autobiography of a new author who has 'said' many good things to me this year.
chap. 1 - background
4 ...my father looked wistful, for he had spent much time and $ campaigning for the League of Nations. he had lived indeed, to see many, perhaps most, of the causes in which he believed go down to defeat and yet to the end he retained his gallant belief in the greatest of all Victorian myths, the belief in inevitable progress. it was impossible to convince him that there is no predestined bias towards improvement, that progress is varied by regress and that civilisations are born and grow to maturity only to decay and die. . he would have none of this. 'no, what we are seeing today is just a temporary setback...
chap. 2 - harrow (life forming experiences in boarding school
chap 3 - the evolution of a radical
34 ...liberalism is founded on the repudiation of the feudal conception of personal honour and on the determination to substitute dialectics for violence in the struggle for power...
as a young man, i should have been flattered to have been described as an intellectual, a label which i accept today with resignation. the word does not imply the possession of a great intellect, but merely an interest in the things of the mind. an intellectual might indeed be defined as a man who is more interested in universals than in particulars...
35 ...skiers will turn to my History of Ski-ing as a work of reference; but the only book of mine which will, perhaps, be read for its own sake 50 years hence is The Mountains of Youth. among mountaineers pietas is as common as it is rare in this irreverent age, in which almost the one thing which has not been debunked is the tradition of the Alpine Club. . my own favourite escapist literature in these distracted times is the works of the Alpine pioneers. there is something solidly reassuring in the climate of Victorian security which dominates these records of an escape into a world of artificial danger. i am vain enough to hope that, in the next war to destroy Prussianism, an occasional mountain-lover may turn to The Mountains of Youth for consolation...
40 ...among the books that have influence me, few have had more effect than Life and Habit, by Samuel Butler...he was something of an iconoclast and because he detested the calvinistic christianity in which he was reared he is often quoted by progressives...
41 ..Butler was conservative because he believed that the unconscious knowledge which we inherit from our ancestors is much more reliable than the conscious knowledge which we painfully acquire during the course of our own lives. his conviction that instinct is nothing more than unconscious memory is the basic doctrine of his philosophy...
42 ..our intellectuals, who know that they know and whose conscious knowledge finds expression in schemes of world improvement, may be compared to the child picking out the scales on the piano with its eyes firmly fixed on the score. but it is 'those who do not know that they know so much, who have the firmest grip of their knowledge; the best class, for example, of our english youth, who live much in the open air, and, as Lord Beaconsfield finely said, never read. these are the people who know best those things which are best worth knowing - that is to say, they are the most truly scientific. unfortunately the apparatus necessary for this kind of science is so costly as to be within the reach of few, involving as it does, an experience in the use of it for some preceding generations...
until i read Butler i had assumed that men migh be divided into those who desired and those who opposed reform, but B suggested the possibility that reformers might be divided into Conservatives who based their programmes on the foundation of human nature and human experience and Radicals who ignored the immense power of inherited instincts and traditions. in a passage which i quote from memory B describes 2 methods of getting a hen to cross a road. the first is to throw small pieces of bread, not at the hen but just in front of her and thus lure her gradually across the road.
43the second method is to throw a loaf of bread AT the hen. and this says B, is the method of our advanced Liberals'. some of whom mistake stones for bread'.
...it is interesting to note Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France...Rousseau, who dumped his children on a foundling school, is described by B as 'a lover of his kind but a hater of his kindred', an epigram which applies with even greater force to modern revolutionaries. B awakened in me a faint distrust of professional humanitarians. 'benevolence to the whole species and a want of feeling for every individual with whom the professors come into contact, form the character of the new philosophy'.
before reading Burke i had been artless enough to believe that the French Revolution was, in essence, a rising of the oppressed poor against a selfish aristocracy; but B provoked an uneasy doubt of this popular simplification of a complex problem, a doubt which was subsequently reinforced by reading De Tocqueville's classic study of the Revolution. B contended that the Rev was provoked by a struggle for power between different groups, of whom the Revolutionists were perhaps the least concerned to redress the just grievances of the poor. the Jacobins were resolved to TRANSFER THE
44 GOVERNMENT FROM THE LANDED GENTRY TO THE CITIES, 'among tradesmen, bankers, advocates...and those cabals of literary men, called academies'...
the Jacobins, said B, were supported by the dissenters of the three leading denominations...
