Chapter 19 - Page 2

"those 'high'
services are fast becoming pure Formalism. More and more the people
are beginning to regard them as 'performances,' in which they only
'assist' in the French sense. And it is specially bad for the little
boys. They'd be much less self-conscious as pantomime-fairies.
With all that dressing-up, and stagy-entrances and exits, and being
always en evidence, no wonder if they're eaten up with vanity,
the blatant little coxcombs!"

When we passed the Hall on our return, we found the Earl and Lady
Muriel sitting out in the garden. Eric had gone for a stroll.

We joined them, and the conversation soon turned on the sermon we had
just heard, the subject of which was 'selfishness.'

"What a change has come over our pulpits," Arthur remarked, "since the
time when Paley gave that utterly selfish definition of virtue,
'the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for
the sake of everlasting happiness'!"

Lady Muriel looked at him enquiringly, but she seemed to have learned
by intuition, what years of experience had taught me, that the way to
elicit Arthur's deepest thoughts was neither to assent nor dissent,
but simply to listen.

"At that time," he went on, "a great tidal wave of selfishness was
sweeping over human thought. Right and Wrong had somehow been
transformed into Gain and Loss, and Religion had become a sort of
commercial transaction. We may be thankful that our preachers are
beginning to take a nobler view of life."

"But is it not taught again and again in the Bible?" I ventured to ask.

"Not in the Bible as a whole," said Arthur. "In the Old Testament,
no doubt, rewards and punishments are constantly appealed to as motives
for action. That teaching is best for children, and the Israelites
seem to have been, mentally, utter children. We guide our children
thus, at first: but we appeal, as soon as possible, to their innate
sense of Right and Wrong: and, when that stage is safely past,
we appeal to the highest motive of all, the desire for likeness to,
and union with, the Supreme Good. I think you will find that to be the
teaching of the Bible, as a whole, beginning with 'that thy days may be
long in the land,' and ending with 'be ye perfect, even as your Father
which is in heaven is perfect.'"

We were silent for awhile, and then Arthur went off on another tack.
"Look at the literature of Hymns, now. How cankered it is, through and
through, with selfishness! There are few human compositions more
utterly degraded than some modern Hymns!"

I quoted the stanza

"Whatever, Lord, we tend to Thee,
Repaid a thousandfold shall be,