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First Congregational Church
of Lyme, Conn.

THE RELIGION OF
THE PLAIN MAN

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own.

THE
RELIGION OF
THE PLAIN MAN

By Father
ROBERT HUGH BENSON

BURNS G? OATES
28 Orchard Street
London W.

BENZIGER BROS
New York, Chicago
Cincinnati

All Rights Reserved
rale Divinity Library
New Haven, Conn.

First Impression, 1906.
Second Impression, 1906.
Third Impression, 1907.
Fourth Impression, 1910.

THE PREFACE
I AM perfectly aware that this book is
open to an almost innumerable multitude
of criticisms. It will be said, for example,
that it is unscholarly and unlearned; be
cause to deal with the subject of the Ca
tholic Church and to omit all patristic
literature and its consideration, and, in
stead, to take refuge in the Penny Cate
chism, is the sign of one who is afraid to
face problems. It will be said that it is rhe
torical and inexact, emotional and unintel-
lectual, contemptuous and uncharitable. I
shall be told to hold my tongue if I have
nothing better to do than to appeal to man's
weakness instead of his strength, to his
imagination rather than his reason. In fact,
so far as the book may be noticed at all by
those who do not see with me in religious
matters, I foresee quite a quantity of un
pleasant remarks.
A book itself is its only defence; and
yet it seems to me worth while, in this pre
face, to emphasize what I shall hope to
emphasize again and again in the follow
ing pages, and to say that in substance
some of those criticisms will be perfectly
true.

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
tuous uncharitableness," I am extremely
sorry if I have given any cause for this
accusation — I can only say that I have
done my best to avoid it. But I have not
attempted to avoid a poor sort of humour
now and then; for I do not see why I need
do so. There are both funny people and
funny things in this world; and we are
more and not less Catholic if we acknow
ledge their existence. But I think that I
do not anywhere attribute bad faith or in
sincerity of any kind to my opponents; and
that, after all, is the only unpardonable de
vice in controversy. Nor have I anywhere
mocked at any doctrine which has any right
to be held as sacred by anybody. I have en
deavoured to show that some intellectual
theories are absurdly impossible; but never
that spiritual experience is any thing but holy
and reverend.
Again, I have certainly appealed to man's
weakness rather than his strength, for we
have the best authority for believing that
in this God's might is made manifest. As
we may argue for the Incarnation on the
ground of man's crying need of it, so we
may deduce that man's ignorance necessi
tates a heavenly teacher.
Finally I desire all competent persons to
point out to me, if they will kindly take the
trouble, the many errors into which I may
viij

THE PREFACE
have fallen ; and I submit all those errors
unreservedly with the deepest filial piety
to the correction and admonition of my
Mother the Church. ROBERT HUGH BENSON
The Catholic ReSlory, Cambridge,
May, 1906.
P.S. — Perhaps it is unnecessary to re
mark that I have for the most part followed
in my quotations the "Authorized Version"
of the Scriptures, for reasons that will be
evident from the nature of the book.

IX

Nihil Ohstat
Arturus Stapleton Barnes,
Censor Deputatus.
Imprimi potest
?^GULIELMUS Episcopus Arindelensis,
Vicarius Generalis.
Westmonasterii, die 1 1 Junii, 1906.

THE CONTENTS
The Preface v
General View of English Religion I
Roman Catholic CharacJeristics 24

The Petrine Claims

46

Development

69

Infallibility

90

IntelleB, Emotion &? Ftfz'/^

112

7%e Exchange

125

Conclusion

134

Saint Peter in Scripture

153

Primitive Papalists

157

THE RELIGION
OF THE PLAIN MAN
I-General View of English Religion
(i)
IT would appear a ludicrous undertak
ing to attempt to deal with the Catholic
Church in six lectures, when we consider
the volumes that have been written, the
theological learning poured out, the libra
ries that yet remain to be composed on
this enormous fact. But my object, is to
deal, not with the Catholic Church as a
whole, but rather with some of its aspects
as presented to the " plain man." Even so,
no more than a bird's-eye view is possible.
I say to the "plain man"; because it was
to him, after all, that Christ came and
spoke, for him that He suffered and rose
again, for him that He instituted the means
of grace, and to him that the Gospel of
salvation is sent. The plain man, therefore,
and not the professed theologian, must, in a
sense, be the final arbiter; it is the primary
function of the theologian not to theorize
and soar, but to interpret, explain and dis-

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
close to ordinary men the mysteries of God's
revelation. From the Gospels as well as from history
we learn the perils of too much knowledge.
It was the "man in the street" who under
stood our Lord, the doctor of the law who
was perplexed and offended; it was the
over-confident, over-weighted, over-acute
scholar of the middle ages that was con
demned by Christ's Vicar; and it was
the simple and faithful, even if unlearned,
Catholic who has always been approved
by the same authority. It is necessary,
therefore, to remember that no doctrine can
be of explicit faith, no theory be a pivot of
salvation, no scheme a condition of redemp
tion, which cannot be — I do not say under
stood — but at least apprehended by the
simple folk whom Christ died to save.
The Faith may be huge and complex; but
faith is a single act.
I propose, therefore, in these lectures to
deal with my subject from this point of view,
and no other; and for this purpose to con
struct a dummy-figure with the brain of an
average man, to endow him with sincerity,
fearlessness and a hunger for God, to trace
the workings of his mind when confronted
with difficulties, to follow the fortunes of
his spiritual quest, and to attempt to under
stand and interpret the reasons that affect

VIEWo/ENGLISH RELIGION
his will. And in order to make our attempt
practical rather than theoretical, we will
place him in England, under average con
ditions; we will give him no extraordinary
opportunities; we will allow him no great
capacities beyond that for God which all
men possess; we will suppose him to have
accepted Christianity in general as the
highest representative of the mind of God,
and its Founder as divine; and to desire to
know which of its many presentations is
the true one. Lastly, for the sake of brevity,
we will give him a name, that stands on the
one side for one who was dear to our Lord
beyond all others, and on the other — from
its very simplicity — as representing an ag
gregate of those qualities I have tried to
describe. — His name is John.
i . As he looks out on to the religious world
of England to-day, he is at first confounded
by the numerous claimants on his belief.
As one who has accepted Christianity in
the main, he sets aside immediately all
those ethical and religious bodies of per
sons who repudiate that name, and even
some of those who claim it. He has nothing
to ask of Christian Science, of Mormons,
or the Abode of Love; for we must re
member that he is but a plain man, un-
coloured by fanaticism. Yet still the call
3

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
that "this is the way, let him walk in it "
is sufficiently plural to bewilder him. As
he goes down the streets of his native
town, awake for the first time to the huge
issues of life and eternity, he sees, it may
be, half a dozen places of worship, each
bearing a different name, and each, pre
sumably, claiming to be the purest well of
salvation known to man. He is almost
daunted at the beginning of his quest. How
is it possible for him, a man who has neither
leisure nor learning, and who is sufficiently
modest as to his natural infallibility, to dis
tinguish in the chorus the voice that calls
him to God?
Yet, when he makes his inquiries, talks
personally to various divines, and lays be
fore them his troubles, he is greatly re
assured by their conversation.
"You must not think,"they tell him, "that
every denomination proclaims a peculiar
faith. It is on minor points only that we
differ one from the other. This man pre
fers one discipline, that another; the hymns
of Wesley are pleasant to those who bear
his name, antipathetic to others who do not.
In the main we are at one; the great truths
of Christianity are the same to us all; our
witness is on one note though the tone
may vary, for we all base our religion upon
the written word of God; it is here in a book
4

VIEW of ENGLISH RELIGION
bound between boards; it is accessible to
all alike, as is also the free and princely
Spirit of God who assists each sincere
searcher after the Divine and brings him
to the truth that makes him free. And, if
you wish for proofs of this charity and
brotherliness, you can find them in the facts
ofthe time. We have learnt at last that what
unites us is greater than what divides us;
we are agreed, for example, that Bible
religion should be taught in the schools
without the peculiar tenets of our various
denominations; our ministers and our people
meet on the same platform for missionary,
social, ethical and devotional work, and
for every great spiritual enterprise. Read
your Bible, my dear sir, with prayer to
God, mix with your fellow-men, attend the
place of worship of any denomination that
finds a place in the Federation of the Free
Churches, and you will find that our words
are true."
It is an immense relief to John to hear
these words, for he need no longer fear
that he is called by God to decide between
claims on which he is deeply ignorant; he
thanks his friends, and he goes home with
his Bible.
Three months elapse.
2. At the close of his three months he is
5

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
not so completely at peace as he was at the
beginning; for he has found the Bible, ap-
jroached as a dogmatic work, unsuited to
lis own capacities. From his friends' words
ie had half expected to find it to be a code
of rules, an ordered creed, a collection of
precise maxims and statements. But in fact
it is something very different.
There are intricate histories of persons
who appear to be of no great or practical
importance, of tribes and peoples whose
names he cannot even pronounce. There
are innumerable stories, some inexpressi
bly touching, some apparently fantastic,
some which have an appearance of half-
truth half-fable which he hopes he is not
expected to believe. There is a quantity of
poetry which he cannot understand, al
though he draws from its reading a mys
terious pleasure that he cannot explain;
an abundance of logic of which he cannot
apprehend either the premisses or the con
clusions; a collection of splendid visions
that bewilder him; but above all the his
tory of a life set like a jewel in the midst,
so glorious, so pathetic, so triumphant
that his hunger for God increases ten
fold. But of precise statements of doctrine
there are very few. It seems then that he
must have an interpreter. "How can I
6

VIEWo/ENGLISH RELIGION
understand," he asks, "except some man
should guide me?"
He is a careful and earnest man, and he
has made notes in the course of his study;
and from these he selects three or four texts
that more particularly bewilder him. They
appear to him either so plain that he is
amazed that his friends do not give greater
evidence of their observance, or so deep
that they are beyond his understanding
altogether; and with these in his hand and
his mind alive to impressions, he consults
his friends in order.
His first interpreter is the Baptist mini
ster; and to him he puts his four selected
questions. "My dear friend," is the answer, "in
this first text, ' Except a man be born of
water and of the spirit,' etc.,* you have put
your finger on a most important matter.
That is one of our special tenets. ' Except
a man,' says the Gospel, not 'a child.' We
are most strict on the matter of what we
call believers' baptism. Besides, even if
you think that we press the text too hard,
how can an unconscious child be affected
by such a ceremony?
"With regard to your second point,
' This is My Body,'t I answer that this is
a beautiful and touching ceremony institu-
*John iii, £• fMatt- xxvi> 26>
7

The RELIGION of the PLAIN MAN
ted by our Lord, to teach us the union of
believers in Him. We practise this regu
larly in our church.
" Your third point is another matter alto
gether. It is doubtful what our Lord meant
when He apparently gave a commission
to forgive sins.* Probably it was no more
than a command to preach the saving
Gospel through which sins are forgiven. If
it was more, it has certainly died with the
apostles. You must not take this too
literally. "As respects your fourth point, 'The
Word was made Flesh,' f this is one of
the texts that demonstrate our Lord's
divinity." The next friend that John approaches
is the Salvation Army captain; but he is
astonished by the answer he receives. He
is told that the last point is indeed most
important; that if Jesus be not God there
can be no remission of sins through His
Precious Blood; but that the first three
points are wholly unimportant. Sacra
ments, he is informed, are purely external,
arbitrary symbols, that can be varied or
abolished as customs change. For baptism
the Army has practically substituted the
waving of a flag.
The Presbyterian tells him that the first
*John xx, 23. f John i, 14.
8

VIEW of ENGLISH RELIGION
two points and the last are vital; but adds
that a properly ordained minister is neces
sary to the validity of sacraments, contra
dicting the hint given by the Baptist that
every layman is a priest.
TheCongregationalist stoutly maintains
that ministers are no more than preachers,
and that every form of sacerdotalism is
contrary to the true Gospel.
The Wesleyan agrees with the Baptist,
except on the point of believers' baptism.
Children too, he says, are capable of being
incorporated into the church.
Finally the Unitarian, who claims to be
a Christian in the highest sense, tells John
that he is altogether at fault, that he has
missed the whole point of the Bible, which
is ethical not dogmatic, and still less cere
monial ; and he adds the last stone to John's
dismay by dismissing his last text alto
gether as being either the addition of a
later hand, or, if not, merely a poetical
statement of the supreme humanity of
Jesus Christ.
At the end of his week's inquiry John
returns home convinced completely of one
single fact, namely that the Bible is insuffi
cient as a guide tojtrue religion.
A month later he puts his difficulties to
a sympathetic friend. 9

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
"I am altogether puzzled," he says.
"When I took up my Bible, I soon dis
covered that I needed some sort of inter
preter who would inform me as to what
parts of it concerned vital religion. For
example, it cannot be necessary to salva
tion or even to piety to know the history
of Maher-shalal-hash-baz.* I set down,
therefore, a few explicit statements from
the New Testament — statements pronoun
ced in three cases by our Lord Him
self, and the fourth concerning His essential
nature by His most intimate friend ; and I
took them for their interpretation to those
who had told me that the true religion was
built upon the Bible, and that all Protes
tants were agreed on all vital points. Yet
of the six groups whom I so consulted
no two agreed on all the points ; one dis
missed them all, others added information
which others again denied.
"Nor can it be said that these points are
not vital. If our Blessed Lord thought it
worth while to speak so explicitly of cere
monies, it is scarcely decent of His fol
lowers to despise them. These points, too,
cannot be theoretical ; they are the most
practical of all ; they concern the begin
ning of the Christian life, its sustenance
and its cleansing. They affect, not abstrac-
* Isa. viii, i.
io

VIEW of ENGLISH RELIGION
tions, but actions. Each of my friends may
be right in his interpretation, but they
cannot all be."
"My dear fellow," answers his friend,
"you are perfectly right to be dismayed.
You have found the need of an authorized
interpreter of the Scriptures. It is, as you
say, impossible to be an undenomination-
alist and to retain the Christian faith. The
process of this new heresy is that of cor
rosion ; little by little it wears away what
has been called the impregnable Rock. If
one believes in baptism, another does not;
therefore, 'by all that is sacred in that holy
word, let us be liberal,' cries the unde-
nominationalist, ' and abolish baptism ! It
is narrow-minded and bigoted,' he says, 'if
not positively uncharitable to hold for vital
what my equally learned and holy brother
does not ! '
" Do you not see, John, that undenomi-
nationalism is a state, not a place; it is
transitory, not permanent? What is re
quired then, and what God in His mercy
has provided, is a steady authorized wit
ness and interpreter of the truth of His
Scriptures. We must have definite unchan
ging creeds for the laity, searching articles
of religion for the clergy, a liturgy that
enshrines the Faith in devotional form. In
all else there is change and decay; but it
ii

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
is in the Catholic Church of God of which
a branch happens to be established by law
in this island that the final authority is to
be found. You will find there all that you
need; all the essentials of which I have
been speaking. She uses the sacraments
which Christ ordained, and proposes to us
the Faith which He revealed. 'Grace and
Truth came by Jesus Christ.'* Grace and
truth still continue to flow to us through the
channel of the Church of England ! "
This eloquence, from the mouth of a
sincere and pious man, affects John pro
foundly; and in a few months' time he has
settled down as a communicant member
of the Church of England.
*John i, 17.

12

VIEWo/ENGLISH RELIGION

(ii)
John is sincerely happy in his new home.
He finds there all that his friend has pro
mised him — unchanging creeds, the admi
nistration of sacraments, and a prayer-
book of incomparable English. He is
attracted by the decent ceremonial, the
culture of his clergy, the music of the
choirs, and the beautiful architecture of
the church in which he worships.
He also finds there what are to him far
more important indications that he has
chosen right; he discovers genuine piety
among churchmen, sincerity, enthusiasm,
a love of God, and self-denial. He sees
communities of men and women who have
given up all to serve Jesus Christ more
perfectly; clergy and ladies labouring
among the poor; vast and generous bene
factions to church objects. It appears to
him that in a hundred ways God has set
His seal upon the Church of England. He
has caused her to increase and multiply;
she has branches in at least all English-
speaking lands as well as missions to the
heathen. On the one side she is wealthy
and respected; on the other she is devoted
and genuinely religious.
i. His first doubt as to her divine voca-
13

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
tion arises from a sermon that he attends
in an university church. As he sits there
one Sunday he is amazed to hear the
preacher, who is an eminent dignitary and
scholar, declare plainly (if words mean
anything) that the corporal resurrection of
Christ is not in its literal sense an article
of the faith. He further hears that the
Church of England is not committed to
the Virgin Birth of the Son of God in such
a manner that the laity and even the clergy
may not disbelieve it if they will.
He expects, of course, that some notice
will be taken of the sermon by authorities;
but beyond the contradiction of it by the
bishop in whose diocese the preacher minis
ters, in a sermon preached a few weeks
later, nothing takes place. There is discon
tent among John's friends, some murmurs,
a protest; and the matter drops.
John succeeds in keeping his dismay to
himself; but on hearing another dignitary
of his Church propose a change of pulpits
with his Nonconformist brethren in the
ministry, and state, almost explicitly, that
episcopal ordination is no more than a
party custom, he can no longer keep his
difficulties quiet. He consults, therefore, a
clerical friend of wide sympathies, but
belonging to the High Church party; and
receives the following answer:
14

VIEW of ENGLISH RELIGION
_ " You must not be dismayed, my dear
sir ; you must remember that men are but
men; and these, above all, Englishmen
who will have liberty at all costs. I agree
with you that it is terribly sad that our
bishops take no action; that it is scandalous
that such doctrines should be impugned;
but I always tell myself, and I tell you the
same, that we are not concerned with what
this or that man may say; — we are con
cerned only with what the Church herself
says explicitly in her creeds, her prayer-
book and her articles."
John objects that the preachers who have
offended him themselves profess obedience
to the said creeds and prayerbook; but that
they put a wholly false interpretation upon
them. "You have said it," answers his friend;
"'a wholly false interpretation.' The creeds
are clear enough, as you confess. In other
words, the Church of England as a whole
is orthodox; it is only her individual minis
ters who are unfaithful. That, then, is the
bishops' affair; not yours or even mine."
John is not wholly satisfied with this talk
of schools of thought; it seems to him that
the divine whom he has consulted is more
latitudinarian than he professes; but for the
present his doubts are quieted.
Upon hearing, however, a few months
15

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
later, two sermons on consecutive Sun
days — one declaring the Sacrament of
Penance to be a divine institution, neces
sary for the forgiveness of mortal sins
committed since baptism ; and the other
denouncing it as a blasphemous fable, in
vented by power-loving priests, clean con
trary to the pure Gospel of Christ — his
difficulties reassert themselves, and he
makes a journey to London to lay them
before a well-known authority, eminent
for his piety, his learning and his self-
denial. 2. " Where," he begins, " is the witness
of the Church of England of which I have
heard so much? I understood that she
spoke clearly on disputed points; and it
certainly appears to me that she is clear
enough on tnese matters which puzzle me
— at least her prayer-book is explicit. How,
then, is it possible that her ministers are
not silenced when they denounce the faith
she proposes to our belief? "
The clergyman smiled.
" You are on the wrong lines, sir," he
answered. "You must not take a narrow
insular view of the Church of England.
She is not an individual, she is but a mem
ber of a body; or, in technical language,
she consists here of two provinces of the
Catholic Church. I am a priest, and you a
16

VIEW of ENGLISH RELIGION
layman, ofthe Catholic Church as a whole
It is to that that we must look for guidance.
As you say, the provinces in this island
are sufficiently orthodox in the formularies
which they use to allow us to be in com
munion with them; but it is to the Undi
vided Church, supernaturally one all over
the world, that we owe allegiance."
John inquires whether the Church of
Rome is part of the Catholic Church, and
is informed that it is — and by far the most
important part ; she is bolder in her con
fessions of faith — possibly even too bold in
her detailed treatment of certain doctrines ;
but, at any rate, far more efficient in her
proclamation of them. It is her ceremonial
that should be the guide of English clergy;
her devotional and theological books that
they should study. In one point only is she
certainly unorthodox, and that is in her
claim that all must of necessity pay their
allegiance to the Pope of Rome.
John passes over this last point, for it is
strange to him; and recurs once more to
his difficulty with regard to the sermons
he has just heard.
"My dear sir," answers his friend, "you
cannot be more grieved than I am; but I
assure you that it is comparatively unim
portant. Hold fast to the fact that you are
a Catholic, incorporated and sustained in
17 2