*DISSENTers in character, temper and disposition..
-Whigs and even
-Tories; all the
-Atheists
-Deists and
-Socinians
*all those who HATE the clergy..and
*ENVY the nobility
-a good many among the monied people
-the East Indians almost to a man,
who cannot bear to find that their present importance does not bear a proportion to their wealth
-the monied men
-merchants
-principal tradesmen
men of letters...
are the chief actors in the French Revolution...
45...as the years passed, i ceased to make my personal tastes the criterion for my views of the social order. i discovered that the politically minded may be divided into those who accept the facts of human nature and those who plan their programmes on the naive assumption that man is what they wish man to be..the only result of abolishing an aristocracy of birth is to substitute an aristocracy of money, or, as in russia, of quai-hereditary bureaucrats.
chap. 4 - why men climb
54 (immediately after an avalanche 2000 feet above them nearly 'missed')
...very shakily we stood up. nobody spoke. the leader mechanically uncoiled the rope off the axe head, with drew the axe and, with the deliberate movements of a man who is making a big effort to rediscipline shaken nerves, slowly began to curt steps to the edge of the gully. we scrambled on to the rocks and sat down heavily. the mountain still seemed to be quivering with a dying convulsion. the snow slopes fanned out below the gully. i looked down on the glacier and thought of what might be lying there, quiet, motionless shapes, ...
then came the reaction. a hill breeze rippled over the snows and sent the blood coursing through our veins. i found myself making strange, grateful movements with my hands, as if to bathe them in the overflowing sun. life and colour and joy had returned and the mountains had recovered their grace of outline. the morning headache had vanished, the scales were lifted from my eyes. the dullness of vision disappeared, i remember a miniature cornice, a delicate volute of iridescent colour,
55 glinting in the sun. the wings of death had passed and in their passing ..had quickened our response to the beauty of the visible world whose citizenship we still retained.
'He shall dwell on high; His place of defence shall be the munitions of the rocks'. the mountaineer can translate this verse from isaiah into the memory of moments when the artillery of heaven and the munitions of the rocks bear witness to the majesty of One who dwells on high. no dawns are more terrible in their beauty than those in which the red and angry snows herald a day that breaks in splendour only to set in storm. no mountain memories are more enduring than those of moments when the black wings of the wind-tormented mist lift to disclose the embattlements of frost-riven rock....
chap. 5 - 1909
60 ..easter vacation..i first met the lady who is now my wife. Mabel Northcote had never met anybody in the least like me, and she explained to her aunt that she hoped the experience would remain unique. in those days i had not begun to mellow...i was asked to lecture on mountains...in the course of the lecture ..i noticed to my surprise that the most interested member of the audience was a girl whose disapproval i had amused myself by provoking...we carried on a long conversation about mountains through the keyhole. towards midnight i slipped a copy of a mountaineering journal under the door. 'it's getting late....it was 12 o'clock ...i had just come of age.
61 a few days later i startled Miss Northcote with the first of a long series of proposals which broke down her resistance many years later...after my 4th proposal had been rejected..
