetic imagery in prophet and apocalypse gave a loftiness and ardour of expression that, with all its tendency to exaggeration and bombast, we may prefer to the slipshod vulgarisms of. to-day.” It is not difficult to trace the evolution of the spirit of Christ in the great struggles for religious and political liberty that fought themselves out during the days of Colet and More and on through the Puritan era and the' Stuart dynasty. When we come down to the eighteenth century it is then perhaps that we discern clearest the Christ of the English Road. It was John Wesley who made manifest His presence there. Hus life stretches almost across the whole century. Augustine Birrell says that he “ contested the three kingdoms during’ a campaign that lasted forty years.” He lived nearer the centre of things that matter than either Clive or Pitt, Mansfield or Johnson. “No other man did such a life’s work for England,” And the outstanding feature of this life’s work was the making dear and real of Christ as the power of God and the wisdom of God to the common people. ." ' ’

And how much this was needed no student of history needs to bo told. Religion among the upper classes had become, for many, little more than a joke, -and for most a mockery and unreality. ■ Bishop Butler’s testimony in the preface to his famous ‘Analogy 5 is well known. To the same effect is that of a celebrated French visitor—Montesquieu: “Everyone smiles if one speaks of religion.” The dire effects of all this" had, spread .thtbugh ;!the whole body politic. The situation wits 'Saved by Wesley’s labours.' Perhaps the darkest page in the national history was the treatment accorded to prisoners. Our present prison system is not by any means .perfect, but one has only to think of it before the days of John Howard to get some idea of the immense . advance “Prisoners

were farmed out by the State to men who villainously exploited' the rich' pri-‘ soner and' most brutally , used the poor.” The idea of mercy was not born into the national consciousness till almost the beginning of our century. Even , .Queen Victoria: ' could plead for the, preservation of flogging in- the Army as the only means of discipline. Prison reform was begun when Christ put it into the hearts of •John Howard and Elizabeth Fry, for V pity is the touch of God in human hearts.” - ‘ "*. ■ * -

' 4 further development : of this humanitarian sentiment was set in motion'by ‘Lord Shaftesbury* Tile growth of physical science which ushered in the machine age led, at the beginning, to fearful cruelties. The economic system was founded on the faith that ■the end of business and trade was to make money, .and., the surest way to this was selfishness—every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost. Out of this emerged the factory system, with-all the-horrors of its early history. It is one of the curious anomalies of the religion of the time that Shaftesbury, in his efforts to ameliorate the condition of the factory workers, .had no more vigorous opponents than leading men and women of the evangelical faith. Even so eminent a Quaker as John Bright joined in with them, and when the manufacturers wanted labour advised them to take the children. They did. And the cruelties perpetrated upon them are almost incredible to hs of to-day. The eighteenth century was the era of man’s emancipation, the nineteenth that of woman, the twentieth that of the child. On the whole, therefore, it is- the Christ on the English Road that is responsible for tho best features of the English character. Let any man make an inventory of his moral ideas and ask himself if he could have come by these without the moulding of a thousand years of Christian idealism, and he will find, no matter what Jus creed, , th© thing to be impossible.

And as it has been in the past, so will it bo in tho present and the future. The book raises the oi'ten-de-bated question: Is civilisation the result of Science or of Faith? Everything depends on how one defines the terms. Science has, no doubt, mad© brilliant contributions to progress. It has conferred powers upon man[ greater than have ever been dreamed by our forefathers. But the very greatness of these powers demands a high moral character in those who operate them. Wo are just staggering to our feet after a Avar ’ created in defiance cf the spirit of Christ. And wo are having the terrors of another painted for us in lurid’ colours. The most thoughtful minds of our time feel that Science by itself will not bring in the millennium. That is; a thing that demands personality of the highest sort, and when all is said and done it will be found in tho end of tha day that both the pattern and the power of such personality reach their perfection in Him who haunts all the’ roads of humanity as well as the English road, and is guiding it to The one far-off divine event To which tho whole creation moves. Bor.