JOHN BUCHAN ON HIS TIMES

Evening Star, Issue 23745, 28 November 1940, Page 4

JOHN BUCHAN ON HIS TIMES

“DEBUNKERS" AND THE "FARMYARD SCHOOL " A TEST FOR RELIGION “ Democracy, after all, is a negative thing. It provides a fair field for the Good Life, but it is not in , itself the Good Life. In these days, when lovers of freedom may have to fight for their cause, the hope is that the ideal of the Good Life, in which alone freedom has any meaning, will acquire a stronger potency.”—From ‘ Memory Hold-the-Door,’ the autobiography of John Buchan.

* Memory Hold-the-Door, 1 the autobiography of John Buchan, was completed by the late Lord Tweedsmuir just prior to his death. Many people (writes ‘ John o’ London’s Weekly ’) will conaider it the book of the year—certainly no volume so far issued in 1940 surpasses it in interest —for, in addition to a record of his contact with men and affairs, he expresses his inner convictions with a grave and fearless certitude. Above all, he details his experiences at the close of the Great War, and his conclusions are a warning to the nation as to the right attitude every citizen should adopt when the present conflict ends. “ The intellectual atmosphere of the immediate post-war period was enough to drive the ordinary man into privacy, writes John Buchan. “ While plain folk everywhere set themselves sturdily to rebuild their world, the interpreting class, the people who should have influenced opinion, ran round their cages in vigorous pursuit of their tails. If they were futile they were also arrogant, and it was an odd kind of arrogance, for they had no creed to preach. THEY HAD NO PHILOSOPHY. “ The same type before the war had prostrated themselves in gaping admiration of the advance'of physical science and the improvements in the material apparatus of life. There was little of that left. The war had shown that our mastery over physical forces might end in a nightmare. ... , “ They had no philosophy, if Plato s definition in the 1 Thecetetus ’ be right —* the mood of the philosopher is wonder; there is no other source of philosophy than this ’—for wonder involves some vigour of spirit. They would admit no absolute values, being by profession atomisers, engaged in reducing the laborious structure of civilised life to a whirling nebula. “ ].t was a difficult time for those who called themselves intellectuals,” says John Buchan, and he goes on to trounce some of the early post-war men of literature, and in particular those who “ debunked ” tho famous. “ Lytton Strachey, their fugleman, lie asserts, “ was an accomplished man of letters, but in his followers his faults became monstrous-and his virtues disappeared. , . , ‘ They were much concerned with sex, and found sexual interest in unusual places, dwelling upon it with a sly titter. Thev were sansculottes who sought to deflate majestic reputations and reduce the great to a drab level of mediocrity, like the Jacobins who would have destroyed Chartres Cathedral because it dominated offensively their foolish little city. “ There was also a curious deterioration in literary manners—it had nothing to do with morals. Frankness in literature is an admirable thing if, as at various times in our history, it keeps step with social habit; but when it strives to advance beyond it. it becomes a disagreeable pose. A FARMYARD CANDOUR. “ Among civilised people after the war the ordinary conventions held, but in literature, especially in fiction, a dull farmyard candour became fashionable, an insistence upon the functions of the body which had rarely artistic value. “ The dominant thought of youth is th® bigness of the world, of its smallness,” sums up John Buchan. As we grow older we escape from the tyranny of. matter and recognise that the true centre of gravity is in the mind. Also we lose that sense of relativity, which is so useful in normal life, provided it does not sour into cynicism, and come more and more to acclaim absolute things—goodness, truth, beauty, . , , , “ From a wise American scholar l take this sentence: ‘The tragedy of man is that he has developed an intelligence eager to uncover mysteries, but not strong enough to penetrate them. With minds but slightly evolved beyond those of our animal relations., we are tortured with precocious desires, and pose questions which we are .sometimes capable of asking but rarely are able to answer.’ With the recognition of our limitations comes a glimpse of the majesty of the ‘ Bower not ourselves.

Religion is born when we accept the ultimate frustration of mere human effort, and at the same time realise the strength which comes from union with superhuman reality. A TEST AND CONFLICT. “ To-day the quality of our religion is being put to the test. The conflict is not only between the graces of civilisation and the rawness of barbarism. More is being challenged than the system of ethics which we believe, to be the basis of onr laws and liberties. I am of Blake’s view: ‘Man must and will have some religion; if he has not the religion of Jesus he will have the religion of Satan, and will erect a synagogue of Satan.’ “ There have been high civilisations in the past which have not been Christian, but in the world as we know it I believe that civilisation must have a Christian basis, and must ultimately rest on the Christian Church. To-day the Faith is being attacked, and tho attack is succeeding. ‘‘Thirty years ago Europe was nominally a Christian continent. Tt is no longer so. In Europe, as in the era before Constantine. Christianity is in a minority. What Gladstone wrote 70 years ago. in a moment of depression, has become a shattering truth: ‘I am convinced that the welfare of mankind does not now depend on the State and the world of politics; the real battle is being fought in the world of thought, where a deadly attack is made with great tenacity of purpose and over a wide field upon the. greatest treasure of mankind, the belief in God and the jGospel of Christ.’ “ The Christian in name has in recent years been growing cold in his devotion. Our achievement in perfecting life’s material apparatus has produced a mood of self-confidence and pride. Onr peril has been indifference and that is a grave peril, for rust will crumble a metal when hammer blows will only harden it. I . believe—and this is my crowning optimism—that the challenge with which we are now faced mav restore to ns that manly humility which alone gives power. It may bring us hack to God. In that case our victory is assured. The Faith is an anvil which has worn out manv hammers.”