62 ..a few weeks later the lady undergraduates' magazine published a brilliant review of my articles in the Isis. i was flattered and intrigued and invited the unknown reviewer to meet me...she was beautiful and witty, a dangerous combination. we exchanged the scintillating epigrams which wer the period pieces of the Edwardian age and mortified by a sudden lull in the conversation, i proposed to her, to see what she would say. she accepted me to see what i would day. she was never in the least in love with me, but she thought that it would be fun to be engaged....
chap. 7 - portrait of a liberal
81...the Liberalism of the convinced christian must always be qualified by the conclusions which he draws from the great premiss that man is made in the image of god and therefore has right which no dictator and no democratic majority can override. Secular Liberalism, on thee other hand, with its
82 deification of the 'General Will', inevitably leads to the servile state. if man is nothing more than first cousin to the chimpanzee there is no reason why a dictator or a dictatorial majority should not put him behind bars. it is only man's supernatural estate which guarantees his person dignity and his inalienable rights.
the Renaissance, like Liberalism, had two aspects, Christian and secular, for the church wich saved the classic learning during the Dark Ages was the patron of the great revival of classic learning. Secular Liberalism had its root not in the christian but in the pagan renaissance, which denied, if only by implication, the supernatural values and accepted as its only criterion the truncated and impoverished humanism which ignores all values save those of this world. pagan humanism promised emancipation from divine authority, but condemned its dupes to inevitable tyranny, for man is free only within the framework of an authority which guarantees his rights because it respects his nature. the byzantine church of tsarist russia had its origin in the greek schism which revolted against the authority of rome. german lutheranism represented a yet further stage in the deification of private judgment.
(note: i must confess that i am puzzled as to the meaning of the last sentence and since i have not, as yet, to come across in Lunn's writing a more expanded understanding...i can only say that i am puzzled...i'm not sure if this applies...but, unfortunately my friend, converted to the roman catholic church, has not included the horror, and implications of the Inquisition, during which many people were tortured and killed for believing and steadfastly following the bible rather than the Church's authority. tyranny, in this instance and countless others through history, evidently can come from both secular and religious sources.)
the flight from authority has led neither russia nor germany to the land of liberty. no tyranny of the dark ages was more ruthless and more satanic than those which are today crushing out the last remnants of liberty from the countries in which hitler and stalin rule....
freedom survives in england because we are still a christian country with an instinctive, rather than a conscious, conviction that authority is derived from above, and that man has rights of which no democratic majority may deprive him....
83 secular liberalism was born on the shores of lake geneva in the salons of madame necker and madame de stael. its basic doctrine was defined in the proposition: 'it is contrary to the natural, innate and inalienable right and liberty and dignity of man to subject himself to an authority the root, rule and measure and sanction of which is not in himself''.
the word 'liberalism' has been the greatest asset to the Liberal Party, for the word implies that a love of liberty is the distinguishing characteristic of Liberals. (note: alas many self-named liberals have been very interested in their own liberty but not so much the same blessing for others who saw things differently.)....
liberalism, however, would never have captured the allegiance of good men had it been nothing more than selfishness disguised by a thin veneer of hypocrisy. english liberals have always included among their leaders men who believed not only in liberating themselves but also in liberating those with whose religious or political views they disagreed....
84 ...british liberalism, at its best, reflected the characteristic english virtues - tolerance, a sense of fair play and the conviction that differences should be settled by free discussion rather than by force...
86 my father's liberalism was, in the main, ideological, but his christianity had its roots in experience. his internationalism was 'progressive', but his views on wealth, and its dangers were reactionary (?), for they were derived through john wesley from the mediaeval scholastics. most christians abandon as insoluble the problem of applying the christian teaching on wealth. (?) wesley's difficulty was not to discover the solution to this problem, but to believe that a problem existed. 'where is the difficulty? he said. 'provide yourself and your dependents with simple food and plain raiment (note: see I tim. 6.6f) and give away the rest'. as a young man he discovered that he could live on 28 pounds a year. when his income rose th 400 pounds (thanks to the sale of his books) he still lived on 28 pounds and gave away the rest. 'he who has enough to satisfy his wants', wrote a mediaeval theologian, and nevertheless labours to acquire riches, either in order to obtain a higher social position, or that subsequently he may have enough to live without labour, of that his sons may become men of wealth and importance - all such are puffed up by a damnable avarice, sensuality and pride'....
