THE BURDEN OF CIVILISATION

New Zealand Tablet, 17 June 1920, Page 17

THE BURDEN OF CIVILISATION

(By Richard Sykes, S.J., in the Catholic Magazine.) The cynic and the satirist ought to be driving a thriving trade in these times. There is a vast amount of business to occupy them. But the satirist seems. dead and the voice of the cynic is "no more heard in the land. For example there is “profiteering,” and the “patriotism” that makes its untold and unholy millions to the accompaniment of the groans on the battle-field and the sobs of the widowed and the bereaved. If ever there was a time for the chuckle of the cynic and the laugh of the satirist, assuredly this is the time. But, though one might try his prentice hand at the pillory, it is perhaps best to leave the office to someone else, so I shall abstain (rather reluctantly, let me own) from such a tempting role and pass on, after one or two remarks which I feel constrained to make.

There are two clap-trap phrases, which, in these days of clap-trap, always arouse the cynic within me. One is "the Dignity of Labor" (with a very big D indeed), and the other "The Burden of Civilisation" (with an enormous B). Ah! the dignity of Labor ! How often have I not heard this touching gospel preached by the white to the black man ! And the white man has such an overwhelming sense of the dignity of labor, that he completely abstains from it and leaves all the hard physical work to the black man, and in return calls him "a lazy nigger" ! And then the white man is borne down almost to the earth with his civilising burden, anckhe says, "Let the nigger —make him increase his wants and then he'll need to buy of us." And so according to this commercial gospel, the black man is to be civilised by the shuttles of Manchester, the loom of Bradford, and the lasts of Northampton. What a stroke of genius!

Softgoods and shoe-leather are to introduce the poor benighted native to this Paradise of the truly civilised, and are to be his passport to a new heaven upon earth! And as the cynic thinks of that blessed phrase, ' the Burden of Civilisation"; as he looks abroad and sees how civilisation is bearing its burden, he may perhaps be pardoned a heartless chuckle. The civilised nations of the world have been carrying their burdens by cutting each other's throats for the last four or five years, and are now engaged in sowing the wild oats of future wars. Meanwhile the burden which civilisation has got to bear is a very heavy one indeed—debts of incomputable amounts, taxation so intolerable as to be literally a crushing load, from which men are flying for refuge to remote parts of the earth, a collapse

of law and order, as though, the demon of anarchy had possessed the nations, the spectacle of- ' { world-wide : bankruptcy. . Is there any exaggeration in this picture ? It is all enough to melt the heart of the cynic within us, for very pity,' and to make us weep for the awful futility which ever seems to visit the doings of men. Is there really any purpose with the suns ? Is mankind really striving for a higher goal ? Or is it merely groping about in utter darkness, turning away from the light Its purpose seems so aimless ; . its doings so futile; its striving to climb higher so feeble, that good men may well begin to despair and wonder whether all their endeavors to make the world better and happier are not utterly useless and a vain beating of the air. And so I throw aside my cynicism, which indeed was only assumed, and I come to consider with a less pitiless frame of mind the subject of this article. Civilisation needs all the help it can get to prevent its burden from being too much for it. It has unfortunately gone astray. It is abandoning the pure springs of Christianity for the muddy cisterns of paganism. It is getting away from the ethos of Christian ideals and Christian morality and is adopting pagan ideals. Greed and an unscrupulous conscience are the governing forces of the present day. The great Christian maxim of doing unto others as you would have others do unto yourself* is ah antiquated and outworn creed. This is what makes it so seemingly impossible to right the present state of things. The ship of civilisation is indeed laboring in a stormy sea. It has got a heavy list and is in danger - of foundering. It is beaten back ; it is often on the sands, often near the rocks ; it hardly knows for what harbor it is making. Civilisation is adrift. Then, too, the machinery of civilisation is becoming every day more intricate and complex. It is getting so very elaborate as to become unmanageable. Modern life is a Sindbad, which is allowing so many old men of the sea to mount its shoulders, that it is in danger of breaking its back and coming down into the dust. Man is going to be throttled by his own inventions,by being too clever. What we are pleased to call civilisation is dechristianising itself. If this statement appears too bold and incapable of truth, let me specify secular education, and divorce. The State is heading for Qesarism, —the usurpation by itself of duties and responsibilities which do not belong to it, but to the religious authority. We have sown the wind and are now reaping the whirlwind. Godless education in all State schools and endless divorce in every country which calls itself civilised can lead but to one fate, and that is practical paganism. This is what is wrong with civilisation, as it is easy to see. But who can see, and who will apply a

remedy ? Who will lift the - load from those overburdened shoulders? “ Therein the physician , must minister to himself. Civilisation must itself apply the remedy. I have said that the two ruling forces at the present time are greed and a want of conscience. Surely this is patent to all men. Is it really futile to hope for moderation where now an all-grasping spirit prevails, and for the revival of the individual and national conscience ? Surely it is not the highest happiness to heap up colossal fortunes per fas et nefas. And yet this seems to be the be-all and the end-all of life in this age of savage greed. Even the pagans knew better than this, and their poets sang of happiness as the result of contentment with moderate wealth. Socalled Christian morality is in this respect falling below that of the pagans. The late war reveals the fact that every one who was in a position to do so was making huge profits without any very great scruple as to the means. War generally debases the commercial conscience, and it has done so in this case on a world-wide scale. You may set up every possible kind of legal machinery, but it will all be of no avail unless the individual conscience is sensitive and is ruled by a sense of religion. Conscience as we too well know, is not a sufficient safeguard where the sanctions of religion are lacking. One huge load which is going to break the backs of the civilised nations is the portent of trusts, combines, “ rings,” and monopolies. As the dollar is omnipotent, so are these capitalistic societies threatening to become more powerful than the governments themselves. All small enterprise is crushed out. Trade and commerce are to be in the hands of these financial magnates who - administer untold millions, and whose power is becoming in several countries almost uncontrollable. ✓ No wonder that President Wilson should say, that if the Government of the United States cannot control these Trusts, the Trusts will control the Government.