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
the Church's supernatural life by Christ's
own sacraments. The gates of hell cannot
Erevail against her. Remember that you
ave been set here by God's providence
to defend a difficult outpost; maintain your
own personal faith and courage by fre
quenting those same sacraments; and look
for guidance, not to the conflicting cries of
individual preachers, but to the voice of
God Himself, proclaiming, through the
mouth of the whole Catholic Church, the
truths of revelation."
Once more John is uplifted and helped
by such words, and returns home confident
in his position, and inspired by the thought
that he is a Catholic in a larger sense than
he had dreamed, set by God in an honour
able and difficult post.
3. The following summer he takes his
family to France, and, as he has been di
rected to do by his adviser, attends Mass in
the Roman Catholic church. But he is not
content with this : since he is a Catholic, he
has right to sacraments here as in Eng
land, and on Saturday evening presents
himself at the confessional.
Before he has uttered many sentences,
the priest's voice demands whether he is a
Catholic. John, after a moment's hesitation,
answers in all sincerity that he is; but the
18

VIEW of ENGLISH RELIGION
priest is not satisfied : Is he a Roman Ca
tholic? Is he in communion with the Pope
of Rome?
No, answers John; he is an English
Catholic, in communion with Canterbury
and York; he is a member of that branch
which God has established in England.
The priest, understanding his good faith,
explains to him gently that he is unable to
give him absolution; this Englishman is
not a Catholic in the Catholic sense ofthe
word; and, on being pressed, confesses
that no Catholic priest in France, Germany,
Italy, Spain, Mexico — not in the whole
world, can give absolution to any man who
is not under obedience to, and in open com
munion with, the Pope of Rome; and John,
after protesting against these uncatholic
terms of communion, leaves the church.
He has discovered, therefore, by the time
that he returns to England that the theory
held by his latest spiritual adviser is repu
diated by the rest ofthe Church with which
he claims a supernatural union, and he pays
him a visit to demand a further explanation.
It is then that he receives a full ex
position of what has been called "geogra
phical Christianity."
The Church, he is informed once more,
is in many lands. In England its lawful
member is called the Church of England ;
19

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
in France, it is the Church of France, though
incidentally united to the see of Rome.
Yet it is the same Church here as there;
the same faith, the same sacraments.
"How is it the same faith?" asks John,
"when in France Catholics believe that
union with the Pope is essential and in
England they do not?"
"That is not a vital point," answers his
friend; "the Roman Catholics have added
to the faith in that matter. We must agree
to differ."
A memory comes up like an echo from
the past. Has not John heard that talk be
fore? Was it not precisely that which his
undenominational acquaintances said of
such things as Baptism and Communion ?
And is it any more possible to say of this,
than of those, that it is not vital?
"Then who is to decide?" he cried.
"The Catholic Church," answered the
clergyman. "But that is begging the question," an
swered John, in a flash of illumination. "It
is precisely that which has to be decided :
the point is, what is the Catholic Church?
For I see the necessity of having one!"
The clergyman smiled again.
"It is a matter of faith, he said,— "of
conviction." But John interrupted him.
20

VIEW of ENGLISH RELIGION
"Will you tell me," he said, "a little
about the Roman Catholics? I feel bound
to ask that."
When John went away that evening, he
was more puzzled than ever. It seemed that
the Roman Catholics were dangerous
people; their priests not altogether trust
worthy; their people unintellectual and
uncultured. It appeared, too, that there
was something which his friend called
"glamour " about them, in spite of his ad
miration for them. Men were dazzled and
stupefied by their worship, the atmosphere
of their churches, the splendour of their
ritual. And yet he felt that he could not but in
quire. First, it was impossible to treat them like
a small sect. There were between five and
six millions of them in England, and about
two hundred and fifty millions of them in
the whole world.
Secondly, it appeared that they were of
a startling unanimity in the matters of
faith — so startling that it was called "rigid
and iron uniformity," and that, in spite of
the fact that they consisted of every race,-
nation, character, language and colour
under the sun. Schools of thought seemed
practically non-existent. And John was
weary by now of being told that flat
21

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
contradictions were but aspects of one
truth. Thirdly, it seemed to John that if autho
rity did not lie here, it lay nowhere.
" It may be all true," he said to himself,
" all that I have heard to-night. It may be
that they have added to the faith, that they
are untrustworthy, falsifiers of history, per
secutors, implacable, schismatic. I know
that I do not like their customs, their
mumblings of the Communion service,
their innumerable ceremonies, their for
malism, their irreverence, the appearance
of their priests, the dirt in their churches.
I do not like them at all. Yet I cannot neg
lect to inquire what they have to say for
themselves. It certainly seems to me that
they claim monstrous privileges for their
Pope; in fact they seem to set him on the
very throne of God, as St Paul said they
would.* Yet it seems to me also that, so
far as I have inquired, there is no help
anywhere else. I have found the Bible in
sufficient as a dogmatic treatise; and the
undenominationalists deceptive in their
claim to interpret it. The Church of Eng
land bears no clearer witness, for she has
no living voice to expound the meaning of
her own formularies when they are dis-
* 2 Thess. ii, 3, 4.
22

VIEW of ENGLISH RELIGION
puted by her ministers — or, at any rate, she
does not raise it.
" Geographical Christianity is simply in
comprehensible to me. I am no scholar, it
is true, but yet I believe that Christ came
to teach me truth as well as to scholars. I
do not understand how what is Catholic in
France is heretical in England. And, there
fore, it appears to me that unless there is
somewhere an authority commissioned by
God to tell me what to do and believe, an
authority which can silence her servants
when they attack her pronouncements, an
authority which possesses and uses her
voice to answer new fancies or corroborate
new discoveries — unless there is this some
where, the Christian religion appears to me
to be little less than mockery. I am bidden
to believe, but am not informed by God
what to believe.
" I must, therefore, look into this new
matter; I must read the Gospels again with
the Roman claims in my mind; I cannot set
aside two hundred and fifty millions of
Christians who are united, when my friends
are disunited, as unworthy of attention.
" Lastly, also, it is of course just barely
possible — though exceedingly unlikely —
that there is more in these claims than I
have hitherto been led to believe, fust pos
sibly they may be true! "
23

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
II-Roman Catholic Characteristics
(i)
WILL begin," says John, "in study-

I

ing the life of Jesus Christ as de
scribed in the Gospels. I cannot explain on
what authority I receive these Gospels as
trustworthy, but I must begin somewhere,
and I will assume that they are true. At
any rate they touch me more profoundly
than anything I have ever read."
Here then are a few of the points that he
notices in his course of reading.
First, his attention is arrested by the tone
of authority in which Christ speaks.
Here was one who came as a teacher
and prophet to a nation specially favoured
by God — a nation which had received a
law at any rate far in advance of the law
of any other nation in its high standard, its
appeal to the heart, its sense of the Divine.
Christ acknowledged all this; He spoke
unmistakably of the salvation to be found
among the Jews;* He conformed Himself
to the requirements of that law.f
Yet He appears to have set Himself, with
what must have appeared nothing less than
brutality to some of those who heard Him,
* John iv, 22 t John v, i ; Matt, xvii, 27.
24

CATHOLIC CHARACTERISTICS
to trample deliberately on sacred traditions,
holy prejudices, authorized interpretations,
and even parts of the law itself.
" It was said by them of old time," He
said, "yet I say unto you. . ."* He denounced
small pieties, ineffective aspirations — "Not
every one that saith . . . Lord, Lord shall
enter into the kingdom of heaven, "f When
His disciples, thinking to please Him,
pointed reverently to the glorious temple
of the King of heaven, He cried out that
not one stone of it should be left upon an-
other.J While with one breath He indi
cated the Scribes and Pharisees as ruling
with the authority of Moses, § with another
He denounced woe to them, named them
hypocrites and deceivers, || and bade His
friends beware of their doctrine.^ He, as it
seemed almost parenthetically, struck with
a biting sentence or two at the whole
scheme of Sabbath-keeping,** matured
through centuries, and all designed to the
honour of God and repose of men.
His methods then were utterly dissimi
lar from those that had worked so well and
for so long. He taught not as the Scribes, ft
Instead of appealing to this Rabbi or that,
* Matt, v, 27, 28. f Matt, vii, 21.
% Matt, xxiv, 1,2. § Matt, xxiii, 2.
|| Matt, xxiii, 14. II Matt, xvi, 11.
** Mark 11,27. tt Mark 'l> 22-
25

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
as was the custom of the schools, weigh
ing the evidence of one commentator
against another, showing what was of faith,
what of opinion, and what for liberty, He
spoke now serenely, now sternly, but al
ways as with personal and final authority;
and it was this characteristic of imperious-
ness that was especially marked by those
who heard Him. " [They] were astonished at
His doctrine; for He taught them as one
having authority, and not as the Scribes."*
Such peremptory methods did not make
for peace, anymore than the doctrine which
He declared; and He Himself confessed
frankly that it was so. " I came," He said ex
pressly, "not to send peace, but a sword."f
" I came," He said implicitly in a splendid
paradox, " not to unite men but to divide
them. The sword of My word shall come
down between husband and wife, mother
and child. Families shall be wrecked through
My Gospel, friends estranged, love-ties
severed. Not peace; but a sword."J
When John had arrived at this point in
his meditations, the irresistible parallel
struck him. Was not all this precisely what
is alleged against the divine claims of the
Church of Rome ?
All other denominations with which he
* Matt, vii, 28, 29. f Matt, x, 34.
% Matt, x, 35-37.
26

CATHOLIC CHARACTERISTICS
has come into contact lay claim to what is
called charity and sweet reasonableness.
The Wesleyan and the Baptist vie with one
another in proclaiming that truth is not
vital, that every man must follow his own
conscience, that no man may either deliver
or contradict his brother. The Church of
England rejoices in her own comprehen
siveness, cries out that she is National and
therefore must truly represent the mind of
the nation, holds out liberty of thought
within wide limits as her glory and her
pride. It is true, reflects John, that there
are men within her who do not, but so
long as others are permitted to contradict
them, and to hold opposing views, the
Church of England so far as she has a voice
supports these and not those. It is her
desire to support as far as may be the law
ofthe land (in itself an estimable ambition);
but she carries this so far as still to include
among her bishops those who openly in
struct their clergy that when the laws of
Church and State clash, it is the latter that
must be obeyed; for the Church of England
is by law established.
John places in contrast with this wide
spirit of liberty the accusations cast against
the Church of Rome ; and they are accusa
tions undoubtedly true in substance.
She teaches " not as the scribes."
27

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
"I will have no schools of thought," she
cries, "within my pale on matters that have
come under my attention. Theologians
may dispute and argue and deduce — it is
their function to do so; but when I speak,
they must be silent or go out. It was said
by them of old time — this or that was al
lowed in the Primitive Church — I dare say
it was; but that was of old time. Now,
I say unto you. I claim to be alive, not dead
or entranced; I claim therefore the right to
enlarge and amplify my statements on
matters of doctrine, to reverse, if need
be to elaborate, my decisions on discipline.
More than this, the life that inspires me is
divine; it is that same energy that burned
in my Lord, and it is in His tones that
I speak, and with His authority that I de
fine. God has promulgated His command
ments on Sinai and the Mount of Beati
tudes; I add to those my precepts, and all
alike bind the conscience of those that hear.
" I am here to declare God's truth to men,
not to reassure them that there is no such
thing, or to content them with a vague and
shifting creed or a declaration that a lack
of precise thinking is the highest mental
liberty. But I am here to tell them truth; for
it is the truth and not doubt or hesitation
or indifference that makes them free.*
* Cf. John viii, 32.
28

CATHOLIC CHARACTERISTICS
" On matters that touch morality I am
ready, if need be, to contradict with the
utmost emphasis merely human enact
ments. It is said by them that sit in Parlia
ment, A divorced man may marry a new
wife. I say unto you, He may not : and I deny
my sacraments to those who prefer man
to me in the matter. You tell me that com
mon sense demands that an innocent
woman wedded to a brute should not be
cut off from domestic happiness. I do not
care what common sense says; I declare
before God that (brute or saint) she is
a wedded woman till death steps in to free
her. You tell me that I am cruel; that I bring
ruin into families wherever I go, that I
divide mother and daughter, father and
son, that I am authoritative, imperious and
domineering. I answer that I come to bring
not peace but a sword ; that my children
have found and always will find that their
foes are those of their own household, that
I am authoritative and imperious, as my
Lord was; for I speak not as other men,
not as human legislators and politicians
who prefer peace to truth, not as scribes
who weigh opinion against opinion, but as
the organ of the Supreme Voice, and the
authorized interpreter of the Divine Will."
It is too much for John, and he passes to
a second point. 29

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
2. A train of thought has been suggested
to him by Christ's words that although
He was going to the Father,* yet He would
still be with His own until the end of the
world.f " Let us picture," says John, " what
would have happened if these words were
carnally fulfilled, and Christ were still on
the earth in bodily form. We shall under
stand better so what is the effect of His
spiritual presence; for His spiritual pre
sence, unconfined by laws of space, cannot
at any rate be less effectual than would
have been His earthly presence in Jerusa
lem or Rome."
First then, with reference to truth, he
meditates, how simple would have been
the appeal! When disputes arose, on vital
matters at any rate, they could have been
settled within a few days.
" Tell us," he imagines a deputation say
ing, "tell us, Lord, what is the meaning of
Thy words, 'This is My Body. 'J There are
some of us that are inclined to hold that
the words are literal, and that in the holy
Sacrament we have Thy Body actually and
really present upon our altars. Others of us,
who claim equal piety and learning, de
clare that such a thing is impossible, that
* John xvi, 28. -f Matt, xxviii, 20.
% Matt, xxvi, 26.
30

CATHOLIC CHARACTERISTICS
the significance can be no more than a
symbolical one; others again name the pre
sence virtual, not real; others declare that
the presence is real to the receiver, not in
the bread. From this divergence there are
countless quarrels, disputes and recrimina
tions. We confess with shame that the sac
rament of unity has been for many amongst
us a sacrament of discord and hatred.
"Now can it be doubted," John asks
himself, "that an answer would have been
given? "Well, it is only an imagination. Jesus
Christ is not here to decide the matter and
interpret His own dark saying. I go to this
and that teacher, and each tells me the
same; it is a mysterious saying; it is not
right to go beyond the words of Scripture ;
it must be left as He left it; the truth is to
be found not in theology, but in the loving
spirit that tastes and finds that the Lord is
gracious : I must be content — yes, all tea
chers tell me this, but one. There is one
who is not content so to leave it, and who
claims with awful arrogance to define the
Lord's own words in the terms of a ques
tionable human philosophy. She sweeps
aside Zwinglians, Calvinists, Lutherans
and the rest; and tells me expressly that
the substance of the bread is changed
into the substance of the Body of the
3»

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
Lord; she adds that where the Body is
there must be the Blood, and since Christ
is alive and undivided, where His Body is
must be His Soul and His Divinity. She
names for the theologians these two doc
trines, Transubstantiation and Concomi
tance, and she bids me, who am a simple
layman, worship God and Man, Body,
Blood, Soul and Divinity really actually
and literally present upon her altars."
John turns to his Bible again, grieved at
the audacity, and once more he reads:
"Lo, I am with you always, even unto the
end ofthe world."*
He remains a moment staring at the
page as the thought develops.
"If then He is here, my imagination is no
imagination, but a fact. He is here, to decide
these questions, to give peace to troubled
minds, to interpret His own dark sayings !
Where then shall I find Him? In England
where I am put off with an evasion —
amongst those who repudiate any power
to lay upon men's consciences a greater
burden than Scripture : in other words, who
refuse to enlighten the intolerable burden
of an obscure and vital text? Or shall I find
Him among those who alone are not afraid
to express the meaning ofthe text in intelli
gible language, who do not shrink from
* Matt, xxviii, 20.
32

CATHOLIC CHARACTERISTICS
catching up a philosophy for the purpose
of further illumination, who, in other words
claim to speak on the authority of Him who
first uttered the dark saying, and to answer
men, after Christ's own method, as they
can understand it?
Is not, therefore, the denial of a power to
amplify His words, a denial of the continuous
presence that He promised?"

33

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
(ii)
A reaction of course, or rather a series of
them, is always to be found in every soul that
is making any advance in the intellectual re
gion; there are moments when the reason,
exhausted, allows itself to be dominated
once more by the imagination which surges
up from the realm of prejudices, old faiths,
old customs, ideas implanted in childhood
or overheard and assimilated; and for a
time asserts itself fiercely.
I propose to treat here of four such typi
cal assaults which took place at various
times in John's mind. The first was named
" Universal Distrust."
i. "Why is it," he asked himself, "that
the whole world is so leagued against the
Roman Catholics? After all, the common
sense of the world is a divine instinct, be
cause it is so intensely human. I do not
mean the common sense of notoriously bad
people, of atheists, immoral, outlaws; but
the sober feeling of GoD-fearing nations.
In England, for example, this distrust is
no less obvious than it was in Elizabeth's
reign, although it takes a less vivid form.
A man applies for a situation; his testimo
nials are satisfactory, and all goes well
until his religion is discovered to be of this
denomination. After that he is told that he
34

CATHOLIC CHARACTERISTICS
need not present himself again. A young
man wins a scholarship, and the Fellows of
the college on learning of his faith, strain
every nerve to get rid of him. A Roman
priest walking harmlessly down the street
is pointed out and eyed as if he were carry
ing an infernal machine in his tail pocket.
A convert is treated among his friends as
if he were newly come from a lunatic asy
lum; he is either humoured or contradicted
on every possible occasion. In France there
is no need to give illustrations beyond
mentioning that that country has taken
down the cross from the Pantheon for the
third or fourth time, and the crucifix from
her law-courts; she has been compelled to
get rid of thousands of her citizens for no
crime but that of their religion; she is con
templating making the wearing ofthe cleri
cal or religious habit in public an act of re
bellion. Spain, where the Roman Church
still holds sway, is despised by the entire
civilized world. Italy is full of confiscated
monasteries, and the Pope is a sort of
prisoner in his own house and grounds. Ire
land, as is well known, is the one sore spot
in the British Empire."
He turns once more to the Gospels and
Acts, and is confronted by the following
remarks : " Ye shall be hated of all men? *
* Mark xiii, 13.
35

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
That certainly cannot be applied to any
denomination other than the Roman Ca
tholic. And there is no exception made as
to who shall hate. It is not the atheists,
outlaws, adulterers who shall hate; on the
contrary it is the reproach of the Roman
Catholics as it was of Christ Himself, that
she is the friend of sinners, and therefore
presumably the abettor of sin. "All men"
includes just those persons of whom John
has been thinking — the sober, GoD-fearing,
civilized inhabitants of the world ; in fact,
Christ Himself, amplifying His warning,
declares that the enemies of His friends
shall bring them before religious and civil
courts and shall believe their own hostility
to be an act of service to God.
"If ye were ofthe world, the world should
love its own; but because ye are not of the
world, therefore the world hateth you."*
The world — that is to say once more,
the embodiment of the common-sense,
practicable, reasonable, civilized spirit. It
was this that called the Apostles mad and
drunk, that named them upsetters of the
world, seditious, disloyal, godless; it was
this that accused their children a century
later of nameless crimes in the dark, of
impiety and atheism. And it is precisely
this spirit to-day that in England distrusts
* John xv, 19
36

