Dawn of All by Robert Hugh Benson (100 best novels of all time .TXT) 📖

been appointed by an overwhelming majority in the House. The proposal had been brought forward suddenly by the Government, and with a speed and an employment of business-like methods that seemed very strange to the man who had lost his memory, and who still had hanging about him a curious atmosphere of earlier days, the Commission had despatched an immense amount of work within three weeks.

It was impossible to know how far negotiations had got; but even the Cardinal himself was taken by surprise when he received an invitation to attend the sitting of the Commission. He sent for Monsignor Masterman at once.

"You will attend me, Monsignor, please. I shall have to appear alone, but I should like you to be at hand."

It was with very much confused emotions that Monsignor found himself, a day or two later, walking up and down a corridor in the House of Representatives. He had arrived with the Cardinal, had gone up the broad staircase behind him, and had followed him even into the committee-room. A long table faced him as he entered, and he noticed with an odd little thrill how every man sitting there, from the white-faced, white-haired man at the head, down to the clean-shaven, clever-looking young man nearest the door, had risen as the two ecclesiastics came in. The table, he noticed, was strewed with papers. An empty chair stood at the lower end of the table--a red chair, he saw, with gilded wood.

The Cardinal sat down. The rest sat down, all in silence. Monsignor placed the despatch-box in front of his chief, opened it, laid a few books in order, and went out. . . .

Even now, in spite of all the knowledge that he had, and the constant contemplation of the cold facts of the case, it seemed to him, as on a dozen occasions before since his lapse of memory, as if life were not so real as it seemed. Somewhere, down in the very fibre of him, was an assumption that England and Catholicism were irreconcilable things--that the domination of the one meant the suppression of the other. Certainly history was against him. For more than a thousand years Church and State in England had been partners. It was but for four hundred years--and those years of confusion and of the gradual elimination of the supernatural--that the two had been at cross-purposes. Was it not historically certain therefore that, should the Supernatural ever be reaccepted in all its force, a partnership should again spring up between a State that needed a Divine authority behind its own, and the sole Institution which was not afraid to stand out for the Supernatural with all its consequences? Theology was against him; for if there was anything that theology taught explicitly, it was that the soul was naturally Christian, and therefore imperfect without the full Christian Revelation.

And yet, as he walked, he was disturbed. The proposed Establishment of the Church by the State appeared to him uncharacteristic of both--of the Church, since he still tended to think that she must in her essence be at war with the world; of the State, since he still tended to think that that too, in its essence, must be at war with religion. In spite of what he had seen, he had not yet grasped with his imagination that which both experience and intellect justified as true--namely, that it is the function of the Church to guide the world, and the highest wisdom of the world to organize itself on a supernatural basis.

He walked up and down, saying nothing. At one end of the long corridor a couple of secretaries whispered together on a settee; at the other he saw passing and repassing hurrying figures that went about their business. Doors opened occasionally, and a man came out; once or twice he saluted an acquaintance. But all the while his attention remained fixed upon the door numbered XI, behind which this quietly significant affair proceeded. The whole place seemed a very temple of stillness. The thick carpet underfoot, the noiseless doors, the admirable system of the place--all contributed to create a great solemnity.

He tried to remind himself that he was present at the making of history, but it was useless. Again and again, as, with an effort, he forced the principles before his mind, his attention whirled off to a detail--to a contemplation of his chief taking his seat in the House of Lords, and to the fabric of the carpet on which he walked; to the silent whisper of one of the two conversational secretaries; to a wonder as to the form of prayer with which the first professedly Catholic Parliament in England for more than four hundred years would open.

Then he checked himself, reminded himself of certain old proverbs about cups and hares, reflected that Socialism was not beaten yet (in Father Jervis's phrase), as recent events in Germany had shown. . . .

Once as he turned at the end of the corridor farthest from the secretaries, an interesting little incident happened. A door opened abruptly, and a man coming out quickly almost ran against him. Then the man took off his hat and smiled.

"I beg your pardon, Monsignor . . . I . . . I can guess your business here."

Monsignor smiled too, a little guiltily. He recognized the Socialist leader who had called on him a few months before.

"Yes: and I'm afraid you don't approve," he said.

Mr. Hardy made a little deprecatory gesture, still holding his hat in his hand.

"Oh! I'm a believer in majorities," he said. "And there's no doubt you have the majority. But----"

"Yes?"

"I hope you will be merciful. That is your Gospel, you know."