87 prof. r.h. tawney, in his brilliant book Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, describes the gradual transformation of the mediaeval doctrine that the acquisition of wealth was a drudgery or temptation into the dogma that the acquisition of wealth was a moral duty...
my father...involved himself in an unfortunate controversy with methodism because he maintained the methodist missionaries would be more effective if their standard of living were more in accordance with that of those among whom they worked.
88 ...it was impossible to control my father when there was money to give away. 'money never stays with me, wrote john wesley; 'it would burn if it did. i throw it out of my hands as soon as possible lest it should find its way to my heart'. those words might have been inscribed on my father's tomb...my mother shared his bizarre views. had she taken the vow of poverty which is binding on members of religious orders, her life would have been no different. she worked in an East EWnd parish, and as an old lady of 70 she would take buses brom her work to the station before facing the long journey down to the south coast, to save the taxi fare for her charities...
89 ..wesley's famous will: 'i leave no money to anyone because i have none'.
chap. 8 - germany in defeat: a memory
92 it was at lindau that a deplorable lapse on my part defined, at the outset of our journey, the relationship between Young and myself, for it was in consequence of this lapse that he assumed the role of the helper and assigned me the role of the helpee. George Young is the most superb helper that i have ever met. he has done all the sort of things that helpers do and if only i had accepted from the first the role of helpee all might have been well. but my vanity incited me to vain and futile competition. anyone who has climbed without guides has at least acquired the art of traveling among mountains without being killed and does not readily resign himself to the role of the personally conducted passenger, which i should have done from the first. but my reaction to his super-efficiency was as ungenerous as monsignor knox's to my pseudo-efficience and though i was not shamed into helpfulness, such little talent as i have was ruined and i disgraced myself by leaving at lindau
93 a precious trunk which Young had entrusted to my care. this trunk contained food, which Young, with superb adroitness, in defiance of all wartime regulations on the subject of importing and exporting food, had smuggled through three frontiers. and it was i who left the trunk at lindau.
Young said nothing. he looked serenely contemptuous and went in search of a Red Guard. (foot. this was during the short lived communist revolution of 1919 in bavaria.) in a quiet undertone which was infinitely effective, he murmured that we were englishmen of enormous consequence and that any tampering with our possessions would lead to very serious results. a banknote changed hands. the trunk arrived a few hours later at munich, unopened and undisturbed.
my self respect might have recovered from the loss of this trunk had not George Young combined ruthless efficiency with strong silence. he talked very little, which was sad, for i have seldom met anybody who was better worth listening to when he did talk. he would have been an easier companion if he had sometimes said things which were not worth listening to. i am naturally garrulous and as such i am always at a disadvantage with the silent.
the train from lindau to munich was comfortable and well sprung - one of the few good trains left in germany. it was kept running between...as propaganda. the old railway officials still functioned, but the Red Guards were in command and the railway staff treated them with profound respect. at one station, tweny or thirty stray soldiers tried to board the train, but they were vigorously repulsed by the red guards, profoundly abused and reminded that their passes did not admit them to fast trains.
'things are getting better, remarked an austrian in my carriage. 'i was in austria just after the armistice, traveling near vienna. the soldiers boarded the train and kicked the civilians into the corridors. an officer came up and remonstratedf
94 and was promptly killed. another officer expostulated. he reminded the men that the officer they had just murdered had been through the whole campaign and had always been noted for his great consideration for the troops under his command. they killed him, too...it was a terrible time - terrible. some of the troops just commandeered any motor lorry that was handy and rode through the villages shooting off their spare ammunition'.
we slept at munich. breakfast next morning inspired me with profound respect for the tenacity of the german race, but perhaps those who in germany decided the issues of war and peace did not begin the day with black bread flavoured with aniseed, acorn coffee and turnip jam. everything in germany was erwsatz (substitute). we drank ersatz coffee, we ate ersatz bread and ersatz jam and washed ourselves with ersatz soap. at least, we should have done had not the soap brought from switzerland lasted out our visit.