CATHOLIC CHARACTERISTICS
Roman priests, denounces the Roman
system, despises converts; that in France
has torn down the crucifix, that smiles
pityingly at Spain and Ireland, and would
if it could drown them in the meshes of its
own broad liberty.
2. John revolts at his own reflections.
"This is very well," he cries, "but how
useless to pretend that these papists are
hated because of their piety — because of
their love for Jesus Christ ! It is their sin,
their inconsistency with their own stan
dards, and not their holiness that brings
them under suspicion. No amount of rhe
toric can whitewash Xystus III, Innocent
VIII, Julius II, Mary Tudor, Torquemada
and the thousands of criminals known
to history. 'Ye shall know them by their
fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or
figs of thistles?'* It is useless for persecu
tors to pose as persecuted, for slanderers
as calumniated. It is not persecution for
society to defend herself against those who
subvert the laws of her life. If any proof is
wanting that the Roman Church is not the
kingdom of heaven, it is found in the cha
racter of her citizens."
" The Kingdom of Heaven is hke unto a
net."t " It is not therefore," answers the second
voice in his soul, "it is not a select society
* Matt, vii, 16. t Matt, xiii, 47.
37

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
of perfected souls; it is rather a huge ves
sel that sweeps into itself good and bad,
saints and sinners, ethereal souls and de
formed monsters of carnality. To point to
outcasts of society within the Church's
borders is no more than to demonstrate that
the charity of God is larger than the
charity of man. To conceive of the Church
as other than this is to deny her catho
licity, her divinity, her adequacy to human
needs, her bottomless love, her imperish
able hope. It was this that was done by the
Lollards, the Lutherans, the Independents,
the Marcionites, and a hundred Gnostic
sects whose names are almost forgotten in
consequence. They were for ever crying,
'Come out of her, my people.'* But the
kingdom of heaven is not an aristocracy
of saintliness, or an exhibition of prize
souls; it is not even a sieve which separates;
it is a net which gathers and includes.
"Even if all historians' exaggerations
were literally true, it would not affect
the Church's claim by the weight of a hair;
for it is frankly acknowledged that the
higher the elevation, the deeper the fall.
A bad Catholic is the worst of men ; for
his type and his leader is no other
than Judas Iscariot. The corruption of a
highly developed organism is infinitely
* Rev. xviii, 4.
38

CATHOLIC CHARACTERISTICS
fouler than the decaying remnant of ajelly-
fish. If truth is desired and not a verbal vic
tory coram populo, you must set St Francis
of Assisi beside Innocent VI 1 1, St Catherine
of Siena beside the papal court before
whom she spoke; you must set the
thousands of saints known and unknown
beside the thousands of sinners whose
names have been raked together for so
many centuries and with such scrupulous
zeal by the Accuser of the Brethren."
3. "That too is a pretty bit of pleading,"
says John. "But how then is it possible to
defend, not the exceptional sinners, but
the frauds daily and hourly carried on in
the name of religion? We have" heard of
the Rood of Boxley and the priest who
pulled the string to make the image of his
Saviour weep fraudulent tears of blood ;
of St Januarius, whose blood is still sup
posed to liquefy four times a year in the
iands of the Archbishop of Naples ; of the
hysterical girls at Lourdes cured either by
the violence of their emotions or by a pos
sibly medicinal virtue in the water of the
Virgin's Well.
"What of saints who rose three miles
above the surface of the earth, of martyrs
before whom the beasts crouched in adora
tion, of bishops who cure the sick, of priests
who raise the dead, of ecstatice who bleed
39

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
from hands and feet and side every Friday
in the year from twelve to three, and rave
in Hebrew and Greek; of lunatics who
shrink and cry out at the touch of a little
salt water over which a sinful man has
murmured a few words of Latin !
"Is there any other body of Christians
in Christendom which still believes in
present-day miracles? The president of
the Wesleyan Conference does not read
out among his statistics a list of miracles
wrought by local preachers. The entire
common sense of the most reasonable and
pious people of the time is unanimous on
the fact that miracles were indeed neces
sary for the establishment of the Church
on earth, but have now passed away with
the demand for them from a world that has
its eyes fixed on higher and more spiritual
manifestations of God's power. 'Tis this
one intolerable and intolerant body that
calls itself the Catholic Church that per
sists in the face of reason, experience and
science, in declaringthat the age of miracles
is not past. We must not blame her over
much ; she is still burdened by the dark
heritage of the middle ages, and her
claim to be identical with the credulous
and priest-ridden institution that obscured
men's minds and dominated them by a
mixture of credulity and fraud.
40

CATHOLIC CHARACTERISTICS
"It is this one Church  " and John
paused in his declamation.
" ' These signs shall follow them that believe:
in My name shall they cast out devils; they
shall speak with new tongues; they shall take
up serpents; and if they drink any deadly
thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay
hands on the sick, and they shall recover.1*
• • • • •
" Is it conceivable, then," asked John of
himself after a pause, " that I have been a
little hasty in concluding that, because
some knaves have been detected, there
fore all men are dishonest; that I have
been guilty of unjustifiable a priori rea
soning, and have concluded against all
miracles from the premisses that they did
not happen?"
3. "We must take a larger view," he
cried; "this by-lane warfare is useless.
Look at the Roman body as a whole
once more — its iron system, its artificial
uniformity; that crushes out individuality,
that forces catch-words into men's mouths,
the same holy expression on their faces,
and the same barbaric vestments on their
shoulders. It is a superb instance of human
genius and patience; it is like the drill of
an army, the movement of a vast machine:
this crank turns this wheel and that lever.
* Mark xvi, 17, 18.
4i

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
Of course it is imposing and terrifying,
until one learns the secret. But how utterly
unlike to the free, pure, spiritual union of
Christ and His simple servants, the union
of charity and hearts and wills, the union
that is divine because it is deep ! Let me
look again at the Gospels."
"'That they all may be one . . . that the
world may believe that Thou hast sent Me'*
" ' The world,' " repeats the second voice
in his soul. "And you, John, in spite of
your plain common sense, are perpetually
thinking of the scholar and the saint. What
have you to do with them? It was not to
them that Christ made His vast appeal;
but to the weary, the heavy-laden, the
sinners, the dull, the unimaginative. His
royal road is for the wayfarers and fools
who walk there among the redeemed to
Zion;f it is for you, John, and such as
you, that He made that road and built His
heavenly city, not for the scholar who
spins webs and rejoices in his elaborate
ness, but for the man who can become little
as a little child. It was for the simple that
He set up His sign-posts and built His
straight walls.
"In other words, this unity for which
He prayed was exactly that which you
have been condemning. It was to be a
* John xvii, 21. t Cf. Isa. xxxv, 8-10.
42

CATHOLIC CHARACTERISTICS
unity which the world might recognize —
which was to be obvious, plain, notorious,
evident; not a unity visible only to the
eyes of seers, still less a unity fashioned
out of the weaving of dreams and desires
in a study-chair.
" Does the world acknowledge the unity
of Baptists, Wesleyans and Plymouth Bre
thren ; or the unity of the Church of Eng
land? Is not parliament at this moment
seeking to remove the scandal of her dis
unity? Are not the divisions of Christen
dom — apart from what you call the Church
of Rome — the one supreme stumbling-
block to the evangelization of the world
which Christ desired so passionately?
And is it not to the Church of Rome (and
because of her iron uniformity, at which
you have just been sneering) that the an
xious, puzzled wanderer looks with appro
val, if not with hope? Can you, in fact,
point to any unity but hers that arrests for
an instant the attention of the irreligious,
the careless, and the independent? The
world may hate that unity — it has taught
you a number of phrases to throw at it —
it may explain it away, as you have done ;
but there is no sort of question but that it
acknowledges it to be the most startling
and arresting fact in Christendom.
" Look at that sentence again : That they
may be one — that the world may know? . . ."
43

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
John is silenced; but he is not convinced.
There are fifty questions yet to be an
swered; his whole soul revolts against the
conclusion. Yet for the present he is
silenced. For he has learnt that precisely those
things which had served him hitherto
against those intolerable claims of what
he prefers to call the "Italian Mission"
are the very points which she puts forward
as her credentials.
She is authoritative? Yes; because her
Master was.
She despises conventions, contradicts
human laws, divides families? Yes; be
cause her Master did.
She turns the accusation of supplanting
Christ into a claim to possess Him in her
heart, mind and mouth.
She welcomes the distrust of the world;
because He said that it would be so.
She is not afraid to gather up sinners
and keep them, even though they pervert
her policy and misrepresent her spirit; be
cause it is her function to sweep humanity
— dregs and all — into her net.
She is not ashamed to count miracles
among her jewels; because He said that
His Bride should wear them.
She rejoices in her self-control, the rigi-
44

CATHOLIC CHARACTERISTICS
dity of her attitude, the subordination of
every member of her being to her supreme
will; because it is at His wish that it is so,
that the world, whom He loves and for
whom He gave Himself, may recognize
her as His queen, and Himself as King.
John therefore is a little thoughtful as
he closes the Gospels.

45

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN

III-The Petrine Claims
JOHN'S next important act is to buy a
penny Catechism. He has seen what
the Gospels say about the Church, and he
now desires to see what the Church says
about the Gospels.
He is bewildered as he turns the pages.
On this he learns that the Catholic Church
does not pray to relics; on this he reads
what he conceives to be a wilful mistran
slation of the apostle James; on that he
perceives that the Roman Catholics are
not forbidden a knowledge of the Ten
Commandments, although they arrange
them in a curious and suspicious manner.
Then once more he reminds himself that
he has not bought the Catechism in order
to study secondary matters or to criticize,
but to learn what it is that the Roman
Church says about itself and its constitu-r
tion. He turns therefore to the Apostles'
Creed, and finally settles upon question
eighty-seven. " why is the Bishop of Rome the Head
of the Church?
" The Bishop of Rome is the Head of the
46

The PETRINE CLAIMS
Church because he is the successor of St Peter,
whom Christ appointed to be the Head of
the Church."
"Now here," says John, "is the root of
the whole matter. I understand clearly that
there must be a Church, if the Revelation
of God is to be intelligible. Here then is
a plain statement. It may be true or un
true — I suspect it to be untrue. If it is
untrue, I need look no further; and if it is
true, I need look no further. If it is un
true, I may as well stop where I am and
get along as I best can, for I certainly
cannot join a Church that is based on
falsehood. If it is true, 1 cannot possibly
stop where I am. It is absurd to say that
I can be a member of the Church, if I am
not in subordination to and in communion
with its head. Everything else is secondary
to this — Anglican Orders, invocation of
saints, mariolatry. Here is a clear issue.
And now I see that I must turn to the
New Testament once more, examine the
texts quoted in this Catechism, and see
what I can make of them."
Once more therefore he lays his Bible
open, provides himself with pen, ink and
paper, and begins his study.
It would occupy us far too long if we
were to examine all the notes that John
47

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
makes on the subject (although I append
them at the conclusion of this book). Some
of them are perhaps, too, a little fantastic;
they would be certainly fantastic if they
stood without support. In all, they amount
to twenty-nine arguments in support of
the statement of the Catechism; but, in
brief summary, they amount to this :
Simon Peter plainly has some sort of
leadership among the apostles. His name
occurs first in all lists of the apostolic
College,* and in one passage the very
word " first " is used of him,t although he
was not the first called, nor the one ex
pressly distinguished by being " the disci
ple whom Jesus loved." % He is treated
as the spokesman of the rest by the Jews;§
he heads every deputation to the Master, ||
he opens debates, % he utters the first
anathema after Pentecost,** he works the
first Church miracle, ft he preaches the first
sermon.JJ " Yes, yes," says John, " he was born a
leader of men : he was naturally ardent,
strong, enthusiastic, influential. Those
arguments prove nothing more than this.
Let me examine moreover particularly the
* Matt, x, 2; Mark iii, 16; Luke vi, 14; Acts i, 13.
f Matt, x, 2. X John xxi, 20.
§ Matt, xvii, 24. || Mark i, 36 ; Luke ix, 33, etc.
IT Acts xv, 7-1 1 ; xi, 4, etc. ** Acts v, 3, 4.
ft Acts iii, 6, 7. Xt Acts ii, 14.
48

The PETRINE CLAIMS
texts on which the Papists lay such espe
cial stress. They are of a rather more re
markable nature than the others."
i. " Thou art Simon the son of fona : thou
shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpre
tation a stone . . ."*
" Now this," reflects John, " does not
really prove anything. We know that it
was our Lord's custom to give names to
His apostles; for example, He called James
and John 'Boanerges, or 'Sons of Thun
der,' because of their hot, wrathful spirit.f
Peter then was so-called because he was
of a strong, unyielding temperament. The
Gospels will give no doubt abundant proof
of this."
John therefore examines the Gospels
again, and is completely puzzled. He finds
four or five facts recorded there that ap
pear to prove the exact opposite. Peter
tries to walk on the water, and fails be
cause his faith is too feeble; % he is terri
fied at the thought of his Lord's sufferings,
and is bitterly rebuked for his weakness ;§
after swearing that he would sooner die
than forsake his Master, and after having
been expressly warned on the subject, he
three times over denies Him because of
* John i, 42. t Mark iii, 17.
J Matt, xiv, 28-30. §Matt. xvi, 21-23.
49 4

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
the jeers of some servant-girls;* after
having previously run for his life with
the rest from Gethsemane. f In other
words, he is an impulsive, ardent, incon
stant, weak, vacillating man.
" He might well have been called Fire"
muses John, "because of his hot zeal; or
Water, because of his weakness; but Stone
seems the most singular misapplication of
a metaphor that I have ever heard of. Yet
Christ 'knew what was in man':$ He
read hearts and diagnosed characters as
only God Almighty can do. I do not
understand; this is beyond me."
John bears his puzzle about with him
for a while, and gradually some kind of
explanation begins to dawn.
There are two kinds of names, he reflects
again, given to people : personal and offi
cial. For example, at the grammar-school
where he was educated there was a boy
nicknamed Cat, because of his odd eyes
and his way of walking. That is perfectly
intelligible; it is a personal label. But
there are other names that are not per
sonal. The King of Spain is called "His
Most Catholic Majesty"; King George II
of England, with all his predecessors, since
the Reformation at least, and all his suc-
* Matt, xxvi, 34, 35, 69-75. t Matt, xxvi, 56.
t John ii, 25.
5°

The PETRINE CLAIMS
cessors till the present day, was called in
the Church of England Prayer-book a
"most religious and gracious king"; King
Edward VII is named " Defender of the
Faith." Now, there have been kings of
Spain who were not "most Catholic";
George II was neither religious nor gra
cious; Edward VII is certainly not a De
fender of the Faith in the sense in which
the title was originally bestowed upon the
nursing Father of the English Reforma
tion. Yet no one proposes that these
names should be expunged or retained
according to the personal characters or
exploits of those who bear them. They are
official, not personal labels.
"Very well," reflects John. "Then if
Peter is not a personal label fastened upon
Simon Bar-jona, must I not consider the
possibility whether it is not an official
title?" He turns the pages ofthe Gospels again.
2. " Thou art Peter; and upon this rock
I will build My Church : and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it" *
" What then is the theory of Papist con
troversialists?" asks John of himself; and
in answer he confesses that it is something
after this manner :
Simon is Peter, not because he is a stone
* Matt, xvi, 1 8.
51

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
by nature, or even by grace, but because
in the inscrutable decrees of God he is
chosen to be the foundation-stone of an
institution which Christ names His
Church. There is only one Church in
Christendom which claims to be built
upon that apostle; and that the one whose
centre is Rome, where Peter ruled and
where his body lies. As for the gates of
hell, is there any other institution in Chri
stendom which compares with this for
immovability, authority and impressive-
ness? One was built upon the fire of Lu
ther, another upon the piety of Wesley,
another upon the lusts of a king and the
independent spirit of a nation. These have
stood for varying periods, and not one of
them for more than four hundred years.
And the rain has descended, and the floods
come, and the winds blown and beaten
upon these houses;* and the world that
looks upon them already mocks at the
cracking walls, the tottering pinnacles,
the agitated faces of those who look out
of the windows, the efforts of those who
under-pin and mortar. The "house divided
against itself shall not stand " ; t how
much less a house not only divided against
itself, but, as well, founded originally upon
the sands of men's passions and fancies
*Cf. Matt, viii, 27. fMatt. xii, 25. -
52

The PETRINE CLAIMS
plastered with untempered mortar,* fa
shioned on other lines than those of the
heavenly Architect. Can the piety, the
agony, the sincerity of its inhabitants
keep a home that has not God for its
Father? And as for that other, that has stood for
nineteen centuries, even by the confession
of its foes — the rain has descended too, a
rain of tears and protest and questioning;
the floods of revolt have lifted up their
voice; whole nations have poured against
it, strong nations from the north; the hot
winds have stormed from the mouth of
hell; the thunder-clouds of men's passion
ate denunciation and curses have hidden
it from the eyes of those who should have
been its children; and when the rain has
ceased, and the floods ebbed, and the winds
lulled, and the clouds passed, it is stand
ing there still, secure from roof to base
ment, so perfectly polished that enemies
have called it unnatural, and friends super
natural; so immovable that men have
mocked and called it a prison; so serene
that they have proclaimed it must be full
of internal strife ; so beyond the construc
tion of human art that they have argued
that the Man of Sin has surely built it.
And it is this house, unfallen and un-
* Cf. Ezec. xiii, io.
53

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
changed, that is built upon a man whose
name God called Rock.
"A grossly unfair, exaggerated, intem
perate defence," muses John indignantly
to himself. "These Papist controversia
lists have a taste for rhetoric, but none
for justice. . . But what, exactly, is the
answer? ..."

54

The PETRINE CLAIMS

(ii)
"I will give unto thee the keys of the king
dom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven!' *
" Now here," says John to himself, " is
a very extraordinary sentence. The only
text comparable to it is that in which
Christ gives to all His apostles power to
remit and retain sins.f But I cannot hon
estly set one by the other; for the second
is after all only what all bishops and priests
claim for themselves. It appears certainly as
if to Peter were committed the keys them
selves, and to the others only their occa
sional use. This is a far more emphatic sen
tence, and addressed to one man only:
whatever the others received afterwards,
he received also with them; and he seems
to receive something more besides by this
unique commission. Now this commission,
whatever it was, may have died with Peter;
it is possible. Let me see first whether there
is any one on earth who claims it. If, on
the other hand, it was not a personal privi
lege, but one committed to all the apostles
alike, then I shall find many claimants,
*Matt. xvi, 19. t Cf. John xx, 23.
55

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
and shall be obliged to attempt a decision
between them."
John sets to work to consider; and he
finds it a simpler matter than he had
thought. He looks round upon the heads
of various denominations — the Archbishop
of Canterbury, the President of the Con
gregational Union, General Booth, and
the President of the Wesleyan Confer
ence — and in his imagination he puts to
them all what he conceives to be a fair, if
rhetorical, paraphrase of the passage, in
the form of a question.
" Do any of you," he asks, " claim all
that this sentence involves? Do you claim
to hold the keys of the kingdom of hea
ven? I will not be put off by a reference
to the loosing power of gospel-preaching.
If Christ had meant that, He would not
have used this extraordinarily misleading
image. No; I will have a definite answer.
Do you claim to unlock or lock heaven
at your will with, of course, God's as
sistance? Do you claim, what is a corollary
of this, that all men who wish to enter
heaven must, in some sense, make applica
tion to you for admittance. In other words,
do you claim universal jurisdiction over
the entire world, kings, governments, re
publics? Do you claim then, any of you,
that you are lord of the world, father of
56

The PETRINE CLAIMS
princes and kings; that your lightest words
require attention, and that your heavier
sentences bind the conscience; that hea
ven and earth move with your movements
(for all this is involved, it seems to me,
in some sense, in these awful words of
Christ); that, to sum up plainly, He who
has the government upon His shoulder,*
has put the insignia of His kingdom into
your hands; that He who is Himself the
door, f has given you the key?"
John waits, a little excited by his own
paraphrase; and then his heart echoes what
he knows would be the answer of those he
is questioning.
" A thousand times, No ! Who is this that
speaketh blasphemies? % There is no such
power on earth ! You are derogating from
Christ's honour. It is He who has opened
the kingdom of heaven to all believers; if
He is the door, He is wide open, and His
people enter in through Him alone. Men
can do no more than point through Him
who is the way,§ to Him who is the door,
for they are both one."
" Even my priests," cries one voice, "can
do no more than declare and pronounce to
His people, being penitent, the absolution
and remission of their sins." And the chorus
* Cf. Isa. ix, 6. t Cf. John x, 9.
X Luke v, 21. § Cf. John xiv, 6.
57

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
goes on. " But you have said far more than
this. You pretend that one man's action is
necessary for the bestowal of God's free
redemption. You would destroy the free
dom of the Gospel; the open access to one
Father through Jesus Christ His Son. You
are an enemy of Christ if you believe what
you say, and a calumniator if you do not,
and in either case a destroyer of the liberty
of the children of God,* which He pur
chased for them with His Blood."
"Then this tremendous sentence," an
swers John in equal indignation, ." is no
more than rhetoric — a splendid phrase,
sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. If
that is so, I demand to know why such
words were ever used. Does the Wisdom
of the Father, of deliberation or careless
ness, employ language that promises so
much and signifies so little? If there is no
claimant — "
" Stop, I claim it."
And John turns to see an old man dressed
in white standing on the steps of the altar.
Above him is a dome with these words
written round it in gigantic letters; and
beneath him is the body of the Apostle.
"I claim it. I am an outcast from the
world, and a prisoner in my own house. I
am a sinful man like him from whom- my
* Cf. Rom. xiii, 21
58

The PETRINE CLAIMS
title is descended. I have passions, weak
ness and temptations as he had. I have
no immunity from sin, no safeguard against
falling beyond that which may be found in
the mercy of my God and the prayers of
my people. I may deny my Lord as some
say that Liberius did; I may err in my
private faith as John XXII did; I may
falter, or give an obscure answer as
Honorius did. Yet I claim it, and I bear
the keys below my triple crown to shew
that I bear them in my hand. In the
strength of Him who called me Peter, I am
not afraid to use them. I may err in all
else, but not in that for which I am set
here ; what I bind is bound in heaven; what
I loose is loosed in heaven. For to me it
was said through Peter; and though a hun
dred Popes are gone, Peter stands here
still. . . I claim it, I, Pius the Tenth, alias
Peter. Does any dispute it with me?"
Then the mild voice ceases ; the vision
fades, and John is left wondering.