"You think we have the majority?"

"Oh, certainly. The enfranchisement of women settled all that. They are always clerical, you know."

Monsignor felt the point prick him. He riposted gently.

"Well, you will have to take refuge in Germany," he said.

The face of the other changed a little; his eyelids came down just a fraction.

"That's exactly what I'm going to do, Monsignor--I--but I think there's somebody wanting you."

Monsignor turned. There was a hand beckoning him from behind a face, as if in agitation, from the entrance to door No. XI.

"If you'll excuse me," he said, and hurried off.

"I thought you'd like to be present at the end, Monsignor," whispered the member who had beckoned him. "The Cardinal is just speaking."

Committee room number XI seemed strangely quiet, as the prelate slipped in behind his friend and stood motionless. One voice was speaking; and, as he tried to catch the sense, he looked round the faces, that were all turned in his direction. He saw Mr. Manners on the extreme left.

Every man sat without moving, simply listening, it seemed, with an extraordinary attention; some leaning forward, some back, with the papers disregarded on the table. A couple of recording machines stood now in the centre. Then he began to catch the words. . . .

"I think, gentlemen," said the voice from behind the high-backed chair, "that I need say no more. We have discussed at length, and I hope to your satisfaction, the particular points on which you desired information: and my answers have brought out, I think, the essence of all the conditions on which alone the Church can accept the terms proposed.

"I wish it to be brought before the House, perfectly clearly, that in her own province the Church must be supreme. She must have an entire and undisputed right over her own doctrine and discipline; for that is at the root of her only claim to be heard. In respect to any legislation which, in her opinion, touches the eternal principles of morality--in all such things, for example, as the marriage law--her supreme authority must be respected; as well as in all those other matters of the same nature upon which you have questioned me.

"But on the other side the Church recognizes, and always will recognize, the right of a free people to govern themselves; and, not only recognizes that right, but will support it with all the power at her command. I have acknowledged that in a few instances in history ecclesiastics have interfered unduly with what did not concern them--interfered, that is, not as citizens (for that is their right, in common with all other citizens)--but in the Name of Religion. Now that, gentlemen, is simply a thing of the past. If secular rulers have learned by experience, so have ecclesiastical rulers. . . . I have invited investigation into the history of the last hundred years; and I have answered those few charges that have been brought--I hope to your satisfaction." (There was a murmur of applause.)

"In secular matters, therefore, the Church will be wholly on the side of liberty. Ecclesiastical authorities, for example, would be the first to welcome a repeal of legislation as regards heresy; but, on the other hand, we fully recognize the right of a secular State to protect itself, even by the death penalty, against those who threaten the existence of the sanctions on which a secular State takes its stand. We recognize her right, I say; but I do not mean by that that you will not find a majority of ecclesiastics who hold that it is, to put it mildly, a deplorable policy and very imperfectly Christian.

"However, I have said all this before, both in public and now again in answer to your questions; and I think that, at any rate so far as I am concerned, I shall not be to blame if the nation accepts the proposed change under a misapprehension.

"You see, gentlemen, the attempt that ended fifty years ago--the attempt that was called in its day Protestantism--to establish a religion which was to be secondary in any sense to the State, failed and failed lamentably, in spite of the noble lives that were spent in labouring for such a compromise. For it is the whole essence of a Supernatural Religion to be supreme in it own province--the very adjective asserts it; and any endeavour to compromise on this entirely vital point is in itself a denial of the principle, For a while this was not perceived. Men regarded the Christian Church--or rather, that which they took to be the Christian Church--merely, on its earthly side, as an organization comparable to a State. They did not seem to see that Religion must always have a wider basis than any secular body, since it deals with eternity as well as with time, while the State, professedly, treats only of temporal things. The consequence was either conflict, whenever supernatural elements clashed with natural; or else the subservience of Religion, and its consequent loss of prestige, as well as of its supernatural character. A National Church, therefore, is a contradiction in terms, since it asserts that that which is in its very nature larger than this world must yet be confined within the limits not only of this world, but even of a part of it. . . . Well, I need not labour that point. You grasped it, gentlemen, even before you were good enough to ask me to give evidence before this Commission. I felt it, however, only right that such conditions should be reiterated and recorded before matters went any farther.

"The Church, therefore, is perfectly content to remain as she has always remained in this country for the last four centuries--a free society governing the consciences of her children. Or she is content to take outwardly and officially that position which she has always, at least tacitly, claimed, and to reassume her civil