The Conquest of Fear Part 10

He goes on, however, to add these words, which are significant: "But when He has come--the Spirit of Truth--He will guide you into all the truth."[21] No doubt that process is even now going on, and will continue to go on in proportion as our race develops. We are being guided into all the truth, through all kinds of channels, spiritual, literary, scientific, philosophical. The nave supposition that this promise was kept on the Day of Pentecost, when a sudden access of knowledge committed all truth to the apostles and through them to the Church forevermore, is contradicted by the facts. The apostles had no such knowledge and made no claims to its possession. The Church has never had it, either. "All truth" covers much more ground than do questions of ecclesiastical forms of government or of the nature of the sacraments.

"All truth" must go as far as the Universal goes, leaving nothing outside its range. "All truth" must surely be such self-evident truth as to admit of no further dissensions.

[21] St. John.

Taking truth as a circle, the symbol of perfection, we may a.s.sume that our Lord disclosed a view of a very large arc in its circ.u.mference. But of the arc which He disclosed no one group of His followers has as yet perceived the whole. At the same time it is probable that each group has perceived some arc of that arc, and an arc perceived by no other group.

"All truth" being too large for any one group to grasp, the Baptist sees his segment, the Catholic his, the Methodist his, the Anglican his, the Congregationalist his, until the vision of Christ is made up. I name only the groups with which we are commonly most familiar, though we might go through the hundreds of Christian sects and agree that each has its angle from which it sees what is visible from no other. Though there is likely to be error in all such perceptions a considerable portion of truth must be there, or the sect in question would not survive. It is safe to say that no sect comes into existence, thrives, and endures, unless it is to supply that which has been missed elsewhere.

XII

What place is there then for intersectarian or ecclesiastical arrogance?

The question is far from foreign to my subject. Fear is what arrogance feeds upon; fear is what arrogance produces; and arrogance is the special immorality of churches. To my mind the churches are almost precluded from combating fear, for the reason that arrogance is to so marked a degree their outstanding vice.

The Catholic is arrogant toward the Protestant; the Protestant is arrogant toward the Catholic; the Anglican is arrogant to him whom he calls a Dissenter in England, and merely "unchurches" in America; the Unitarian is arrogant to those whom he thinks less intellectual than himself; those who believe in the Trinity are arrogant toward the Unitarian. All other Christian bodies have their own shades of arrogance, entirely permitted by their codes, like scorn of the weak to the knights of Arthur's court. An active, recognised, and mutual arrogance all round is the reason why it is so rare to see any two or three or half a dozen Christian sects work for any cause in harmony.

Arrogance begets fear as surely and prolifically as certain of the rodents beget offspring.

Much has been written during the past fifty years on the beautiful theme of the reunion of Christendom. Rarely does any great synod or convention or council meet without some scheme or some aspiration toward this end. Every now and then a programme is put forth, now by this body, now by that, with yearning and good intentions. And in every such programme the same grim humour is to be read behind the brotherly invitation. "We can all unite--if others will think as we do." Is it any wonder that nothing ever comes of these efforts? And yet, I am persuaded, a day will dawn when something will.

XIII

"When he has come--the Spirit of Truth--he will guide you into all the truth." That will be in the course of our race-development. As step is added to step, as milestone is pa.s.sed after milestone, as we see more clearly what counts and what doesn't count, as we outgrow childishness, as we come more nearly to what St. Paul calls "mature manhood, the stature of full-grown men in Christ,"[22] we shall do many things that now seem impossible. Among them I think we shall view intersectarian arrogance as a mark of enfeebled intelligence. There will come an era of ecclesiastical climbing down. We shall see more distinctly our own segment of the arc which our Lord has revealed, and because of that we shall know that another man sees what we have missed. The Methodist will then acknowledge that he has much to learn from the Catholic; the Catholic will know the same of the Baptist; the Anglican of the Presbyterian; the Unitarian of the Anglican; and a co-operative universe be reflected in a co-operative Church. Each will lose something of his present c.o.c.ksureness and exclusiveness. G.o.d will be seen as too big for any sect, while all the sects together will sink out of sight in G.o.d.

[22] Epistle to the Ephesians.

In the meantime we are only working toward that end, but toward it we are working. Every man who believes in a church is doing something to bring that end about when he gives a kindly thought to any other church.