59

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN

(iii)
Once more John turns to the Gospel;
and reads how Jesus Christ stood one
morning on the beach, with His disci
ples round Him, and His faithless lover at
His feet; and how three times He pierced
that warm sorrowful heart by a question.
If ever a man has forfeited all claim on his
Master's confidence, it is Peter who kneels
here now. He has been made a stone, and
he has yielded like water. He has received
the keys, and he has denied that he knows
the door. And in token of this he is called
by his old name, which he bore before the
net of Galilee was transfigured into the
net of God's kingdom: "Simon, son of
fonas, lovest thou Me?"
And then under a third image three
times repeated, mingled with the rebuke,
his commission is reaffirmed: "Feed My
lambs. . . Feed My sheep. . . Feed My sheep."*
He is made then, John considers, shep
herd of souls; guide of wanderers; support
ofthe weary. He is to feed Christ's flock,
and gently lead those that are with young.
If the words of the Good Shepherd mean
anything, they must mean this.
There are others standing by: John
* John xxi, 15-17.
60

The PETRINE CLAIMS
whom "Jesus loved"; James who was the
first to die for Him ;* Andrew who was the
first to be called;! but it is not to this man
or that that the Lord speaks; but to one
man more faithless than them all.
There are no exceptions to the flock.
Not the Jews only from whom he sprang;
or the Gentiles to whom he went; or the
Romans who were to lead him whither he
would not.J It is simply Christ's lambs,
Christ's sheep.
"You — the foundation, the porter and the
fisherman, who trembled at the onslaught
of hell; who ran from your trust at the
noise of feet and the glare of torches ; who
dropped your net and denied three times
that you knew Me in Galilee — you are to
be the shepherd of those for whom I laid
down My life."
Again John demands whether there is
any who claims to hold the crook of uni
versal jurisdiction.
From Canterbury comes the first answer.
"I do not claim it. I claim it only for
those of my own race. In England, Yes,
a primacy of jurisdiction; in Ireland, Scot
land and America a primacy of honour
only. For all Christ's flock, No."
* Cf. Acts xii, 2. f Cf. John i, 40.
X Cf. John xxi, 18.
61

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
"Then this is not said to your Grace,"
answers John.
From other chairs come more indignant
denials. "I do not claim it," cries a voice in
Exeter Hall. "Neither this nor anything
like it! Thank God we have done with
such tyrannical assumptions. We abolished
priestcraft and interference between a man's
soul and his Maker when we cut off Laud's
head, and threw a stool in Edinburgh. Men
are not sheep ! Our stern old Puritan an
cestors died to prove their manhood; and
we their stern posterity are ready to die in
the same cause. Your priest-ridden law-
courts are filled with our martyrs in that
quarrel; in thousands of English homes
your suggestion would be scorned. For
Englishmen have learned at last that no
man has a right to dictate to them the terms,
of salvation or the clauses of God's re
demptive contract. We owe no allegiance
to either foreign or home prelates — to none
but God speaking in the conscience. We
are free, sturdy, self-reliant, Bible-nurtured,
determined British citizens; ready to an
swer to our Maker for what we do and
believe. We leave tyranny and catechisms
and creeds, together with incense, idolatry
and superstition to those benighted Papists
and Ritualists still labouring under the
62

The PETRINE CLAIMS
medieval yoke which we have cast off for
ever. We are men, not sheep. How dare
you call us that?"
John turns away.
"This may be worldly wisdom," he says,
"but not divine. It was not so that the
Good Shepherd spoke. Men are sheep, of
whom I am the weakest and most foolish.
See how they follow one another through
the hedges that God's law has planted;
how when vice is a fashion it ceases to be
vice; how they drink of poisoned waters
and eat deadly food ; how they follow beaten
tracks and think that they have found out
a road for themselves; how confident when
they think themselves alone; how helpless
when they fall !
"Surely they need care and tenderness
and guidance and chastisement. Did not the
Good Shepherd say so? And is there no
one who will give it them? Is there no one
who will cease to flatter, and will tell them
their foolishness; who will lead them to
green pastures and make them to lie down
by waters of comfort; who will cry to them
when the wolf is coming; who will seek
and save that which is lost ? * And above all,
is there no one who will tell them that they
are one flock, not many — that there is
"neither Greek nor Jew, barbarian, Scy-
* Cf. John x, 1-16.
63

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
thian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and
in all"* — who will gather them when they
are scattered in the cloudy and dark day,f
and call to them with a voice that they
know — that there may be, as Christ Him
self said, one fold and one shepherd. :{:
And again that humble voice comes from
Rome :
"Yes, I claim all this; for I am Peter,
shepherd of Christians and vicar of Christ.
It was to me that Christ said long ago in
Galilee, 'Feed My lambs . . . feed My sheep'.
That voice is still in my ears, and I am not
ashamed to obey it. When men flatter men,
I am not ashamed to call them sheep and
treat them so. When men talk of freedom
and energy, I tell them that obedience is
better still. I am not ashamed to call this
food bad, and to bid all that will hear me
not to approach it; and that good, and en
courage them to feed upon it. I appeal both
by love and wrath — by crook and staff. I
draw this frightened creature towards me,
and I drive that infected sinner from my
flock. I recognize no distinctions of race,
colour or birth ; they are all Christ's sheep,
and therefore all are mine. The English and
the Indian alike are committed to me, and
I rule them with the same rod within the
*Col. iii, n. tCf. Ezec. xxxiv, 12-16.
X John x, 16.
64

The PETRINE CLAIMS
same hurdles. Other sheep I have— sheep
who are not yet of this fold* — and to them
I am as zealous as to those that know me.
I stretch out my hands all day long, as I
have stretched them for centuries, giving
the same call as I did a thousand years
ago, knowing that one day they too will
hear my voice, as my Master promised.
And already they are coming back in thou
sands from the northern hills where their
fathers led them. . .
"And I do all this, through the scorn of
men and the howling of wolves, and the
forgetfulness or ignorance or obstinacy of
those that are already mine, because it
was the Good Shepherd who set me here
and bade me rule.f I am ready to lay down
my life for them as He did, and as I have
done already myself before Nero, as well
as in Clement and Urban and Gregory : for
their sake I die daily % as Paul did. For I
am Peter, waiting till my Master Himself
comes back to ask me of the flock, the
beautiful flock which He gave into my
charge. Is there any who disputes my
crook with me? . . ."
John turns away in anguish and longing.
He has a hundred questions yet; but he
*John x, 16. | Ezek. xxxiv, 23.
X Cf. 1 Cor. xv, 31.
65 5

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
desires as never before to be ruled by one
who is not ashamed to rule, and to be guided
by one who claims to have the authority.
Why! is he not after all, then, Christ's
lamb? But the illusion passes as the chorus of
protest breaks out from controversialists.
"My dear sir, have you distinguished
properly between Petros and Petra? Have
you studied it in the original Greek? Have
you considered that Christ spoke in Ara
maic, and all the questions that flow from
that? . . . Have you consulted Dr So-and-
So's writings, and reflected on the example
of Mr What's-his-name, who left the fold
about which you talk so finely? — he didn't
find it all so sweet and peaceful as you pre
tend; you should hear his stories! . . . Have
you had a good long talk with Father Some
body-Else, who is a profound scholar, and
has studied these questions far more deeply
than you ever could or can study? . . . Have
you meditated upon the amazing revival
of religious life in England during the last
seventy years? . . . What do you make of
Honorius, Liberius, and all the rest of the
pretended shepherds who give the lie by
their own words to their own pretensions?
. . . Those texts cannot possibly mean what
you seem to think they mean. It is utterly
unlike the whole teaching and example of
66

The PETRINE CLAIMS
Christ, who taught not by definition, but
by parable and metaphor and dark saying.
. . . The Church is built not on Peter — the
merest controversialist can tell you that —
but upon Peter's faith — upon his confession
that Jesus was divine; it was only a per
sonal privilege. Or if not that, it was upon
the Faith — that is the Incarnation. . . For
God's sake put away these faithless
thoughts. Or, if you cannot, at least study
hard for several years before you presume
to form an opinion. And when you have
studied, you will be no more competent
than before: for surely you will not pre
sume to put yourself in competition with
Dr Pusey, or Dr Chalmers, or Robertson
of Brighton, or of five hundred others alive
at this moment, and five thousand more yet
unborn. My dear sir, pause before you com
mit yourself irrevocably to this appalling
piece of intellectual arrogance."
John shakes himself free.
"I am a simple man," he cries, "whom
Christ came to save. It is utterly and
ridiculously impossible that salvation can
depend upon profound scholarship. Some
of those difficulties you mention I have
considered; others I am going to consider;
others I am not going to be such a fool as
to consider at all, for, as you say, I am in
competent to do so. 67

The RELIGION of the PLAIN MAN
"But I do not care if I am incompetent.
It was the incompetent that Christ came
to teach and save. And therefore in vital
and fundamental matters, such as the iden
tity of the Catholic Church, I am as capable
of deciding as Dr Pusey or Dr Anybody-
Else, for their need is no greater than mine.
"Christ said that the sheep would know
His voice; and that a stranger they would
not follow.* Therefore I am going to listen,
and I shall be obliged if you will let me
alone and give over shouting. Perhaps I
may be quite wrong ; I don't know yet.
But I hear a voice saying, ' Follow Me,'
and I must have a little peace and quiet
ness before I can know whether it is the
Good Shepherd calling, or whether it is
some one imitating His voice.
"Kindly, then, let me alone. I am going
to listen, to question my own heart, and
to pray."
* Cf. John x, 4, 5.

68

DEVELOPMENT

IV-Development (i)
THERE is yet one great difficulty to
John's mind as he regards the claim
of Rome to represent the Catholic Church
of Christ.
He would express it as follows:
i. "Imagination is as much the gift of
God as intellect. Now, so far as intellect
is concerned, I acknowledge that it is hard
to answer the Petrine argument. I under
stand that, historically, Peter was the first
Bishop of Rome, and Pius the last; and
I cannot myself answer directly the pre
sumption that Pius has succeeded to the
prerogative as well as to the See of Peter;
but my imagination, my intuition, my illa
tive sense, steps in and tells me that it is
impossible. " An Anglican said to me the other day
that it always seemed to him that if St
Paul came back to earth he would find
himself at home neither at High Mass in
St Peter's nor at Evensong in his own
cathedral in London, but in some such
place as a Salvation Army shelter. This
remark has haunted me. I suppose my
friend satisfies himself somehow that in
69

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
spite of his feeling, he is right in worship
ping at St Paul's; but I am not sure that
I am so easily contented with St Peter's.
"For, place side by side the worship,
the dogmatic system, the ecclesiastical
organization of the Apostolic Church, with
that of the present day, and see how utterly
unlike one is to the other.
" Look at that elaborate baldachino,
those lights, that tabernacle. Observe
those three priests at the altar, their an
tique dress, of which even the cut is regu
lated by the rubrics; watch their ordered
movements, their gestures and postures;
listen to the careful singing, the unreal
monotone and minor thirds; notice the si
lence of the people. The whole affair is
certainly stately and impressive; but it is
a kind of holy drama, a sacred dance; it is
utterly unlike the free spontaneous wor
ship of the Primitive Church.
"Look at St Paul in his upper room;
notice his fervent reality, his unfettered
eloquence; the ease of the people sitting
on the floor and window-seats. Observe
the way he takes the bread and wine into
his hands; hear the simple words; mark
the absence of ceremonial, the bare table,
the guttering lamp, and the natural move
ments of the congregation ; now this man
prays, now that, as the spirit directs.
70

DEVELOPMENT
"Or put Peter and Pius side by side.
Peter, the old weather-beaten fisherman,
shuffling along the streets of Rome, going
down with his lamp into the catacomb,
where the faithful are assembled to hear
what he has to say; notice the absence of
homage and pomp and circumstance ! And
then Pius, crowned and robed like a hea
then god, going in his sedia gestatoria, with
cardinals, chamberlains and monsignori
in purple and ermine and scarlet before,
and the great fans behind; listen to the
roars of the people to the pope-king, the
shrilling of the silver trumpets; compare
the worldly splendour and show of this
Arith the natural Christian simplicity of
that !
"Compare the doctrine of this age and
that ; put the Ethiopian eunuch's confes
sion, ' I believe that Jesus Christ is the
Son of God,'* beside the penny Catechism,
with its elaborate statements and deduc
tions and arguments. If the eunuch was a
'good Catholic,' why did he not have to
repeat the Creed of Pope Pius V before
his baptism? If Mrs So-and-So, received
into the Church yesterday, was an aposto
lic Christian, why was not Philip's demand
enough ?
"Lastly, put the free movement of the
* Adls viii, 37.
71

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
early Church beside the highly organized
system ofthe present day, with its dioceses,
vicariates, metropolitan sees, missions; put
serious-faced Priscilla beside Sister Mary
Joseph Aloysius of the Eucharistic Heart
of Jesus; plain Timothy beside His Grace
the Most Reverend ® John Archbishop of
Mesopotamia. . .
"It is simply ridiculous to say that these
are the same ! Did St Peter sit for three
hours every Saturday afternoon in a carved
oak confessional with his office book,candle,
and purple-stoled cotta?Is it possible to con-
ceiveTimothy singingPontifical High Mass
in his cathedral church in Crete, and pub
lishing a plenary indulgence on the feast
of the Sacred Stigmata of Saint Maria
Angela di Sisto on the usual conditions?
. . . No, no!
" I am aware that this argument of the
imagination strikes as shrewdly at the
Church of England as at the Church of
Rome — for it is just as hard to imagine
Titus singing Evensong on G in Ely Ca
thedral, or St Bartholomew preaching at
harvest festival from a pulpit decked with
pumpkins— for the question is (scarcely a
question!) Are we not all wrong together?
And ought we not to revert honestly to
primitive methods if we are going to claim
primitive prerogatives? "
72

DEVELOPMENT
Now if John had consulted a theologian,
he would have had some facts recalled to
his attention which had escaped it. He
would have been reminded that, after all,
St Peter probably used some of the same
words at Mass that Pius uses; that St Paul
published an indulgence in his second
Epistle to the Corinthians* and heard a
large number of spiritualists' confessions
at Ephesus; and that the said spiritualists
certainly made acts of contrition, confes
sion and satisfaction — for we are expressly
told so — and presumably received absolu
tion;! that the homage given to St Peter
by the faithful was far in excess of that
offered to Pius X, for the shadow of the
present Pope has never yet been used for
medicinal purposes; J that the Ethiopian
eunuch underwent a long and careful
instruction from the deacon before being
admitted to baptism; § that the differentia
tion of orders and functions began imme
diately after Pentecost || — and so forth.
But John did not consult this theologian.
2. He went for a walk instead on an au
tumn day; he picked up an acorn and put
it in his pocket; he met a child in a peram-
* Cf. 2 Cor. ii, 6-10. t Cf. A<Sts xix, 18,19.
X Cf. A6ts v, 15. § Acts viii, 35.
|| A6ts vi, 1-6.
73

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
bulator, and he attended some athletic
sports. Then he went home again.
Then he took the acorn out of his pocket
and began to consider, sitting at his table.
" How remarkable it is," he said to him
self, " that so small a thing contains such
enormous powers! Normally, if I had not
picked this up, it would have sunk into
the ground and turned brown; then it
would have cracked and put out a white
finger. The white finger would have ascen
ded to the light and turned yellow, and then
brown again. After a year or so it would
have put out one leaf in spring, which would
have fallen in the autumn; the next year
two leaves, and so on. . . Even if I put it in
the ground now, by the time that Jack's
children are old people, there will be an
oak large enough to sit under, with bran
ches, leaves and acorns of its own. A crow
which would eat this acorn at one mouth
ful now, could build his nest in fifty years
in the tree which it is capable of becoming.
"Or the child that I saw this afternoon,
with its dimpled red face, its feeble fingers,
its little legs which can kick but not walk,
its mouth which can cry but not speak, its
will so wholly the slave of circumstance, so
pitiably at the mercy of a pin — that child,
if it lives, may grow up into an athlete like
those I saw at the sports, with arms and
74

DEVELOPMENT
legs of steel, rippling muscles, thin tanned
face, a will as tense as a sinew at full
stretch. . .
"Now, if the Church of God was like
that, I might be able to understand how
Peter could become Pius; one sentence, a
catechism ; Priscilla, Sister Mary Joseph,
etc. But then the Church is nothing of the
sort. St Paul tells his friend to ' keep the
deposit,' * not to add to it ; there is in fact
an appalling curse in the Book of Revela
tions against those who do add to God's
oracles ;f we are bidden to keep the faith
once delivered to the saints ; $ and to refuse
even an angel from heaven if he should
preach another gospel than that which Paul
delivered.^ There is not a shadow of evi
dence" — and at this John began to turn
the leaves of his Bible — "not the shadow
of evidence that the Church is like an
acorn or the body of a child. . ."
In ten minutes John is staring at the
following texts :
" The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain
of mustard-seed, which a man took and
sowed in his field: which indeed is the least
of all seeds; but when it is grown it . . . be-
cometh a tree, so that the birds of the air
come and lodge in the branches thereof." ||
* Cf. i Tim. vi, 20, etc. t Cf. Rev. xxii, 18.
t Cf. Jude 3. § Cf. Gal. i, 8, 9.
|| Matt, xiii, 31, 32.
75

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
". . . the edifying of the body of Christ,
. , . till we all come in the unity of the faith,
and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ." *
" But this is extraordinary," exclaims
John. "Why has no one ever pointed this
out to me before? Why has the Church
Times always said so much about the 'faith
once delivered to the saints,' and so little
about these astonishing texts? They change
the whole complexion of affairs.
"Here is Christ Himself saying, as
plainly as words can do it, that the king
dom of heaven will utterly change its ap
pearance from being like a small, round
seed, simple in shape and colour and tex
ture, to the semblance of a vast, elaborate,
glorious tree, of a thousand surfaces and
curves, of innumerable branches, twigs,
leaves, fibres and roots; from a seed which
a bird can eat, to a tree in which a colony
of birds may live.
" Here is St Paul, whom I now remem
ber saying again and again that the Church
is the Body of Christ, \ declaring that
Body in his days to be as the body of a
child, containing indeed the' structure of
an athlete, his limbs, his possibilities, but
not actually expressing them; and that
* Eph. iv, 12, 13. X Cf. Eph. ii, 16; i, 22, 23, etc.
76

DEVELOPMENT
this Body will be gradually 'edified' in
the ' unity ' — not ' diversity ' — of ' the faith,
and of the knowledge of the Son of God,'
until it is full-grown— until it gradually
corresponds in fact in its outward appear
ance and stature with the mind and spirit
of Christ, which have been in it from the
beginning !
"What in the world am I to make of
this? . . ."