It will be said that all this is true, but that no remedy as yet has been suggested. As a matter of fact the suggested remedy runs right through the argument. It is that the nations which calf themselves civilised should get back to the ethics of Christianity. _ But do they know what Christian morality and Christian principles are? Is Christianity and its teaching very conspicuous in the Peace Treaty which has lately been signed? If the Pope had been allowed a representative there, we might have had a more Christian note predominating. But the Father of the Faithful was not allowed to speak in that document, though his voice has not been silent, but has often spoken to the different nations on the Veat virtues of justice, fair dealing, and charity. But how, I ask, are we going to get back to the teaching'of Our Lord, when so large a proportion of the population does not even know what that teaching is? Let me take England. If one could summon all tne youthful non-Catholic population of 18 years of age" what proportion has had religious instruction durhm school hours? What proportion goes to Sunday School? No doubt a good many can say the 'Lord's Jt-rayer. But how many have studied the life and teaching of Our Lord? How many even know the Sermon on the Mount? How many even see the inside of a church on a Sunday? How man have drunk in the Spirit of Christ? y * You certainly are not going to instil into a nation the principles of the Sermon on the Mount by neglect And i hat 1 ' Chr i tia f n ! J t V hen its y° uth is at school. And I have not selected England because I think it has less religion than other countries, but because t 16 the most appropriate example To my mind it is here where civilisation has gone wrong: m its civil schools its education is either foci hi or a diluted Christianity, Which is not worthf of 118 name. All this must be alterprl .* Wolth y of civilisation is to be de-paganised * " b °" tod

No one who knows anything'of the-spirit of ‘ the age can help being saddened and even alarmed at its materialism and semi-paganism. Men's hearts are set upon luxury, material comforts, “and the Pride of life,” and they worship the shadows of a day.-- We boast of our inventions of —which in truth are wonderful enoughand everyone seems to be bent upon speed, upon road—and —locomotion. But “not by bread alone doth man live.” It is not in these things but in the things of the spirit, in which the soul of man should find rest. But he has no time for this, scarcely time for a thought of God, even on the day which has. been appointed for His worship. God is being neglected in His own creation. And there is one* result of all this pursuit of the things of sense of which it is not everybody that thinks. It all results in heartlessness. If any one asks for an explanation, I will set before him two examples.

The Prophet of God said to Jerusalem: "Great as the sea is thy sorrow." It is not long since this might have been said of the whole world almost, for the gentlest of our kind everywhere mourned their beloved, who were never to return. Even now, if you listen, you may hear faintly rolling upon the shore of that sea of sorrow the sobbing echoes of those fruitless tears and the agony of broken hearts. To-day yet another cry reaches us. The same great. Prophet said "My eyes have failed with weeping, when the children and the suckling fainted away in the streets of the city; when they breathed out. their souls in the bosoms of their mothers." Now in stricken" countries of Europe the babes and the sucklings are dying in scores of thousands, of starvation. Is there a man. who has a heart to feel, who is, not strongly, even terribly, moved by this awful spectacle? Assuredly, if ever a cry rose to Heaven, there to appeal to Cod's dread justice, it is the cry of these helpless victims slain bv man's lust for war. It makes one ashamed of one's kind, that inhumanity of such an abhorrent nature should exist under heaven. And Londonand Paris, too, of " course never so gay, so frivolous, so light-hearted,and, let me add, so pagan and so godless. How heartless, 'how horrible is our civilisation, if this is civilisation! The oldest recorded prayer addressed to the true God is an invocation dictated by Jehovah himself as tho form of blessing which Moses and Aaron were to impart to the children of Israel. "The Lord bless lr.ee and keep thee. The Lord show His face to thee and nave mercy upon thee. The Lord turn his countenance to thee and give thee peace." Is mankind turning its back: upon its Creator and is God turning away His n Ce 7 from his creation ? Is the world going to live without" Ixod f . the fioundermgs of poor humanity amid banks oi quicksand and quagmires, as it tries aimlessly to reach its goal, its going after shadows and overtaking only the mirage of illusion wherein is no substance, would seem to point to the lack of God's guidance and messing. Whither is civilisation going and who are its leaders? Will it be able to retrace its steps and get back to the solid ground and straight path, which it has almost forsaken? Meanwhile it is adding burden after burden to its back, but the greatest of tnese is paganism.

Mr Philip Snowden says* "There was a time when the English newspaper was a model of fairness and probity. That day has passed, and with few exceptions the British daily newspaper is an unscrupulous and blackguardly instrument for misleading the public in the interests of financial and political schemes. There are no means by which its propaganda can be effectively counteracted. It publishes concoctions of what purports to be news which is knows to be false It introduces its own interpolations into official documents. , It refuses to publish contradictions from people who are misrepresented, and letters which expose the falsity of its statements."