aster breakfast i wandered disconsolately through munich, trying to evoke the old pre-war munich which i loved, but i could establish no link between pre-war munich and this sorrowful city, or between the cheerful bavarian crowds of the days that were dead and the long processions of despairing men in dirty, was-stained field-grey uniforms. perhaps erstz beer had helped to produce this ersatz munchen.
munich was under the control of the Soldiers and Workmen's Council. soldiers arriving there were informed by posters at the station that they should apply to this council for food and lodging; but red guards were pink rather than red, and had little use for the genuine Spartacists (foot: the german communists took the spartacists, from spartacus, who led a slave revolt in ancient rome.) who were still making trouble in berlin. the spartacists who came to munich from bedlin on propaganda bent were usually thrust into prison and sent back to berlin a few days later.
95 we left in the evening for berlin. the train was terribly overcrowded; Young inquired whether there was a carriage reserved for diplomatists on an official mission and, on receiving an affirmative reply, induced a red guard to unlock a carriage reserved for three members of the American Legation in berlin. when the americans put in an appearance, Young remarked imperturbably that he hoped they would extend the courtesy of their reserved carriage to an english diplomat and his companion. Young traveled with a complete set of alibis. he was equally impressive as the traditional diplomat and as a Left Wing intellectual with advanced views. he had provided himself with introductions to representatives of every shade of opinion from the extreme Right to the extreme left.
we fed well, Young having filled a thermos with boiling water from the railway engine and produced his camp cooker, which laid a sound foundation for breakfast. as we ate, hungry germans peered through the carriage window. we collected some food and distributed it. a depressed looking soldier with a husky voice who had just left hospital nearly cried when i handed him a sandwich.
we had registered our precious food trunk to berlin and had some difficulty in collecting it. a red guard, wearing the red brassard of the Government Sichedrheit troops, challenged us. trunks filled with food, he said, were liable to confiscation. in moments of great emergency Young always gives the impression of muttering under his breath and drops his voice to a full-blooded whisper. he had, he remarked, been treated with profound deference from the moment that he entered germany. he hoped, for the sake of the red guard, that berlin would not prove an exception to the general rule. the red guard would
96 probably have confiscated the trunk had Young shouted, but he was overawed by the self-possession (and therefore the importance) of an englishman who did not bluster or shout even when threatened with the confiscation of food.
the fish takes the water for granted and only begins to gasp when removed from its natural environment. well-to-do folk who have led sheltered lives and who have never come into contact with war or with revolution accept as inevitable and preordained a framework of civilized life. the routine appearance of eggs and bacon and crisp rolls at breakfast surprises them as little as the punctuality of the sun. it must be almost impossible for such people to realise, emotionally no less than intellectually, what it feels like to begin the day with coffee made from acorns and with black bread made largely from potatoes...
97 ...the effectiveness of our blockade and the poor quality of ersatz clothing were all too evident in the dingy clothes and the drab uniforms. the prevailing effect was one of unrelieved squalor. one does not often see a radiantly happy face even in peacetime cities, but a London tube or a Fifth Avenue bus usually reveals a cross-section of human emotions ranging from self-confidence to anxiety or even despair. the corresponding cross-section in berlin had begun with anxiety and ended with despair. it would be difficult to convey by photograph and it is impossible to suggest in words, the impression produced upon an observer from outside by this atmosphere of unrelieved gloom...
98 ..hard things have been said and with justice, of the Junkers. they lacked culture and were deficient in 'sweetness and light', but they did not lack the basic virtue - courage. the Junker had not the charm and the breeding of the Austrian aristocrat, and he lacked the mature self-assurance of our English nobility. his arrogance was apt to be raw and blustery, but he stood -none better - the iron test of war. for over four and a half years the junkers were in the forefront of the battle. when the home front collapsed they still held on grimly. some died at their machine gun outposts, some in rearguard infantry action and one and all continued to the last to hold their men together and to resit, until the High Command demanded an Armistice. when the reds seized control those who still loved the old germany called for volunteers to save her from Communism. the Junker, though he had had his bellyful of fighting, still rolled up in his thousands to volunteer...