77

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN

(ii)
" I see plainly," says John, " that this
will take some thinking over. First of all
there is the question as to how I can tell
whether the Body of Christ has grown as
was intended ; how I can be certain whe
ther it has not become deformed by poison
or accident. Certainly that seems to me
unlikely, since it is Christ's Body; but it
may be possible. I will set that aside, how
ever, for the present, and consider what
growth means and involves before I con
sider the possibility of accident."
i. First, then, he sees that growth and
life are practically identical, or, to be strict,
life is the principle of growth, and growth
the evidence of life. A statue may be more
perfect than a body in grace and propor
tion, yet it does not grow, and therefore is
not alive. A walking, talking doll may
simulate life, but it is not alive because it
is incapable of growth. Therefore, to com
pare the Church to a body or a seed, and
to deny it the power of growth and ex
pansion, is to utter a contradiction in
terms ; or perhaps it is better to say that
to deny growth to the Church is to rob
78

DEVELOPMENT
the metaphors of Christ and His apostles
of their essential meaning.
" Now," cries John, "is it not a fact that
the divines of the Church of England are
continually appealing back to the primitive
ages? 'Human corruptions,' they say, 'have
marred the perfection of the Apostolic
Church; articles have been added to the
faith by Rome; we must continually be
comparing our present system with that
ofthe apostles, and purging it of error. It
was this necessity that caused the Refor
mation, and it is this necessity that still
keeps us alert against the insinuation of
modern and foreign devotions and beliefs.'
" In other words, for them the Church
of Christ is a statue carved by the hand
of God, polished possibly by workmen of
the sub-apostolic age, which it is their
duty to keep undefiled. Lichens encroach
upon it by lapse of time, according to their
theory; copes and tiaras, it may be, have
been added by human art and ambition;
and these must continually be removed.
But it is a statue, and not a living body.
" As for the theory that the Church is
alive, but reached its full growth about the
end of the first, second, fourth or sixth
century — that is simply not worth con
sidering. For these are purely arbitrary
points, selected by various parties ac-
79

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
cording to their own idea of perfection.
There is not one single objective reason
why any one of these periods should be
preferred to any other. It is ridiculous to say
that St Paul looked forward to the end of
the sixth century as the culmination of the
measure of the stature of the fullness of
Christ. To pretend that he had any such
view is indeed to make null the word of
God by human traditions that have not
even common sense to recommend them.
Besides, if so, what in the world has it
been doing ever since?
"It is as arbitrary as to say that the per
fection of a child's growth is reached at
the age of fourteen. So long as he con
tinues to grow in strength and stature, so
long we must be content to put aside our
own views of what perfection should be,
and trust God's ideal instead."
2. "But how can we know," he next asks
himself, " whether it is not growing wrong?
I must put aside this main point for the pre
sent; but this at least I see — that, granted
that it does grow according to God s plan,
it can never reject what has once been part
of its structure. — (In the main I do see that
if we cannot trust God with the general de
velopment of the Church, we cannot trust
Him at all. Some say that the physical re-
80

DEVELOPMENT
surrection of Christ was an error subse
quent to the purity of the Gospel; and I
haye really no answer except that I cannot
believe that such an error would have been
permitted, if I take for granted the revela
tion of God through Jesus Christ at all.)
" But to return. I understand that de
velopment must be along the original lines
of the nature of the organism. If an oak,
after ten years' growth, suddenly rejected
roots and walked out of my garden on legs,
I should conclude that I had been mistaken
as to its oak-nature. It cannot change the
laws of its existence; it may throw out
branches, but not hands."
John then reflects that it is the reproach
of the Church of Rome that she will not
change nor eat her words. Like Pilate, what
she has written, she has written. She may
expound and amplify her statements; she
may make explicit what was once only im
plicit; but the original statement still stands
as a summary of its later amplifications.
But the Church of England and the Non
conformist sects follow a different principle.
That branch of the tree that once spread its
leaves over England had, without the sha
dow of a doubt, its roots in Rome.
" I cannot understand," cries John, im
patiently, " what Anglicans mean who de
clare that the Church of Anselm and Augus-
81 6

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
tine was 'not Roman Catholic' Every bishop
consecrated in the fifteenth century swore
in the most solemn manner that he drew
his spiritual, ecclesiastical and temporal
prerogatives from the Pope. The Pope was
prayed for in every Mass — until his name
was deliberately scratched out by the Re
formers; it was to him that the final appeal
lay. If the pre-Reformation Church in
England was not Roman Catholic, the
Church of Spain is not Roman Catholic
now; and words cease to bear any mean-
ing!" He considers then that this collection of
Christians, which, in the phrase of some of
them, is a branch of the Catholic Church,
has developed legs and walked away; or,
if they prefer it, has been severed somehow
from the roots that still stand, where they
always did, in Rome. It certainly does not
stand where it did; for it is really foolish to
assert that the Church of England stood
perfectly still in the sixteenth century, and
that the entire remainder of Western Chri
stendom with one consent moved from it.
Such a paradox amounts to the statement
that the Reformation did not take place in
England at all, but that a violent schism
rent the rest of Christendom, Rome in
cluded, from the Apostolic roots, at pre
cisely the date at which historians place
82

DEVELOPMENT
the hallucination hitherto called the " Re
formation!" "Such a paradox," he reflects, "can only
be paralleled by the comment ofthe Popish
priest who sat in the gallery at a Church
Defence meeting: 'I understand it at last,'
he whispered to a friend; 'the Church of
England was Protestant until the Reforma
tion, and has been Catholic ever since!'"
But this is not all. Numerous other
points, such as Purgatory with its corol
laries of Masses for the dead, the propitia
tion offered for the quick and the dead by
the priest in the Sacrifice of the Mass, in
vocation of saints, transubstantiation, and
so forth, once were parts of the doctrine of
the Church of England. Then for a long
period these points were not only disbe
lieved, but loudly assailed by the spiritual
descendants of Cranmer and Ridley. Even
now, in spite of the Oxford Movement, it
is doubtful whether any of the diocesan
bishops, or more than one in ten thousand
of the laity, believe them now. In brief,
then, things that had once been part of
the tree, and still are part of what claims
to be the only and original tree, were de
finitely rejected in England as accretions
and additions. God then, according to the
Anglican theory, has permitted His oak to
throw out leaves of hazel (or, shall we say,
83

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
deadly nightshade?); He has allowed the
mystical Body of His Son, fairer than
the children of men,* of whose natural
Body not one bone was broken, t to become
the distorted body of a cripple and a hunch
back; and it is not merely pierced and torn,
it is beaten out of all semblance to a man.
And, most astounding of all, He has re
served the privilege of pruning His un
natural tree, and making straight the de
formed limbs of Jesus Christ, to a small
section of a small body of Christians to
wards the close of the nineteenth cen
tury. . .
Such, briefly stated, is the claim of those
who name themselves Anglo-Catholics:
while for the rest of their communion, the
metaphor of the tree with all that it in
volves, is rejected root, branch, leaves, fruit
and twig, from beginning to end, from top
to bottom.
3. ."Yet," he reflects, "there is another
serious accusation brought against the Ro
man Church. What of all those foreign
bodies that she has incorporated into her
system? What of incense, once offered to
heathen emperors ? Transubstantiation, a
fragment of an exploded human philoso-
* Ps. xlv, 3. t John xix, 36.
84

DEVELOPMENT
phy; canonization, once under the name of
deification used for declaring members of
the imperial family divine; the Religious
life, once practised by the vestals— and all
the rest? Have we not here an evident
proof that the development theory is im
possible and suicidal? Such expansion is
not development of an original nature, it
is the assimilation of new external things."
"Exactly," cries the Catholic voice in
his heart, beginning now to wax louder
than ever, "we confess frankly that we
assimilate exterior things: but so do the
acorn and the child. Those masses of matter
did not, literally speaking, reside in the
acorn, but they passed through, transfi
gured from death to life by its energy,
from the soil that lay round about. As the
acorn has its instinct for what it can assi
milate, choosing this chemical and rejec
ting that pebble ; so the divine seed, sown
in the world at Pentecost, has ever since
been passing through itself those things
proper for its growth and expansion. Yet
each such substance must, as it were, be
cognate to something within the acorn, un-
hostile to what it will meet with there, for
we cannot add to the deposit of faith, we
can only express it more fully. With every
assimilated particle, as it mounts glorified
in the air, there must go the oak-nature
85

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
with it that has transformed it. Arius com
plained that a new phrase was added to
the old Creed when Christ was called 'of
one substance with the Father.' 'You are
adding to the faith,' he cried. 'Last year it
was enough that I should call Jesus divine,
now it seems I must call Him Homoousios:
it is I, then, who am the old Catholic, it is
you who are innovators and heretics.' 'It
is not so,' answered the Church. 'I incor
porate the Greek word to express myself
more fully; as an acorn incorporates earth
to declare the glorious life that is hid with
in itself; as one day I may declare Mary
immaculate, and the Pope infallible. First
the seed, then the fibre, then the sapling,
then the tree.'
" It is my glory then," cries the Church to
the amazed ears of John; "it is my glory
that I make dead things to live. I take the
dead music of the Jews, and it blossoms in
flowers of plainsong; I catch up the dying
language of a Latin people, and I make it
live, when to all others it has been long
dead; it thrives in my liturgy, it generates
new words in my theology, it glows on the
lips of my preachers, it is the tongue in
which my foreign priests communicate with
me and with one another. At Pentecost
the miracle that showed the wisdom of
God was that men of one language spoke
86

DEVELOPMENT
many;* in the twentieth century after
Pentecost my miracle is that men of many
languages speak one.
" I sweep up the debased architecture of
the Roman Empire, and out of it I build
my basilicas. I seize to myself the dying
philosophy of Aristotle, and recreate it
alive to make my meaning plain. I am
ready, as I have always been, to take the
ephemeral things of men, their dress, their
methods, their modes of thought, and to
use them, if it suits my purpose, for the
manifestation of my divine life.
"The whole world lies about my roots,
and I suck out of every country and age
what befits my energy of life.
" For I am more than the oak and the
mustard-tree : I am the very Vine of God,
brought out of Egypt long ago.'f My seed
fell in a ball of fire with the sound of wind; J
and from that moment I have lived indeed.
I thrust my white shoots in the darkness
of the catacombs, and forced my way
through the cracks of Caesar's falling pala
ces; my early grapes were trodden under
foot, rent by the wild boar in the amphi
theatre, § spoilt by little foxes, || crushed in
the wine-press of rack and prison ; I am
* Cf. Acts ii, 8. t Cf. Ps. lxxx, 8.
JCf. Acts ii, 1-4. § Cf. Ps. lxxx, 13.
|| Cf. Cant. Cant, ii, 15.
87

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
blown upon by every wind that blows, by
calumny and criticism from the north, by
passion and fury in the south and west. I
am pruned year by year with sharp knives
forged in death and hell, yet grasped by
the hand of the Father who is my husband
man.* And yet I live, and shall live, till my
Beloved comes down to taste the fruits of
the garden. . . f
"For I am planted by the river of salva
tion, watered by the tears and blood of
saints, breathed upon by the spirit of God
who alone can make the spices to flow
forth. J More than that, I am mystically
one with my Beloved already; it is His
Heart's blood that flows in my veins; His
strength that sustains me; for He is the
Vine, my boughs are His branches ;§ and
I am nothing save in Him and them. It is
for this cause then that I spring up indo
mitable ; that I stretch my boughs to the
river, and my branches to the sea,|| that
my shadow is in all lands; that the wild
birds lodge in my branches, the dove and
the eagle together; that the fierce beasts
couch beside my roots, the wolf beside the
lamb, and the leopard by the kid.l" It is for
* Cf. John xv, i. |Cf. Cant. Cant, vi, 2-1 1.
t Cf. Cant. Cant, iv, 16. §Cf. John xv, 5, etc.
|| Cf. Ps. lxxx, 11. U Cf. Isa. xi, 6.
88

DEVELOPMENT
this that I am older than the centuries,
younger than yesterday, eternal, undying
and divine."
John shuts his Bible, and falls to prayer.

89

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN

V-Infallibility (i)
IT is very well," says John, "to compare
the Catholic Church to a tree, and to
explain its apparent changes by develop
ment; but the theory has its disadvantages.
Chief among these is the risk of wrong
development, or deformity. How am I to
know whether, for example, Transubstan
tiation is not a growth upon the Vine, that
has no right to be there? How can I tell
that the Petrine claims are not of the same
nature, and that the Pope, as we see him
to-day, is not a kind of tumour upon the
mystical body, that has arrogated to itself
the functions of a head?"
i. But, as he considers the matter, the
Erobability of deformity appears to him to
e at least very unlikely.
As a matter of fact, the Church of Rome is
in possession ofthe world in a way in which
no other institution is in possession. It num
bers at least half the entire Christian world,
and this half is endowed with a unity entire
ly lacking in the other half. Non-Catholics
are united in one point only, namely, in their
90

INFALLIBILITY
denial ofthe Papacy; CathoHcsare united
not only in their view of the Papacy but
in all other points of doctrine as well. This
Church also, which Johnnow calls Catholic,
has provided saints in quality and quantity
such as no other institution has ever pro
duced; it is of all ages, countries and cha
racters; it has a continuity in which its
fiercest enemies can point to no breach;
and, lastly, these two points which he has
advanced as being possible deformities are
not merely small external growths which
can be detached from the body without in
juring its life — they are of its very essence
and vitality. As the Papacy is the heart of
its doctrinal system, so Transubstantiation
is the heart of its devotional life. From both
pour out a stream of faith and prayer that
reach the furthest fibres of its being. Cut
these two things out ofthe Catholic Church,
and the whole body perishes.
If then for the purposes of argument it
is granted that these two points are in
stances of wrong development, John will
have to acknowledge that God Almighty,
who promised that His Church should not
be prevailed against by the gates of hell,
has allowed one half of those who call
themselves Christians to be fundamently
perverted in their dogmatic and devotional
Fife, and the other half to be so internally
91

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
divided that they neither reckon themselves
nor are reckoned by the world as forming
one body at all. According to this view then
the Creator of the world, who preserves
millions of trees in health and perfection,
has allowed His heavenly Vine to be rent
by disease and schism; He who brings
man's natural stature to health and matu
rity has permitted the mystical Body of His
Son to become as that of a leper and a
cripple. " Yes,"answersJohn to his own thoughts,
"1 must confess that it appears to me un
likely that Almighty God would allow His
Vine to be so poisoned by error. I should have
expected of Him that He would have given
it some safeguard, some instinct of choos
ing good and refusing evil,* such as He has
given to man's natural life, and even to
senseless vegetables which He has enabled
to draw out of the soil what is good for their
life and to reject what is useless or poison
ous. It is this instinct which I understand
by the word infallibility, that is, an unerring
power of distinguishing between what is
true and what is not, between what affects
doctrinal and devotional life for good or for
evil, between what can be healthily incor
porated and what must be resolutely re
fused. But, on the other hand, God does
*Cf Isa. vii, 15.
92

INFALLIBILITY
not always do what seems likely and pro
bable; His ways are past finding out. Let
me consider therefore what are possible
alternatives to this endowment of infalli
bility which the Roman Catholic Church
claims for itself."
2. On reflection he finds that they are
three in number.
(i) The infallibility of nobody.
(ii) The infallibility of everybody.
(iii) The infallibility of some body other
than the Roman Catholic Church.
He considers them one by one.
(i) The infallibility of nobody.
The articles of the Church of England
state that infallibility is to be found in no
one body, and that the Church of Rome
has erred, as also have the Churches of
Antioch and Jerusalem, even in matters of
faith.* Neither does the Church of England
apparently believe that infallibility is to be
found in all of these acting together, al
though she pays a great deference, in her
words, to what she calls Catholic Doctors.
She believes, then, in a general kind of way,
in the guidance of antiquity,! but she does
not believe in its guaranteed immunity from
error. * Article xix.
fCf. Preface to Book of Common Prayer, "Con
cerning the Service of the Church," etc.
93

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
John finds himself therefore, so far as
he follows her teaching, in the following
situation :
Nineteen hundred years ago there lived,
it is reported, one called Jesus Christ.
After His death a number of His admirers
wrote His history, relating many marvels
and adding comments. These histories were
sorted out by a body of persons liable to
error (for even general councils, says the
Church of England, are so liable*), and
summaries called creeds were drawn up
by these same fallible authorities. Since
those days a thousand further questions
have been answered, and a body of doc
trine has gradually taken shape under the
hands of men unsafeguarded against mis
take. To this body of doctrine he is bidden
to give his adherence.
Yet what reason has he for doing so?
Gradual development is repudiated be
cause of the probability of human error
creeping in — the Church of Rome is at
tacked for that very reason. He is asked
therefore to give supernatural faith to the
results arrived at by fallible men concern
ing the life and person of One concerning
whom there has ever been enormous con
troversy, whose history was written by
persons whose only claim to authority is
* Article XXI.
94

INFALLIBILITY
the sanction givent hem by fallible coun
cils, and who Himself lived in the East,
an uncritical district in an uncritical age.
What kind of security is there that the
account of that Person is to be relied upon,
that His words and deeds are truly re
ported? Why should not those fallible
councils have fallen into grievous error,
including untrustworthy narratives in their
so-called canon of Scripture, and exclud
ing as heretical true comments on that life
and Person? Perhaps the Gospel according
to St John has no claim to authority! Per
haps the Church of England may be utterly
wrong in thinking Jesus Christ divine,!
Perhaps the whole matter is a beautiful
delusion from beginning to end !
Yet, even assuming that Jesus was God,
the state of affairs is not much better; for,
according to this theory of the fallibility of
everybody, we may have wholly miscon
strued the meaning of His words and acts;
we are asked to give an unquestioning faith
to things distinctly questionable; and Jesus
Christ who brought us a revelation has pro
vided no means of preserving it unimpaired.
"I may as well, ' cries John, "give it all
up at once, and confess that unless there
is somewhere on earth an authority that
speaks infallibly, it would have been much
better if I had never been tantalized by a
95

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
glimpse of a truth which I am unable to
apprehend." (ii) The infallibility of everybody.
This, in effect, is the claim of many Pro
testants. Every man, they say, who has re
ceived the gift of faith, and who prayerfully
cultivates it, is illuminated from on high
with a power of discerning between true
and false, and of rightfully understanding
the Holy Scriptures.
"Now if," says John, "I am told that the
Pope's infallibility is impossible to believe,
how can I be expected to think the infalli
bility of, let us say, two hundred million
persons is easier of belief? Is not this
straining at a gnat, and swallowing a very
large herd of gigantic camels? Besides,
these infallible individuals differ diametri
cally on points of faith. General Booth is
certainly a sincere and prayerful man, and
he tells me that baptism is an unnecessary
piece of ceremonial; while Dr Guinness
Rogers urges it as at least very important.
The Wesleyans are infallible when they
tell me that I am free to choose or refuse
God; and the Calvinists are infallible when
they tell me that I am nothing of the kind.
And so forth.
"I am therefore in a worse position than
ever; for it is even more bewildering to be
lieve that God demands from me faith in a
96