I say this the more sincerely owing to the fact that I myself am naturally bigoted, and such kindly thought does not come to me easily.

There are sects I dislike so much that my eyes jump from the very paragraphs in the newspapers which mention them. And yet when I curb myself, when I force myself to read them, when I force myself to read them sympathetically and with a good wish in my heart, my mental atmosphere grows wider and I am in a stronger, surer, steadier, and more fearless world.

Much criticism has been levelled at the Church within the past few years; but it should be remembered that the Church no more than government, no more than business, no more than education, can be ahead of the only partially developed race of which she is one of the expressions. She is not yet out of the world of matter, though she is emerging. In proportion as her concepts, hopes, and aims remain material she will be as incompetent as any other body with the same handicaps and limitations. In proportion as she learns to "overthrow arrogant reckonings and every stronghold that towers high in defiance of the knowledge of G.o.d,"[23] she will become the leader of the world, and our great deliverer from fear.

[23] Second Epistle to the Corinthians.

XIV

B. Of the trials brought upon us by a world of men perhaps our chief resentment springs from their unreasonableness. They are not necessary; they might be avoided; at their worst they could be tempered. For this reason, too, they take us by surprise. Those who bring them on us seem captious, thoughtless, cruel. When they could so easily offer us a helping hand they obstruct us for the mere sport of doing so. People toward whom we have never had an unkindly thought will often go out of their way to do us a bad turn.

I shall not enlarge on this, since most of us are in a position to enlarge on it for ourselves. There is scarcely an individual for whom the way, hard enough at any time, has not been made harder by the barbed wire entanglements which other people throw across his path. Almost anything we plan we plan in the teeth of someone's opposition; almost anything with which we try to a.s.sociate ourselves is fraught with discords and irritations that often inspire disgust. The worlds in which co-operation is essential, from that of governmental politics to that of offices and homes, are centres of animosities and suspicions, and therefore breeding-grounds of fear.

I suppose most grown-up people can recall the wounded amazement with which they first found themselves attacked by someone to whom they were not conscious of ever having given cause. Some are sensitive to this sort of thing; some grow callous to it; some are indifferent; and some are said to enjoy it. In the main I think we are sensitive and remain sensitive. I have been told by a relative of one of the three or four greatest living writers of English that the unfavourable comment of a child would affect him so that he would be depressed for hours.

Statesmen and politicians, I understand, suffer far more deeply in the inner self than the outer self ever gives a sign of. The fact that our own weakness or folly or recklessness or wrong-doing lays us open to a blow is not much consolation when it falls.

XV

For myself all this became more tolerable when I had fully grasped the fact that we are still to a considerable degree a race of savages. From savages one cannot expect too much, not even from oneself. We have advanced beyond the stage at which one naturally attacked a stranger simply because he was a stranger, but we have not advanced very far. The instinct to do one another harm is still strong in us. We do one another harm when it would be just as easy, perhaps easier, to do one another good. Just as the Ashanti hiding in the bush will hurl his a.s.segai at a pa.s.ser-by for no other reason than that he is pa.s.sing, so our love of doing harm will spit itself out on people just because we know their names.

Personally I find myself often doing it. I could on the spur of the moment write as many as twenty names of people of whom I am accustomed to speak ill without really knowing much about them. I make it an excuse that they are in the public eye, that I don't like their politics, or their social opinions, or their literary output, or the things they do on the stage. Anything will serve so long as it gives me the opportunity to hurl my a.s.segai as I see them pa.s.s. One does it instinctively, viciously, because like other semi-savages one is undeveloped mentally, and it is to be expected.

By expecting it from others half our resentment is forestalled. Knowing that from a race such as ours we shall not get anything else we learn to take it philosophically. If I hurl my a.s.segai at another, another hurls his a.s.segai at me, and in a measure we are quits. Even if, trying to rise above my inborn savagery, I withhold my a.s.segai, it is no sign that another will withhold his, and I may be wounded even in the effort to do my best. Very well; that, too, is to be expected and must be taken manfully.

The learning to take it manfully is what as individuals we get out of it. For the most part we are soft at heart, soft, I mean, not in the sense of being tender, but in that of being flabby.