99 ...amusing poster..represented a german a russian in conversation. (tell me, Rusky, what is this Bolshevism?), to which the Russian replied: 'Bolshevism is perfect equality. nobody has anything to eat'...
102 the memory of that long straggle of broken men, meandering through the City of Despair, haunted me after i returned to england. i wrote some articles for the Nation and other papers with no hope of influencing the movement of events. in search of sanity i called on Mr. Massingham, Editor of the Nation, for M had still kept alive the flame of all that was best in Victorian Liberalism. a Swiss statesman who read the Nation regularly throughout the war described it as the most convincing of all arguments for england. 'england, he said to me, may lose the war, but it has not lost its balance and its broad humanity. that M should be allowed to write what he pleases in the 4th year of a disastrous war is a wonderful tribute to the liberalism of your country'.
i found M in a mood of deep dejection. 'the worst thing about war, he said, is the spate of emotional stupidity that it unlooses. the English are not really vindictive. all this 'hang the Kaiser' business is alien to their real character. they'll be the first to make friends with the germans, but meanwhile we'll be saddled with a peace which will produce war in twenty years'...
104 ...i draw attention to the virtues of the aristocratic outlook, not because i have any illusions about aristocracy, but because i have even fewer about pure democracy. social reformers may be divided into two groups: those who wish to make the poor richer and whose ideal is to level up and transform Demos into an aristocrat and those who wish to make the rich poorer and who are anxious to level down the aristocracy to the level of Demos. i have every sympathy with the former and none with the latter. i believe that any system of government will work if the rulers are sincerely determined to translate christianity into action, and that no system can work if it is corrupted either by the selfishness of the rich or by the envy of the poor. i find it difficult to understand how any man of adult intelligence can accept with uncritical enthusiasm any of the existing varieties if either authoritarian or democratic government or regard any system as more than a makeshift, for our effective choice is not between the good and the bad, but between the bad and the worse. it is, i think, the duty of the political critic to draw attention to the defects of the existing order and the virtues of the order which it has replaced, for it is only by comparing the good in what has gone with the evil in what has come that we are saved from self-complacency. representative government, which at least allows us the pleasure of getting rid of those who misrepresent us, is certainly better than any other rival system, but that is no particular reason why we should be uncritical in our adulation of King Demos or assume that modern democracy is the best form of representative government..
107 ...Mr. Belloc's epigram on 'The Pacifist' crystallises our post war search for universal peace:
pal Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight,
but Roaring Bill, who killed him, thought it right.
our British Ebenezers have made things delightfully easy for the Roaring Bills.
chap. 11 -adventures in psychical research
chap. 12 - the conflict between science and atheism
128 ...the true scientist should be above the snobbery which refuses to investigate phenomena merely because they are accompanied by undignified trimmings, such as silly spirit chatter, floating tambourines, and such. to the true scientist no fact is common or unclean.
chap. 13 - the return to reason
138 my deepening distrust of Huxleyism and of much that paraded itself as modern thought, was reinforced by reading, during 1929, Science and the Modern World, by Prof. A. N. Whitehead, a distinquished non-catholic philosopher and mathematician and a Fellow of the Royal Society. 'the Reformation and the scientific movement were two aspects of the historical revolt which was the dominating intellectual movement of the later Renaissance...it is a great mistake to conceive this historical revolt as an appeal to reason. on the contrary it was through and through an anti-intellectualist movement...based on a recoil from the inflexible rationality of mediaeval thought. the Middle Ages formed one long training of the intellect of western europe in the sense of order...the habit of definite exact thought was implanted in the european mind by the long dominance of scholastic logic and scholastic divinity. the habit remained long after the philosophy had been repudiated, the priceless habit of looking for an exact point and sticking to it when found...i do not
139 think that i have even yet brought out the greatest contribution of mediaevalism to the formation of the scientific movement. i mean the inexpugnable belief that every detailed occurrence can be correlated to its antecedents in a perfectly definite manner, exemplifying general principles. without this belief the incredible labour of scientists would be without hope...to this day science has remained an anti-intellectualist movement based on a naive faith'.