INFALLIBILITY
large number of not only irreconcilable but
flatly contradictory propositions, than that
He has taken no steps at all to secure the
infallible transmission of His revelation
in Jesus Christ."
(iii) The infallibility of somebody other
than the Roman Catholic Church.
Now the principal exponents in England
of this last alternative areto be found among
those whom their enemies call "Ritualists. '
Briefly, as John has learnt in the past, the
theory is as follows:
The infallible Church of God consists of
those bodies of Christians, acting together,
who hold the old creeds of Christendom
and have retained at least the threefold
order of ministers, bishops, priests and
deacons. Roughly speaking, these may be
enumerated as the communions of Rome,
Moscow and Canterbury. These three cir
cles, however, are not absolutely coinci
dent; each has its own peculiarities, and it
is only in that part where all three overlap
that complete security is to be found. For
example, all three communions hold, at any
rate in their written formularies, such doc
trines as those of the Real Presence and
the sacrament of Penance* (to mention
points of controversy). Other doctrines
* Cf. Book of Common Prayer, Catechism, Ordain
ing of Priests, etc. 97 7

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
such as the sacrifice of the Mass, invoca
tion of saints, and prayers for the dead,
while held explicitly by Rome and Mos
cow, cannot be demonstrated, say the Ri
tualists, as actually and literally incom
patible with the formularies of the Church
of England, even though until the last
seventy years very nearly all, and at the
present moment more than half of her
children, following at any rate a possible
interpretation of her "Articles," strenu
ously deny them. *
" But let us waive all these questions,"
says John, " and take the Ritualistic theory
as proved. In what condition does it leave
us? "To my first question, How does this
infallible authority — i.e., the agreement
between Rome, Moscow and Canterbury
— utter her voice? the answer is, For the
present she speaks by silent agreement,
in the future it is to be hoped that she will
speak by a general council.
"Again (waiving the matter of the
Twenty-first Article, which expressly
states that general councils 'may err,
even in things pertaining to God'), I ask:
Is there any kind of possibility, humanly
speaking, that such a general council will
ever be gathered? How is such a council
* Cf. Articles xxii, xxxi, etc
98

INFALLIBILITY
possible when one of the three partners
repudiates the jurisdiction and position of
one of the others, and the jurisdiction,
position and orders ofthe third; when the
second partner repudiates the first and
third altogether; and only a small section
of the third partner believes in the theory
at all? Is this any more than a paper-
theory, that may be maintained for pur
poses of argument, but which is utterly
useless to people like myself, alive at this
moment, who want to know what to be
lieve? "As for the 'silent agreement,' I asked
not about silence, but speech. I asked how
this infallible authority speaks, not what
she may be believed to imply; for implica
tion is an uncertain ground to go upon.
I may take one view of what she implies,
and you may take another. Where then is
the voice that will decide between us?
You do not find it in your own bishops,
for you do not obey them, but appeal from
them back once more to this 'silent agree
ment,' or to the future speech of a council
that you know will never meet. Is not this
tangle insoluble? Are we not at the whirl
ing edge of a vicious circle?
"Yet again, I will waive all this and
take your theory for granted.
" I understand that you do, as a matter
99

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
of fact, base your acceptance of the Real
Presence, the sacrament of Penance, and
so on, upon this agreement of what you
call the Church Diffusive; in fact you base
your whole faith upon it. I must ask then
a very fundamental question: Does this
theory of silent agreement itself find sup
port from what you call the Catholic
Church? Do Rome, Moscow and Canter
bury accept the positions into which you
thrust them? Do they acknowledge that
infallible authority resides in the over
lapping of their respective tenets, and no
where else? For it is impossible to base in
dividual doctrines upon a foundation which
is itself repudiated by itself."
"I must confess,' answers the Ritualist,
"that Rome and Moscow, to say nothing
of Canterbury, do refuse the theory. Rome
arrogantly claims to be the whole of the
Catholic Church; Moscow claims to be
alone orthodox."
"Then," cries John once more, "I have
to accept this theory upon your authority
alone. You base your authority upon this
theory, and this theory upon your autho
rity. Have you ever heard of the Indian
theory of the universe? The world stands
on an elephant, the elephant upon a tor
toise; and the tortoise, apparently, upon
the world I IOO

INFALLIBILITY
"My dear sir," continues John to his
imaginary Ritualist, "you really must let
me alone. I am more bewildered than I can
describe. You forget that I am not a scho
lar like yourself. To my poor brain your
theory appears like the dream of a pro
fessor who never leaves his college. And
yet I am quite aware that you do magnifi
cent work in practical life; that you sacri
fice yourself nobly for God's poor, that you
teach them uplifting doctrines, and set them
an example that we should all do well to
follow. But in your theory you are a
dreamer; it is a city in the clouds that in
spires your journey; it moves before you,
changing its shape with every wind that
blows; never descending to dwell among
men. For myself, I cannot walk in its light;
I need a Jerusalem which has God for its
architect, and which, though its head
reaches to heaven, yet has its foundations
and gates upon earth. For the twentieth
time, I am a simple man; and with all the
good will in the world I cannot honestly
believe in a living authority which has
undergone petrifaction, in a vine which
consists of branches severed one from
another, in a speaking voice which is dumb,
in a republic which has no president, in a
life which offers no proof of its existence.
I admire your works, I am astonished at
IOI

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
your ingenuity; but I cannot believe in
your theories. I shall be obliged if you
will let me alone, and allow me to look
at the Penny Catechism once more."
"The Church has a visible Head on
earth — the Bishop of Rome, who is the
Vicar of Christ. He is the shepherd and
teacher of all Christians, and he cannot err
when, as shepherd and teacher of all Chris
tians, he defines a doctrine concerning
faith and morals to be held by the whole
Church. . . The Church has marks by
which we know her. . . She is one because
all her members agree in one faith . . . and
are all united under one Head. . . She is
distinguished by the eminent holiness of
. . . many thousands of her children. . . She
subsists in all ages, teaches all nations. . .
She holds the doctrines and traditions of
the apostles . . . and derives her Orders
and Mission from them. . . She cannot err
. . . because Christ promised that the
gates of hell shall never prevail against His
Church; that the Holy Ghost shall teach
her all things, and that He Himself will be
with her . . . even to the consummation of
the world."*
" Ah ! " he cries, " at least 1 understand
this theory. God has not left us comfort
less : He has planted His Vine and safe-
* §§ 86-101.
1 02

INFALLIBILITY
guarded her against error. He has esta
blished an authority which speaks with
His voice.
" And the whole of my observation con
firms the theory. It is written not on paper,
but in the lives and hearts of men. I see a
unity here, unlike any other unity in the
world; I hear a voice consistent with itself
and louder than all the cries of conflict, and
a message that is the same for simple and
wise alike; I see a Figure moving through
the ages, overshadowing every country, and
bearing on herself the marks of the Lord
Jesus; and I hear millions of voices acclaim
ing her as divine. Her children are not re
quired to be infallible; they are not asked
to expect personal illumination from heaven
on all points of doctrine; one thing only is
given — certitude that she is what she claims
to be ; one thing only is asked — a simple act
of faith in her mission.
"It seems to me when I pass from other
theories to this that I am coming out from
candlelight to day, that I am descending
from a trapeze to the solid ground, that I
am passing from a riot of anarchy into the
presence of a quiet king. Scholarship is not
asked of me, nor eloquence, nor ingenuity;
no more is required than was required of
Mary and Martha and James and Andrew,
and which all can give— that, looking upon
103

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
this Figure, I should recognize it as from
God, listening to the message I should
acclaim it as divine; and that my highest
joy and widest freedom should henceforth
be found in sitting at those feet, resigning
my self-will, and learning what the Lord
God will say.
" But whether I can do all that is another
question. " For I have one vast difficulty yet to
solve/'says John; "and it is one that, unless
answered, will knock the whole affair on
the head. Is it not a fact that this infallible
Church has been obliged more than once
to recede from her position, and to deny
what she once defined? If a single instance
can be proved of this, the whole beautiful
edifice falls at once.
" What about Galileo? "
It would delay us too long to follow John
in his researches; but, briefly, this is the
answer that he receives from a priest to
whom he betakes himself:
" The Church never condemned Galileo.
It was only the Inquisition."
" But is not the Inquisition one channel
through which the Church speaks?"
" Not in that sense," answers the priest.
" The Church only speaks infallibly in one
of two ways: either through a General
104

INFALLIBILITY
Council confirmed by the Pope, or through
the Pope speaking by himself. It is all in
the penny Catechism."
" But the Pope assented to the condem
nation of Galileo ! "
"Not as Pope."
"Why, this is bewildering," cries John.
" How am I to tell when the Pope speaks
infallibly?" " From the penny Catechism. Listen, my
dear sir.
" ' When I say that the Pope is infallible,
I mean that the Pope cannot err when, as
shepherd and teacher of all Christians, he
defines a doctrine concerning faith or
morals to be held by the whole Church.' *
Do you see? Firstly, the Pope may be
heretical in his private opinions or state
ments, as John XXII was, if it is true that
he really said and meant that the saints do
not see God. But that has nothing whatever
to do with infallibility. He is not defining
a doctrine to be held by the whole Church.
Secondly, the Pope may make a mistake
even in a solemn public utterance if it is not
on a matter of faith or morals. For example,
Pius X may be wrong when he thinks it
good for the Church that Catholics should
vote in government elections, and tells
them to do so. (I do not say that it may not
*§93- 105

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
be better for us to obey even when we think
he is wrong, because, after all, he is our
religious superior, and is likely to know
more about the matter than we; but we do
not obey him then as infallible, but only as
authoritative.)" " Yes, yes, Father Brown; but how about
Galileo? That was on the faith, because the
Pope said it was distinctly heretical ! And,
you know, the earth does go round the sun
after all!"
" Yes, but he was not speaking as ' the
shepherd and teacher of all Christians,'
but only as the chief official of the Inquisi
tion. The king may give his assent to a re
solution of the Privy Council, but that does
not make it law. It is not the ' royal assent ';
he does not speak ' as king,' but only as the
chief person in the Privy Council.
"Oh!"saysIohn."Yes, sir; I know it is surprising. But,
after all, we must be allowed to know what
we believe better than our enemies. Shall
I go on?"
" If you please."
" Well,then, General Councils and Popes
are only infallible on matters of faith and
morals, and under the conditions I have
described. And the reason is that faith and
morals are the two vital functions of the
Church. You told me a few days ago that
106

INFALLIBILITY
unless there was an infallible authority
somewhere, you did not see how it was
possible to know what Christianity really
is. I agreed with you.
" But all our affairs are not absolutely
vital. Physical science is not. What is vital
is only our religious belief and the mora
lity of our actions; in other words, our
faith and morals. Therefore the Church
only claims infallibility in those things.
" Again, theologians may make mistakes
even in those things, and so may the faith
ful. But then theologians are not infallible,
nor are the faithful. What we must have, as
you rightly said, is a final, infallible autho
rity which declares to us as much of the
mind of God as is necessary for us to
know. " Once more — Popes and General Coun
cils may state their definitions obscurely
or feebly; we do not claim that ' God is the
author ' of their decrees in the same sense
that He is the author of Scripture : we only
claim that those definitions are true, and
not untrue; otherwise, as you said, Where
are we?"
" Yes, yes," interrupts John, " I see that.
But then, if the Pope always was infallible,
how comes it that he was ever resisted?
Why did Meletius and Cyprian resist him?
Why are councils necessary? Why didn't
107

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
the early Christians simply appeal to the
Pope and have things settled? '
" That is an enormous question. Let me
answer it by an allegory.
" You mentioned to me some days ago
that you understood the theory of develop
ment. Very well. When a child is young,
his head is his head, and is, in one sense,
the ruler of his body. But the limbs don't
Suite realize it. He tries to walk, and falls
own, because the limbs are not yet in full
conscious relations with the brain. They are
vitally one with the brain, and are, as a
matter of fact, generally controlled by it;
but the full realization of all that that
means has not penetrated to his toes. So he
tumbles. "Gradually, however, the process of
centralization goes on; the limbs learn that
only by entire obedience to the head do
they enjoy real security and liberty. That
is the process that is called, in regard to the
Catholic Church, the ' Romanizing ' of
nations; it means that while the Pope has
always been the head, yet all that that im
plies is not fully and really understood by
all the members of the Church. (The Galli-
can movement was retrograde, not progres
sive, therefore.) We may say then that the
Vatican decree of '71, defining the Pope as
infallible, was a kind of attaining of the
108

INFALLIBILITY
majority; the Church, in a sort of way,
'came of age'; just as when a boy becomes
a man, it implies that the slightly clumsy,
undeveloped age is passed; he now knows
explicitly, what has always been an implicit
fact, that his head is his head, and must rule
every movement of his toes and fingers."
"Stop! stop!"
"One moment. With regard to councils
there are more ways than one in which a
child may speak. He may speak by ges
tures of his whole body as a sign of attrac
tion or repulsion; and, when he is a child,
he does generally so speak. It seems to
him more emphatic. As he grows up his
gestures become fewer and his words more
frequent. When he is perfectly self-con
trolled, he may manage to do without
gestures at all.
"Now a council is like a gesture; it is
the whole body making a decisive move
ment. (Not that the Pope's mouth did not
speak, too, quite often enough, and autho
ritatively enough, to shew us what the
early Christians thought about him.) But
as the mystical Body of Christ develops,
there are still gestures. The Church at this
moment is poised in an emphatic gesture
that we call the Vatican Council — never
yet dissolved; but the mouth talks more
frequently. Possibly some day  "
109

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
"My dear father, you needn't say any
more. I see the line — "
"It is only an analogy, remember; and
there is no perfectly adequate human ana
logy to a divine fact."
"But it is enough for the present; I must
think it out. Good night."
Gradually, then, the bewilderment passes,
and John beholds a great sight.
He sees a vast mystical figure, lying
athwart the world. The head rests in
Rome, crowned with thorns; the body
wounded, but not broken — stripped, indeed,
of its own gorgeous raiment, but living —
lies upon the earth. The great arms and
feet stretch across land and sea. Even in
far China tender fingers are groping, ga
thering souls into them. One common blood
of faith and prayer pulsates from the beat
ing heart through all nations, uniting them
in a supernatural life such as the world has
never seen. Sometimes by a slow move
ment the figure shifts itself from some
poisonous vapour, declaring its nature by
the action of the whole frame ; sometimes
by a word, awful and majestic, issuing from
that thorn-crowned head, clamours and
disputes are silenced. That huge being has
taken nineteen centuries to come of age;
and with that climax has followed peace.
IIO

INFALLIBILITY
The limbs that tossed a thousand years
ago in a fever of unrest lie quiet under the
supreme control of the infallible mind ; and
the world that has helped to wound them
so grievously stands astonished at the un
dying vitality, the incessant energy, the
enormous recuperative power more evi
dent to-day than ever before.
And still the world that should have ex
hausted his malice comes to the assault
again and again, carrying calumny as his
sword, Protestantism as his shield, and not
ashamed to use the rack and the gallows
when all else fails to wound.
And the huge mystical figure shrinks in
pain, for, if one member suffer, all the
members suffer with it, and yet survives;
and the imprisoned head turns weary eyes
to heaven, as if to cry, "How long?" And
back again from heaven comes the answer,
as an echo from Galilee of that cry that
brought that life into being :
"Thou art Peter . . . The gates of hell
shall not prevail ... I will give unto thee
the keys ofthe kingdom of heaven."*
* Matt, xvi, 1 8, 19.

Ill

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN

Vl-Intellect, Emotion and Faith
(i)
ANOTHER difficulty remains to be
cleared away; and it is one that besets
many souls as they approach the thres
hold of Catholicism. John states it to him
self in this fashion.
"I have certainly arrived at the door of
the Church, following a train of thought
that seems to have been naturally sug
gested step by step through the peculiari
ties of my own circumstances. But how do
I know whether I have not been deceiving
myself throughout? There are certainly
many hundreds of difficult questions that
I have not dealt with: Anglican Orders,
communion in one kind, indulgences, his
torical facts, the writings of the Fathers
and other matters. I have not dealt with
them because they do not seem to me re
levant. But how can I possibly tell whether
they are not so? Many people that I know
are held back from Catholicism simply by
such considerations as these; and they tell
me that I have no right to take the impor
tant step of submission until I am com
pletely satisfied on all these points.
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INTELLECT, EMOTION and FAITH
"Or look at the question in another way.
" As I read the newspapers day by day,
I see that all over the world souls are
pouring into the Roman Catholic Church.
From Russia they come by tens of thou
sands: I am told that, such is the move
ment in business-like America, New York
will be practically a Catholic city in an
other fifty years. In France, while the
bourgeois nation as a body is throwing off
the faith, the keenest intellects are making
haste to embrace it. I can scarcely take up
an English newspaper without seeing that
the Rev. Mr So-and-So or Mrs Somebody
else has been received into the Church.
And when I consider all this, and when
I read the reasons on account of which
my own acquaintances have taken this
step, I perceive that no two of them give
quite the same account of their conversion.
One was first drawn by music, another by
ceremonial, anotherby historical continuity,
another by the example of friends, another
by visible unity, another by the Petrine
texts and their apparent fulfilment.
"Very well then. Pure reason has very
little to do with it; the Catholic claims are
not as logical as they appear; or at any
rate it is not on account of logic that men
make their submission. There is not one
plain, undeniably intellectual path by
113 8

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
which men approach the Catholic Church;
for each gives a different account of his
journey thither. And if they do not walk
by pure reason, they can only walk by
emotion; and emotion, as we know, is the
most unsatisfactory path to follow. It has
a way of suddenly ceasing and leaving one
in the wilderness.
"When, therefore, I seem to myself to
have come by intellect, I am deceiving
myself ; it is really emotion that has drawn
me on; and what will happen, if, in five
years' time my emotion runs dry, and I find
myself bound to an institution in which I
do not believe? I cannot trust myself after
all!" It would occupy us too long to follow
John in all his struggles with this last diffi
culty. He prays, he thinks, he reads, he
despairs, he hopes; and at last there takes
shape in his imagination a kind of intellec
tual vision.
He sees a great city, the same as that
which his patron saw long ago in Patmos.*
It stands on a mountain, a city set on a hill;
of the world, for its foundation rests on
apostolic men; and of heaven, for its pinna
cles reach to paradise. There is no temple
in it, for God and the Lamb are in it, and
every inch is sacred ground. It has no lamp
* Cf. Rev. xxi
U4

INTELLECT, EMOTION and FAITH
or light of candle; for the Lord God is its
light, and makes it to be a city of fire, a
light that cannot be hid; so that even the
nations that reject it walk in the splendour
that flows from it.
Its foundations are encrusted with every
jewel that God has made; there is not one
virtue or grace that does not find a place
there; and the heavenly glory from within
shines through the purity of the diamond,
the ardour of the ruby, the delicacy of the
amethyst, the hope ofthe emerald.
Yet every gate is one pearl. While there is
variety in its ornaments, there is none in its
entrances. Men may come from afar, drawn
by the light of this virtue or that, but they
can only enter through a pearl — a pearl of
great price — for which the sacrifice of all
else is a cheap exchange.
These gates, all alike, stand three on each
side, facing the four quarters of the earth;
for the nations of northr south, east and
west, are bringing their glory into it.
The Englishman brings his sturdy jus
tice, the American his swift prudence, the
Frenchman his delicate ardour, the German
his solid learning, the Chinaman his in
credible patience, the Indian his philosophic
acumen, the Spaniard his smouldering pas
sion. Each nation has his gift to make, each
individual his contribution; but each passes
115

INTELLECT, EMOTION and FAITH
in turn through the one and self-same gate
to find his offering accepted and his pov
erty enriched.
There are ten thousand paths leading to
this city; no two persons come the same
way, for no two characters are alike. One
follows the sound of an organ, one the scent
of incense, one walks with the Scriptures
in his hand; another is a historian, another
a mystic, another a philanthropist; one is
a sinner and seeks pardon ; another is
simple and needs illumination; another is
a saint, and desires union with God; one
is led by his mother's hand; another breaks
loose from his friends to follow Christ. So
they stream up by tens of thousands, each
following his own path, each impelled by a
power which he does not wholly under
stand ; but, at the end, all meet at the same
gate; each must enter by the pearl door.
"There is then," cries John, "but one
thing demanded of each as he passes from
the world into the city of God. I may be
brought by intellect or emotion, by this
train of thought or that, right up to the
walls of the city, but I cannot enter except
through one gate. I may be blind, or pre
judiced, or stupid, or clever, or one-sided;
I may~ approach the gate for the most
inadequate and the most unconvincing
reasons, but when I do get there, I have
116

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
but to ask myself one question : do I or do
I not believe that this pearl gate gives en
trance to the city of God? Have I or have
I not conviction that this is Christ's Ca
tholic Church? I must not dare to turn
back without answering: I must not ven
ture to question the straightness of the
path that has brought me here, or doubt
whether I was justified in following it, or
whether I should not have come more
surely by another way. It does not matter
in the least how I got here. The fact re
mains that here I am.
"Somehow I have been brought here;
there stands a pearly vision. It may be an
illusion of clouds and light ; it may even be
a disguised door to hell. But I dare not, for
my own soul's sake, hesitate to answer. If
I have conviction, I must go forward; if I
have not conviction, I must turn back."