On myself this was borne in less than a year ago. I had for some months been working hard at a picture-play which when put before the public was largely misunderstood. While some of the papers praised it others criticised it severely, but whether they praised or blamed I was seen as "teaching a lesson," a presumption from which I shrink. It is not that there is any harm in teaching a lesson if a man is qualified, but I no longer consider myself qualified. Sharing ideas is one thing, and the highest pleasure of the reason; but the a.s.sumption that because you suggest an idea you seek to convert is quite another thing. If I failed to make it plain that in this present book I was merely offering ideas for inspection, and in the hope of getting others in return, I should put it in the fire.

My picture-play once handed over to the public I experienced an intense reaction of depression. To figure through the country, wherever there are screens, as "teaching a lesson" seemed more than I could bear. It _was_ more than I could bear, till it flashed on me that I couldn't bear it merely because I was inwardly flabby. I was not taking the experience manfully. I was not standing up to it, nor getting from it that toughening of the inner fibre which it had to yield. As usual in my case, owing to an acquaintance with the Bible imparted to me in childhood, a suggestion from the Bible was that which righted me again toward cheerfulness. It came, as such things always do, without any seeking, or other operation beyond that of the subconscious self.

_Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ._[24]

[24] St Paul's Second Epistle to Timothy.

It was exactly what I needed to do--to endure hardness--to take it--to bear it--to be more of a man for it. Moreover, the idea was a new suggestion. I had not understood before that to the conquest of fear the hardening of the inner man is an auxiliary. My object had been to ward off fear so that it shouldn't touch me; but to let it strike and rebound because it could make no impact was an enlarging of the principle.

Viewing the experience as a strengthening process enabled me not only to go through it but to do so with serenity.

This, I imagine, is the main thing we are to get out of the struggle brought on us through living in a world of men such as men are to-day.

It is a pity they are not better, but being no better than they are we can get that much from the fact--the inner hardening. When, justly or unjustly, others attack or hurt or worry or anger or annoy me, the knowledge that through the very trial I am toughening within, where so often I am without moral muscle, can be a perceptible support.

XVI

C. Of the two main trials we bring on ourselves I suppose it would be only right to put sickness first.

Under sickness I include everything that makes for age, decay, and the conditions commonly cla.s.sed as "breaking up." It is becoming more and more recognised, I think, that physical collapse has generally behind it a mental cause, or a long series of mental causes too subtle for tabulation.

I shall not dwell on this, for the reason that during the past fifty years so much has been written on the subject. A number of movements for human betterment have kept the whole idea in the forefront of the public mind. It is an idea only partially accepted as yet, arousing as much opposition among the conservative as hope on the part of the progressive. Since, however, science and religion are both, in their different ways, working on it together, some principle which can no longer be questioned is likely to be worked out within the next few generations.

All I shall attempt to do now is to re-state what seems to me the fact--stated by others with knowledge and authority--that G.o.d, rightly understood, is the cure of disease and not the cause of it. There is something repugnant in the thought of Universal Intelligence propagating harmful bacteria, and selecting the crises at which we shall succ.u.mb to their effects. The belief that G.o.d sends sickness upon us amounts to neither less nor more than that. The bacilli which we try to destroy He uses His almighty power to cultivate, so that even our efforts to protect ourselves become defiances of His Will.

Surely the following incident, which gives our Lord's att.i.tude toward disease, affords a reasonable basis for our own.

"Once He was teaching on the Sabbath in one of the synagogues where a woman was present who for eighteen years had been a confirmed invalid; she was bent double, and was unable to lift herself to her full height.

But Jesus saw her, and calling to her, He said to her, 'Woman, you are free from your weakness.' And He put His hands on her, and she immediately stood upright and began to give glory to G.o.d. Then the Warden of the Synagogue, indignant that Jesus had cured her on the Sabbath day, said to the crowd, 'There are six days in the week on which people ought to work. On those days therefore come and get yourselves cured, and not on the Sabbath day.' But the Lord's reply to him was, 'Hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath day untie his bullock or his a.s.s from the stall and lead him to water? And this woman, daughter of Abraham as she is, _whom Satan had bound_ for no less than eighteen years, was she not to be loosed from this chain because it is the Sabbath day?' When He had said this all His opponents were ashamed, while the whole mult.i.tude was delighted at the many glorious things continually done by Him."[25]

[25] St. Luke.

It was not G.o.d, in His opinion, who had afflicted this woman; it was Satan, the personification of all evil. But in order that such references should not be misunderstood He had said of Satan, only a short time before, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."[26]