..the Catholic Church, i discovered, does not appeal to faith or expect the potential convert to accept her claims until he has satisfied himself that they are rational. she approaches the bible in the same spirit in which she approaches any other historical book, and applying the method of history proves that Jesus Christ established His claim to be God by rising from the dead. it is not until she has proved the credentials of the Church
104 by reason that she asks us to accept on the authority of the Church doctrines which we have no independent means of verifying.
(note: Lunn did become a Roman Catholic convert. i have tremendous respect for him in many areas but would have to part a bit here...from the authority of the Church to the authority of God's word..i hope to see him in heaven though!)
153 ...it is difficult for those who have once subscribed to the creed of humanism, the belief that man is the measure of all things, to overcome their prejudice against the alleged intolerance of a Church which refuses to compromise on the doctrines which she proclaims as true. the modern world confuses two very different things - intolerance of error and intolerance of men in error. the former is usually right, the latter usually wrong.
i am, for instance, an uncompromising bigot on the question of the multiplication table, whereas Prof. haldane is willing to admit the posiblility of exceptions to the statement that 2 x3 = 6. i am intolerant of his heretical distrust of certain truth, but, even if i were a dictator, i should not intern Prof. Haldane, or deny him the freedom to proclaim his views. moreover, i do not assume that those who are orthodox on the multiplication table are necessarily, in other respects, more intelligent or better citizens than those who trifle with mathematical heresies. 'Love men, slay errors, said St. Augustine and where ecclesiastics have followed this golden rule they have remained true to the spirit of Christ, who was
154 uncompromising in his condemnation of fashionable sins and infinitely tolerant of unfashionable sinners.
a man is not necessarily a bigot because he believes in the Resurrection or comes to the conclusion the Christ founded a visible Church and that the Church is question is the Roman
Catholic church. many bigots have rejected as inconclusive the evidence on which the church bases her claims and many men of wide tolerance have accepted those claims. the real criterion of bigotry is less the nature of our beliefs than our attitude to those who do not share our beliefs. there are bigots in every church. bigots....
the ever-growing peril of militant atheism is achieving at least one good result. it is forcing christians to realise that the beliefs which unite them are more important than those which divide them. there are, i suppose, catholics who believe that all protestants go to hell, but i have never met them. nor have i met a catholic who would dissent from the following pronouncement by dr. Karl Adam, catholic priest and professor of theology: 'not merely a christian life, but a complete and lofty christian life, a life according to the 'full age of Christ', a saintly life, is possible - so catholics believe - even in definitely non-catholic communions'.
during the spanish war my father appealed in the columns of The Times for a united Christian Front. Cardinal Hinsley in the course of his reply wrote as follows: 'Pius XI explicitly appeals in his letter Divini Redemptoris to all who believe in God. between those who believe in Christ as true God and true man and worship Him there should be charity - an effort to draw nearer to Him and so nearer to one another. this means not only friendly relationship but mutual help in defending the civilisation which is founded on the truths enunciated in the Nicaean Creed. Sir Henry rightly insists on this bond between us. let us be frank. there have been in the past misunderstandings and faults of manner on both sides and of temper or a
155 lack of charity in controversy. these, our failings and differences, the enemies of religion have exploited. but the realisation of a common peril is drawing christians together in practical sympathy'.....
chap. 14 - king albert of the belgians
156 a strange moral transformation , wrote theat great american philosopher william james, has within the last century swept over our western world. we no longer thing that we are called upon to face physical pain with equanimity. the way in which our ancestors looked upon pain wa an eternal ingredient of the world's order and both caused and suffered it as a matter of course, fills us with amazement. we wonder that human beings could have been so callous'.
these lines were written before the Great War proved that modern man was (still) ...capable
25 years have ps
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