117

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
(ii)
Next he wants to consider what is this
faith or divine conviction by which alone
he can enter.
Years ago he made acquaintance for the
first time with his friend James. He was at
college with him; and afterwards chance
brought them together again in a provin
cial town. He observed James in many cir
cumstances; he saw him in public and in
private, when he was with strangers and
when he was off his guard. He quarrelled
with him, argued with him, was reconciled
with him; he saw his faults, his weaknesses,
his virtues and his possibilities; and at last
he came to the conclusion that James was,
at any rate, a perfectly honourable man.
He did not pretend to infallibility, but only
to certitude; he was perfectly certain that
James was incapable of a dishonourable
action. Two years ago John received disquieting
news. A friend called upon him to warn
him against James; and to relate the fact
that he had been undoubtedly guilty of
meanness and fraudulence. The evidence
seemed most convincing; it appeared im
possible to explain it away; yet it had not
the smallest effect upon John.
"I tell you," he answered, "James is
118

INTELLECT, EMOTION and FAITH
simply incapable of this. I cannot disprove
your evidence, but I do not believe it for
an instant. I am perfectly certain that he
could have done no such thing as you des
cribe. I tell you I have complete faith in
him." "Now this," muses John, "is faith. lean-
not say exactly how it came; how much my
intellect had to do with it, or my emotions,
or my intentions. It was a kind of gift
that I received through my intercourse
with James; it enabled me to believe in
him in spite of all the black evidence
against him. And it has been justified. I
know now that although appearances were
against him, he was innocent. It has all
been explained away. That then is one kind
of faith.*
He passes on then very naturally to con
sider the kind of faith that the friends of
Jesus Christ had in Him when He was
upon earth.
They were very ignorant people for the
most part; they had had no training in
psychology; and yet they were capable of
a virtue that the Pharisees and scribes
did not possess. They must have been
in great difficulties sometimes. Their friends
no doubt would come to them and expos
tulate with them on their extraordinary
folly. 119

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
"How can you believe that Jesus of
Nazareth is God? It is simply unheard-of
that God should be incarnate. Besides,
have you not watched Jesus grow from
infancy to boyhood, and boyhood to man
hood? Have you not seen Him making
tables and chairs in Joseph's shop? Dont
you know Mary, His mother? Didn't He
go to school like the other boys, say His
prayers, eat, sleep, play, talk? How can
you be so ridiculous as to say that He is
almighty God? "
"And what in the world," asks John,
"could the poor men answer? They
couldn't argue about philosophy, and de
velopment, and the Blessed Trinity, and
Cur Deus Homo, and all the rest of it.
They couldn't possibly explain in intelli
gible terms why they believed Him God.
They could only shrug their shoulders and
smile, and try to say that they knew per
fectly well that Jesus Christ was human;
but that somehow — they couldn't say why
— they were under the firm impression
that He was more than human as well —
that they were so certain, that they were
willing to die for Him; to follow His
lightest gesture; to leave their nets, and
their friends, and their reputation for com
mon-sense, and everything else that seemed
12Q

INTELLECT, EMOTION and FAITH
worth having, at a whisper from Jesus,
and to follow Him through the world."
"And, after all," cries John, "this in
explicable thing called Faith has turned
the world upside down. Peter and James
and Bartholomew are known and reve
renced throughout the entire inhabited
earth, while we don't even know the
names of the clever men who argued with
them, and laughed at them, and despised
them. Does not this faith then seem to
have justified its existence? and is it not
possible that the faith that I have received
— for it is useless to pretend that I
haven't — this conviction that the vision
of the city is not an illusion, but that the
gate of pearl is a reality, and that the light
that shines out streams from the face of
God — Wait ! How did I receive it? When?
By what particular argument? I don't know.
God help me ! I don't know. . .
"What is this that has happened to
me? . . .
" I feel that a window has been thrown
up behind me, sending a ray of light into
the garden where I have been standing so
long in the twilight. Six months ago every
thing was dim and undefined. Those dark
shapes might have been bushes or bears
or men — kindly or malevolent or indiffer-
121

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
ent. Now a light has shined. I do not
know who has thrown up the window;
but I think that it can be only one Person.
Perhaps He will shut the window again
presently; but will that make any differ
ence? Of course not; I know now perfectly
well where I am and what is round me.
I know that I am in a garden, not a mena
gerie; I know that that glimmering thing
is a statue; and that streak of paleness is
a gravel path, and that blot of black a
cypress. I shall always know that, what
ever happens, unless I wilfully shut my
eyes and make myself think something
else. . .
" Well, then, this is what has happened
to my soul.
"I have been staring and puzzling and
arguing about things, and straining my
eyes, and listening to explanations, and
doing my best to be in the right attitude
for seeing what is true and what is not.
I have done my best not to be bitter and
sarcastic; I have tried to see everybody's
point of view, and to make out what they
mean and what I mean. I haven't bothered
about things that did not seem to concern
me. I haven't asked about minute details
which I can't possibly know; or even
about great and important things that did
not seem to me to matter personally;
122

INTELLECT, EMOTION and FAITH
and now the window has gone up, and /
know. "When people ask me exactly why I
believe, I cannot exactly tell them. I can
not prove to them that the bush is a bush,
and not a bear; they were not here when
the window was opened. I can only say
that I am perfectly certain; I can only
say that I did have difficulties, and that
I have them no longer; that some of the
difficulties have actually become helps to
my faith, and that others have melted.
There are probably a great many other
difficulties too; but, as Cardinal Newman
said, 'Ten thousand difficulties do not
make one doubt.'
^"When they tell me that the Catholic
Church is a human institution; that its
importance grew from the fact that Rome
was the capital of the old world; that the
faith has gradually developed; that ambi
tion has played a great part, and all the
rest of it; I shall answer that I am quite
aware of all these facts, that I know that
the Church is human, but that that does
not prevent her from being also divine.
When they bring forward yet more serious
accusations, which I cannot answer ex
plicitly, I shall fall back on faith, as I did
in that affair of James's, and tell them that
I am absolutely certain that she is in-
123

The RELIGION of the PLAIN MAN
capable of such things; that I know she
cannot tell a lie; and that no amount of
evidence could make me believe it.
" In other words I have received the Gift
of Faith; which, as the penny catechism
told me long ago, though I did not un
derstand it then, "enables me to believe
without doubting whatever God has re
vealed. . .
"And . . . and the best thing I can do at
this moment is to put on my hat and go
round to the presbytery."

124

The EXCHANGE

VII-The Exchange
""T?ATHER," says John, after a few
]£ minutes' explanation, "will you kind
ly preach me a short discourse on what I
may expect to find within the Catholic
Church? I am quite determined to become
a Catholic; but I should like to have a hint
of what that means."
The priest looked at him a moment with
out speaking. Then he leaned back and
began. "I am very glad, sir, that you have
been courageous enough to come. I have
known many Protestants who came up
to the very door, and then turned back
again. They did not ask themselves whe
ther they did or did not believe in the
Catholic Church; they only wondered
whether they were justified in believing
it. They are exactly like the man who said
to Jesus Christ] that he must first go and
bury his father; and, for all we know, he
never saw our Blessed Lord again. No
doubt after a few months the impression
faded; he congratulated himself on having
been so sensible and prudent; and his
friends congratulated him too. But what a
tragedy ! . . . 125

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
" Well, you want to know what we have
to offer.
"Three hundred years ago we could
have offered you great things : the hatred
of all who heard your name; the contempt
of those who were loudest in their love for
England. We could have offered you the
Tower as your prison, chains, stinking
dungeons, the rack, the whip, the gallows,
the hangman's cauldron. Now we have no
more than the chips of Christ's cross to
tempt you with; a little sneering and lifting
of eyebrows; a little good-humoured laugh
ter; a few remarks about 'intellectual ser
vitude'; a little smiling pity over your
medievalism, your materialism, your lack of
the sturdy British spirit, your superstition
and your fear of the priest.
"I do not know your circumstances, sir;
it may possibly be that you will have
greater tokens of your Saviour's love : He
may be intending to raise foes for you out
of your own household, to deprive you of
your means of livelihood that you may
learn to trust Him more entirely. He may
be preparing the loss of all your friends
and the contemptuous hatred of those who
are dearest to you, that you may learn more
perfectly the sweetness of His divine friend
ship. But, however that may be, you will not
despise even those chips and pebbles from
126

The EXCHANGE
Calvary. He sends them you that you
may remember that where the cross is,
Christ is.
"In others affairs we have greater offers
to make.
"In return for the sincere sympathy and
advice of your cultivated clergy, which of
course you will lose, we offer you the power
ofthe keys so far as you need them for your
sins. We cannot give you many university
men as your spiritual guides, but I do not
know that you will feel the loss of them
very much. We offer instead priests of God.
In return for the words said to you in the
vestry, as you knelt beside your clergy
man and told him your sins — and he did
his utmost to make the forgiveness of God
a reality to your soul — we offer you the
authoritative Absolvo te a peccatis tuis in
nomine (i$i Patris et FUU et Spiritus Sancti
spoken with the authority of him whom
Christ commissioned to open or close the
gates of heaven. There is not the shadow
of a question of a doubt as to this. You will
find us far more abrupt and businesslike in
these matters; we shall talk much less than
your former ministers; we have no zeal to
justify our claim, no need to stir the emo
tions; for, with us, both priest and penitent
are utterly satisfied as to the situation. We
offer you certitude in place of doubt and
127

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
trembling hope. — Remember, you have left
glamour behind you.
"Then, for controversy we offer you
peace. You will not find me opposing my bi
shop on a matter of doctrine or ceremonial ;
nor will you find our religious newspapers
approving this or that prelate for his sound
Catholic views. All this is taken for granted
with us ; indeed it seems to me rather strange
that it should be necessary even to say so.
You will not be required to make speeches
about the advantages of confession, nor to
listen to them, except perhaps occasionally
from the pulpit. You will not be greeted as
a champion of the Church when you pro
fess yourself in favour of "non-communica
ting attendance." In fact, as one of our bi
shops once said to a complacent convert,
you will have no position at all in the Ca
tholic Church, except that of sitting below
the pulpit and kneeling at the altar-rail.
"Please do not think I am sneering. I
fully realize the good faith of your old
friends. I know perfectly well that they
believe that it is their duty to maintain
and propagate Catholic doctrines; and I
thank God that they do so so sincerely
and courageously. Of course I should like
to see them all Catholics; but, meantime,
I am extremely glad that they are dissemi
nating the Christian faith so far as they
128

The EXCHANGE
have received it. I admire their devotion,
their single-heartedness, their courage,
more than I can say. They are fighting
a losing battle against fearful odds, and
one cannot but respect them for it. But it
is necessary for you to understand that we
are in quite a different position. It may be
that you will think we are lacking in zeal;
but you must remember that the occasional
appearance of that rises not from our want
of faith but from our supreme possession
of it. We are so absolutely secure and confi
dent that at times perhaps we do become
a little unwary. But we have our prophets,
as well as our geese, to give the alarm
when the outworks are in danger. You
will be a learner now, sir, instead of pos
sibly a teacher; and in reward for that
slight humiliation you will have peace in
stead of strife. You are a child at school
again, not a  "
John nodded emphatically.
"That is precisely what I want to be,
father." The priest smiled pleasantly.
"That is excellent," he said. "Well, to
continue 
" For your spiritual efforts we offer you
sacramental communions.
" For the bread and wine received with
faith and thanksgiving in remembrance that
129 9

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
Christ died for you, we offer you the very
Body that shivered in the manger and
agonized on the cross; the very Blood that
poured on Calvary for your redemption,
adored by angels and desired by men.
" For your empty altars — no doubt dear
to you and consecrated by holy associa
tions and times of refreshment and visions
of God — we offer you the very shechinah
of glory, brooding in the tabernacle that
stands on every Catholic altar. You need no
more question or doubt about this, or ask
yourself whether the practice of reserva
tion is in accordance with primitive prac
tice. There it is ! The Church sanctions it.
Behold the tabernacle of God with men*
"And lastly, in return for the friends
whom you may lose, who may become
estranged from you, calling you renegade
and traitor, we offer you the communion
of a Church that knows no distinction of
family or race or colour. You will have
the Indians and the Japanese and the
Italians and the French as your blood re
lations — blood-relations, for you are all
born again from the same mother of
salvation. If God takes away from you a
few whom you have learned to love, He
gives you in return many millions of other
souls as your brethren in Jesus Christ.
* Rev. xxi, 3.
130

The EXCHANGE
You will be one with the saints of all ages
and lands. You need not trouble any more
to decide between Aidan and Augustine;
that matter has already been decided; and
you may pray to whichever you please, or
to both together without the fear of being
historically disloyal to either.
"And we offer you more than this.
"In return for the earthly friends whom
you lose, we offer you the restored friend
ship of all whom you have lost. You are
not leaving the faith of your fathers; you
are coming back to it. Your parents, who
died, you tell me, twenty years ago, have
been Catholics — I firmly believe after all
that you have said about them — ever since
you closed their eyes. They have been
waiting for this, praying for this, desiring it
with all their hearts. And now, please God,
they are thanking Him for His grace and
their son's response to it.
"We offer you then, in a word, the saints
in glory for your helpers and defenders;
the holy souls as your brethren and inter
cessors, Mary as your Mother, Jesus Christ
as your lover and God as your all in all.
"I know, sir, that you are sacrificing
more than you will confess. I understand
perhaps even better than you do yourself,
the agony of each fibre as it is torn up from
the ground where it has grown so long,
131

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
and you will find perhaps that the pain will
be greater than at present you can conceive
possible. I do not under-rate all this; in
fact, I tell you plainly, that it will be worse
than you think.
"But if I do not underestimate this,
neither do I underestimate the reward
that you will receive. I tell you that the
Lord is more gracious than it is possible
to imagine; that His Heart is too sweet for
human language to describe; and that the
Everlasting Arms have more power than
you dream of. Therefore, while I think
that you do not yet understand the suffer
ings you will undergo, as nerve by nerve
is wrenched, and illusion after illusion dis
pelled, I am perfectly certain that you have
not yet the slightest idea of all that God is
preparing as your temporal and eternal re
compense. I can only tell you that He will
reward you as He alone can do."
As John left the presbytery that night,
a scrap or two of Scripture ran in his head
like a song.
" Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and to the
city of the living God, the heavenly ferusa-
lem; and to the company of many thousands
of angels; and to the Church of the first-born
who are written in heaven; and to God the
132

The EXCHANGE
fudge of all; and to the spirits of the fust
made perfect; and to Jesus. . . "*
"¦Behold the tabernacle of God with
men. . ."t
And as his heart swells in praise and
thankfulness to God who has shown such
loving-kindness, it becomes articulate at
last, as he kneels, thrilling with a devotion
that he cannot understand, and seeing a
mystery that he cannot interpret.
" / am sure" he cries within himself, "/
am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels
nor principalities nor powers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor might, nor
height, nor depth, nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate me from the love
of God, which is in Jesus Christ our
Lord."$ *Heb. xi, 22-24. t^ev- xx'» 3-
X Rom. viii, 38, 39.

133

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN

Conclusion
MANY people when they read the
the biographies of great men, cannot
appreciate the high thoughts and emotions
contained in them, until they have first
grasped a mental picture of the man in his
daily life. They wish to know at what time
he rose in the morning, how he occupied
his time, what he wore, ate and did. Not
until then can they enter into his point of
view. Now many souls believe in Catholicism
in an inchoate way: they apprehend its
holiness, its beliefs, its aspirations ; but they
are held back from appreciating these
things through their ignorance of its more
concrete details. They might even make
their submission to the Church, were it
not that they were either ignorant, or, at
any rate, mistaken, as to the actual pro
cess involved in that act. There is in them
a kind of nebulous faith, but it is not yet
solidified into a star.
In this last lecture, then, I propose to
pass from generalities to particulars, from
faith in general to acts of faith, from dogma
to its shrine in the penny catechism, from
John at the gate of pearl to John beside
the presbytery fire. 134

CONCLUSION (i)
For six weeks he attends the instructions
of Father Brown; the two sit together in
formally, and go through the main points
which a man should know before he binds
himself and is bound irrevocably to the
Catholic Creed. They discuss the great
cardinal points of the Faith — the Being of
God, the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the
Church, the Sacraments; and they pass on
to indulgences, relics, invocation of saints,
purgatory and a rule of life.
They do not argue much; for, after all,
John is convinced ofthe divine authority of
the Catholic Church; and he is here not to
criticize but to learn.
It is, of course, impossible to deal with
the points individually; I propose rather to
speak of the general impression on his mind.
i. Hitherto he has believed, because he
understood; now he understands, because
he believes; and there is a vast difference
between the two positions.
As a High Churchman he has advanced
step by step along the road of dogma; he
came to believe in the Real Presence, be
cause it was shown to him that the sacra
mental method was God's method in nature
as well as in grace, that it was but natural
125

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
that man's double nature should be sancti
fied by a gift that has an outward sensible
form as well as an inner substance; he has
come to believe in absolution when it was
pointed out to him that what God does
through another He does Himself, and
that the divine pardon may well be con
veyed through a human agency.
But now he believes these things, not
because he understands, not even because
he understands them better than ever be
fore; but because an authority which he
recognizes as divine proposes them un
mistakably to his acceptance.
It was so, he perceives, long ago with the
disciples of Jesus Christ. Our Lord had
been saying words which must have ap
peared little less than shocking to many
who heard them. He had declared that
unless a man ate His Body and drank His
Blood, he could have no life in him ; and
the amazing novelty of the words had
caused consternation.
The enthusiastic crowds had dispersed,
murmuring, "How can this Man give us
His flesh to eat? . . . this saying is hard, and
who can hear it?"
And our Lord looks round wistfully on
the puzzled faces of His friends who be
lieve Him better than they can understand
Him. 136

CONCLUSION
" Will you also go away?"
There rings out the Catholic answer,
piteous and faithful:
" Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast
the words of eternal life. We have believed
and have known — and we must still act
upon that conviction — we have believed
and have known that Thou art the Christ,
the Son of God." *
So John cries now in his heart:
" To whom else shall I go? I have tried
all other teachers and they have failed me.
Here is one whom I perceive to be divine.
I may not understand yet one half of what
I believe; there are matters to which I give
my assent, to which I cannot give my in
tellect — but to whom else shall I go?
Never man spake like this man. Never
was there a human institution that pro
claims so convincingly, so searchingly, so
competently the hidden mysteries of God.
I have believed and known; and I am
coming to believe and know more over
whelmingly every day that this is the body
and bride of Christ. This man who sits
here and talks may not be very clever, or
very eloquent, or very learned; but he
speaks not of himself but of another; and
his words ring as true in my heart. . . I
believe wholly and unreservedly."
* John vi, 55-70.
*37

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
2. There follows an extraordinary peace.
Years ago John had learned his alphabet
from his mother; then he went to school
and afterwards to the University; but he
never remembered later lessons as he re
membered those. At home, A came first,
then B, then C; and later on it appeared as
if some thought that B should begin the
alphabet, that T should follow, and that the
list should end with Q. At school he found
himself passed on from teacher to teacher,
no two of whom taught by the same me
thod; at the University it appeared that
not only in methods but in substance the
doctors differed. He had compared more
than once these learned discussions with
the simplicity, the inevitableness, the dog
matism of his mother's teaching; and there
had been the sense too that his mother
cared in a way that no other teacher ever
cared; she wished him to learn his alpha
bet, but to learn it without tears or rebel
lion; she wished him to be sufficiently
educated, but even more to be a good child,
and to become a good boy and a good
man. So now, as he sits in the presbytery,
under the eye of his Holy Mother, the same
air of tenderness and love and sweet dog
matism seems to fill the room. He may ask
questions, of course, but it must be with
138

CONCLUSION
the desire of learning, not of answering
again. What he hears is to be final ; there
is no appeal; A must be said before B;and
F must follow E; and yet that is not all.
His Mother wishes him to be a good son,
and become a good Catholic rather than a
theologian. He begins to understand as
never before that the childlike mind is the
best, and that without it he cannot enter
upon his inheritance of heaven. He catches
a breath of sweetness from the words said
so long ago ; he begins to finger- lovingly
Christ's yoke, and to learn of Him who
was meek and humble of Heart, and to find
rest to his soul; for Christ's yoke is sweet
and His burden light.

139

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
(ii)
Among the questions that he puts there
is the following:
"What am I to think about Anglican
sacraments? My friends tell me that fmust
be rebaptized, and that this is contradic
tory to the Church's teaching on the sub
ject. She teaches, I understand, that even
lay-baptism is valid. Now I was baptized
by a clergyman when I was a child. Why
then need I be rebaptized? Then there are
the other sacraments  "
" One moment," answers the priest, "let
us settle baptism first. Can you tell me for
certain that the clergyman baptized you
properly? Of course if you can prove this,
there will be no question of my baptizing
you." "What do you mean by 'properly,'
father?" " Well, our Lord said ' Water and the
Spirit.' Some people are very careless
about water. I remember once seeing a
clergyman sprinkle water towards a boy
and a girl who stood about two yards from
the font, and I doubt very much whether
it even touched them. You see some Church
of England clergy honestly do not believe
that it matters very much; so of course
they are not very particular about it. Why
140

CONCLUSION
should they be? But in that case the can
didates did not have done to them what our
Lord meant when He said 'Water.' Of
course some people differ from us; but the
Catholic Church does not pretend to be
more spiritual than Jesus Christ; she says
' water ' because He did."
" I see. Well, I can't prove that I was
properly baptized. I have no witnesses, and
the clergyman is dead."
" Then you must be baptized condition
ally. I shall pour water on your head and
say that if you are not baptized, I baptize
you. If, after all, you were baptized, no
harm is done ; and if you were not, well, it
will be true baptism. There is no question
of repeating baptism. Do you under
stand?" "Yes; I understand, father. And about
the other sacraments?"
"Yes; put it as strongly as you like."
"Well, answers John, "my friends are
at me for what they say is my repudiation
of grace. It is perfectly true that I was very
often very happy after receiving Anglican
sacraments. When I made my confessions,
I never doubted for a moment that I was
properly absolved. When I came down
again from communion, I was often full of
holy thoughts and desires, and was quite
sure that I had received Jesus Christ.
141

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
Now, is it really true, father, that I have
got to say that all that was nothing at all,
or even that it was Satan who made me
feel happy in order to keep me back from
thinking ofthe Catholic Church?"
"No, no; nothing so ridiculous. Your
friends do not know what they are talking
about. The Church does not tell you to
believe anything so absurd. When you
went to confession and communion in the
Church of England, you did your best, I
am sure, to be in proper dispositions, to
love God, and to be really sorry for your
sins. Well, then, God rewarded you by
giving you those holy feelings and
thoughts. Every time you were truly
contrite He forgave you your sins; and
every time you went to communion, be
cause you wished to please Him, He
gave you grace. But it was not sacra
mental grace; the clergyman had no au
thority to bind or to loose, and no power
to consecrate the Body of the Lord; but
all that grace was real grace to help you.
All that you have to repudiate is your
ideas about it, your intellectual conception
of it; not the grace itself. Is that any
clearer? "
"It is perfectly clear; thank you very
much." " Tellyourfriends that, the next time they
142

CONCLUSION
talk. Tell them that they have simply no
idea of what the Church does teach. Why
St Gertrude once said that a good spiri
tual communion often gave more grace
than a lukewarm sacramental communion,
and the Church expressly teaches that an
act of perfect contrition wins forgiveness
in the absence of a priest. Of course you
have got to confess all your sins again — to
carry out your acts of contrition (an act
of contrition includes the intention to fulfil
all God's requirements); and now you are
able to do that, you must, of course, do it.
But your feelings of forgiveness after
Anglican absolutions were perfectly true
and genuine. God forgave you, because
you loved Him and wished to conform
to the Sacrament of Penance, not be
cause you actually received it."
" I understand. . . Please tell me about
my confession."
" There is very little to tell beyond what
I have told you already. You must not be
scrupulous and torment yourself. It is pro
bably impossible for you to remember
every mortal sin you have ever com
mitted; and God only asks you to do
your best. You must, as you know, tell
anything that you can remember and then
leave it. I advise you not to bring a paper
with you; it is apt to breed scruples, and
143

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
you can be as informal as you like. It is
Very simple."
John sighed.
" Yes," he said, " and very hard."
"No, not so hard, if you look beyond it 
I remember as a boy coming home from
school I had a very long drive from the
station in a dog-cart. I lived in the north,
and the drive was terribly cold sometimes
in winter. But, you know, I did not mind
it much. Of course, it was not pleasant;
but then there was the home-coming to
look forward to — the lights, the warmth,
my mother — in fact, home. Do you under
stand?" " I understand, father."
"Well, then, shall we say next Thurs
day at 4 o'clock?"
As John kneels in the Church on the
following Thursday a few minutes before
four o'clock he is conscious of great excite
ment and great fear.
It is a dingy little place, wholly unim
pressive in itself; yet it has the strange
silence that he has so often noticed there
before. From outside come the murmur of
wheels, the patter of feet on the pavement,
the rumour of a world that goes about its
business; and he has the sensation of a
swimmer who stands poised on the edge
144

CONCLUSION
of a deep-flowing stream. He wishes he
had not come, or that he had come sooner,
or that the day had been fixed a week
hence ; and although he is physically free
to get up and go out, it is a morally impos
sible act. The shock of the plunge is immi
nent; he will be presently among those
mysteries half seen through the wrinkled
swirl of the surface; and he knows they
will look very differently then, but he is
not certain whether they will be more or
less inviting when he is amid the medium
that half discloses, half conceals, their
nature. But the silence becomes vivid and alive
as he stares disconsolately at the steady
little red spark overhead above the
tabernacle, and finds at last a supersensual
voice. "// is I: Be not afraid."* . . .
A figure looks out presently from the
sacristy-door, beckons him up to the side-
chapel, and John finds himself with the
Ritual in his hands reading out, a little
tremulously, the profession of faith. It has
all come about with the swiftness of
thought, and his voice steadies and his
heart burns as the sounding proclamation
streams from his lips.
* John vi, 20.
145 IO

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
Here are all the matters for which he
has contended and argued so long, which
have been denied and explained away
and questioned by those who were of one
communion with himself — here they all are
now, declared without fear or compromise.
First comes the Nicene Creed, and then
an elucidation of its challenged clauses,
made necessary by those who accept the
old words but deny the old sense of them.
He professes seven sacraments now,
not two (generally necessary) and five
doubtful ordinances; and he admits and
receives the ceremonies customary in
their administration. He professes likewise
his faith in the sacrifice of the Mass, true,
proper and propitiatory for the living and
the dead; he declares that in the sacra
ment of the Eucharist there is truly, really
and substantially the Body and Blood,
together with the Soul and Divinity of our
Lord Jesus Christ: and he names the
conversion ofthe substance ofthe elements
transubstantiation. He states the doctrines
of Purgatory, prayers for the dead and
indulgences; and declares that the saints
reigning with Christ are to be honoured
and invocated.
So it goes on, clause after clause, till at
last he promises his own true and personal
obedience to the Bishop of Rome, suc-
146

CONCLUSION
cessor to St Peter, Prince of the Apostles,
and Vicar of Jesus Christ. There it is, all
printed in the book, declared by his lips,
and witnessed by a Catholic priest.
He finds himself immediately afterwards
in the confessional, and the sharpest point
of his trial is before him.
Yet as he kneels there and asks a blessing,
the sting seems already half drawn.
First, it is all so impersonal. There is a
grill before his face through which he can
see only the faint profile of the priest and
the white of his cotta and the purple stripe
of his stole ; the human element is almost
absent, and what there is of it is reassuring.
He remembers the tremendous secret of
the ordinance — that not one of the ten
thousand enemies of the Church has ever
yet proved a single example of its viola
tion; he remembers how discretion and
tenderness — those two most comfortable
virtues — have been drummed and drilled
into every priest, until training has merged
into character. Above all, between himself
and the other, hangs a crucified Figure
with arms outstretched in embrace, not
lifted in rebuke or condemnation; every
word that he himself utters passes through
the fragrant air of Calvary, every word
that he will hear presently must come
through the same medium. That priest
'47

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
within is bound to think and speak as
Jesus Christ Himself would think and
speak; he is there, not to condemn or
rebuke, but to welcome, forgive and recon
cile. The dying brigand, the repentant
adulteress, the cowardly friend — Dismas,
Magdalene and Peter — representatives to
gether of a whole world of sin, each found
gentleness not wrath, welcome not dis
franchisement. . . And so the tale flows
out easily and sweetly till all is done, and
the bar is passed, and all that remains is
to moor the vessel in the haven where it
would be.
After a word or two of encouragement
and blessing, he follows the priest into the
sacristy; and three minutes later he is back
again, trembling a little, kneeling once
more at the grill to hear the words that
areto reward his efforts and give him peace.
Ah, this is the supreme moment; it is
worth all the agony a hundred times re
peated to receive this first Catholic abso
lution! To his eyes it appears as if the
golden keys, given by Christ to Peter so
long ago, are actually present; as if the
gate of pearl visibly rolls back in response
to his knock.
He is relieved first of all of excommuni
cation and interdict unwittingly incurred ;
the burden of three hundred years of heresy
148

CONCLUSION
is lifted from his shoulders— this is indeed
a going behind the Reformation to the days
when no religion other than this was
dreamed of in England; when Englishmen
who loved Christ honoured His Vicar;
when the Church which they served was
Catholic in fact as well as in name; before
Henry, mad with lust and ambition, rent
the seamless tunic of Christ, hacked at
the branches of the heavenly vine, and
ravened in the flock purchased with the
Blood of the Son of God. . . Then, as in a
dream, he sees the hand lifted and moved
in the sign of the cross, and hears the voice
raised a little to press home the personal
pardon. "Absolvo te a peccatis tuis: in nomine i$i
Patris et FUU et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.". . .
He is back again in his seat now, his
hands clasped, and a great contentment in
his heart. How often has he knelt here be
fore, an outcast in spite of his corporal
presence, trying to imitate out of reverence
and good manners the gestures and atti
tudes of the true citizens of God, yet fear
ing all the while that he was not one of
them! Hitherto, the confessional he has so
often looked at with dread and envy, has
been a sealed chamber to him, into which
none but the children of the kingdom
149

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
might enter ; now he has entered himself,
received the mystery, and come back again.
That little white curtain above the altar
which he has seen drawn a hundred times
has never yet been drawn for him; to
morrow he will receive the heavenly food
that tabernacles there among man. From
the mean little pulpit over him he has so
often heard exposition and exhortation, but
it was to judge or approve or demur as his
Erivate judgement preferred; next Sunday
e will sit here to listen and be taught.
He is a true Catholic at last; others will
give him the name that he has so often
claimed in vain. He is a living stone at
last, built upon the foundation of the apo
stles and prophets, Christ Himself being
the head corner-stone, in the vast edifice
of glory where God has set His seat;
he is a living tendril of the vine en
kindled by God's Blood, watered by the
tears of saints, brought out of Egypt long
ago — a tendril that will in time bring forth
new and supernatural fruits of faith, pen
ance and holiness ; he is a child come home
at last — a child who has learned his A B C
and passed his examination and pleased
his mother; — a child, bone of her bone, and
flesh of her flesh, mystically born, not
adopted; a child at home with his brethren
the saints — at home in that place in which
150

CONCLUSION
alone men's hearts can rest, the Sacred
Heart of Jesus pierced for him. . .
What then does anything else matter?
Sorrow can be no more than a prick, death
no more than a passing swoon; for to live
is Christ, and to die is gain. . .

»5*

APPENDIX
I — St Peter in Scripture
AS regards the Petrine texts appended
below, John notices the following
points, to which his attention is drawn in
a small controversial work which he meets
with in the course of his studies:
i. Their full recognition has been of
comparatively late date. By divine guid
ance St Peter himself sought the city and
established his See just where he would
gain all the aid that natural and human
surroundings could give him for the swift
and sure development of the final supre
macy of his Chair. This supremacy was no
more the result of mere worldly circum
stances than the healthy growth of a tree
is the result of the mere soil in which its
seed once found a congenial home. If the
authority on the one hand, and the seed
on the other, had not existed, neither the
Chair of Peter nor the tree would have
emerged. It was not, then, until the head had been
fully established as supreme over the body

153 IO

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
that men had eyes to see how it had been
so ordained and indicated from the begin
ning. After it had come to pass it was seen
to have been inevitable. All this is paral
leled, of course, by the ordinary course of
affairs. Laws of nature, as well as laws of
grace, act quite apart from man's percep
tion or appreciation of them; and it is not
until the law is recognized that its signifi
cance and inevitability, its illustrations and
effects, are intelligently recognized either.
2. The weight of the following list of
passages rests in its cumulative force. The
direction of one or two or even three straws
falling in a certain direction may be the re
sult of a chance draught; thirty straws all
falling in one direction practically indicate
a steady wind.
i. St Peter's name occurs first in all lists of apostles
(Matt, x, 2; Mark iii, 16; Luke vi, 14; A6ts i, 13).
2. He alone receives a new name, solemnly con
ferred (John i, 42).
3. The name he receives is peculiarly inapplicable
to his personal character and history; presumably,
therefore, it is applied to his official position, and,
moreover, it embodies a metaphor which is specially
applied by him to Christ in an analogous sense
(1 Peter ii, 4-8; cf. Matt, xxi, 42).
4. He is the first to confess Christ's divinity, and
receives special promises, namely, (a) "On this rock
I will build My Church"; (b) "The keys of the king
dom of heaven"; (c) he alone is told that he has re
ceived divine knowledge by a special revelation (Matt.
xvi, 17-19). 1 54

ST PETER in SCRIPTURE
5. He is treated by the world as Christ's repre
sentative; and he is so accepted by Christ, who by
an unique miracle specially associates together Him
self and Peter (Matt, xvii, 24 ff.)
6. From his boat Christ teaches; and the miracu
lous draught and its interpretation follow that inci
dent (Luke v, 3 ff.)
7. He is indicated as being the object of Christ s
special prayer, distinct from the others ("Satan hath
desired to have you. . . I have prayed for thee. . .")
and as the support ofthe others (Luke xxii, 31, 32).
8. He was the first of the apostles to set out for
and, in spite of his age, to enter the empty tomb
(Luke xxiv, 12; John xx, 6); and he is distinguished
by the angel as the leader and representative of the
rest (Mark xvi, 7).
9. He leads the apostles in fishing (John xxi, 2, 3) —
a significant metaphor.
10. He alone casts himself into the" sea to come to
Jesus (John xxi, 7).
11. He alone receives a special threefold commis
sion as vicar ofthe Good Shepherd (John xxi, 15 ff.);
and he is addressed by Christ as if in some special
sense he was was to abide till Christ's second com
ing (John xxi, 22).
12. He takes the lead in filling up the vacant apo-
stolate (Acts i, 15).
13. He first preaches at Pentecost and summons men
to salvation (Acts ii, 14); and is accepted by the world
as the leader and interpreter of the rest (Acts ii, 37,
38, 41).
14. He works the first Church miracle, even though
associated with John (as if to show his official rela
tion as distinguished from John's personal relation
to Christ) (Acts iii, 1-10); and comments on it to the
crowd (Acts iii, 12).
15. He is the defender of the Church before the
rulers (Afts iv, 8 ff.) * 00

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
16. He utters the first anathema, and it is ratified
markedly by God (Acts v, 2-1 1).
17. His shadow, alone among all, works miracles
(Acts v, 15).
18. He is the first to raise the dead (Acts ix, 40).
19. He is indicated by God as the proper person to
apply to for instruction and baptism; and is the first
to receive the Gentiles (Acts x, 5, 34, 47).
20. He receives an unique threefold revelation
(Acts x, 10 ff.)
21. He instructs the other apostles on the catholi
city ofthe Church (Acts xi, 5-17).
22. He is the object of the first divine interposition
on behalf of an individual ; and is rescued from death
when another apostle is killed (Acts xii, 5-17).
23. He opens the first Council, and lays down prin
ciples afterwards accepted by it (Acts xv, 7-1 1).
24. St Paul mentions the appearance to Cephas as
first in importance (1 Cor. xv, 5).
25. St Paul goes to visit him, specially, at Jerusa
lem, considering him of more importance than James
the local bishop (Gal. i, 18).
26. St Paul twice speaks of resisting him, as if it
were a very serious step (Gal. ii, 11, 14).
27. He is spoken of as if in some sense distinct from
the rest, many times (Mark i, 36; Luke ix, 28; Acts
ii, 37, and v, 29, etc.); and he is often spokesman for
the rest.
28. He is spoken of as the first of the inner three
several times (Matt, xvii, 1; Mark v, 37; Matt, xxvi,
37, 40; Mark xiv, 37).
29. He himself refers twice to the " shepherding
of Christ; as if this function of his Master's were
much in his mind (1 Pet. ii, 25, and v, 4 ; cf. John
xxi, 15).

156

II — Primitive Papalists
HERE also are appended a few patristic
and conciliar quotations, which John
finds in the same little controversial work
as the Scripture texts on St Peter. He finds
it difficult to resist the conclusion that his
dawning belief in the validity ofthe Petrine
claims was the belief held also in the early
ages of the Church. He notices that the
authenticity of the quotations in question
rests upon the word of Dom John Chap
man, O.S.B.
i. St Clement of Rome, a.d. 96:
" If any should disobey the things spoken by Him
through us, let them know that they will involve
themselves in no light transgression and danger." —
Ad Cor. c. lix, i.
(Bishop Lightfoot describes this letter of
St Clement to the Corinthians as "the first
step towards papal aggression.")
2. St Irenceus, a.d. 185, writes of Rome:
By "pointing out . . . that 'faith announced to all
men ' (Rom. i, 8), which through the succession of her
bishops has come down to us, we confound all those
who in any way, whether through caprice, or vain
glory, or blindness, or perverse opinion, gather other-
wisethanitbehoveth. For with this Church, on account
of her more powerful headship, it is necessary that
every Church, that is, the faithful everywhere dis
persed, should agree (or 'come together'); in which
Church has always been preserved that tradition which
is from the apostles." — Hcer. iii, 3.
157

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
3. St Cyprian writes, a.d. 251, of certain
heretics :
*' After all this, and having had a false bishop set up
for them by heretics, they dare to set sail, and to carry
letters from schismatic and profane persons tothe Chair
of Peter and the primatial Church, whence sacerdotal
unity had its rise; nor do they consider that those are
the Romans whose faith was celebrated by the praise
ofthe apostle [cf. Rom. i, 8], to whom unfaith cannot
have access." — Ep. lix, 14.
4. The Council of Aries, a.d. 3 1 4, writes to
Pope Silvester:
" Since you have been unable to leave those parts,
where the apostles also sit daily, and their blood
testifies without intermission the glory of God. . ." —
Mansi, ii, 469.
5. St Athanasius, a.d. 339, appeals to
Rome and goes there; and Socrates, a.d.
439, thus writes of it:
" Eusebius, having accomplished what he desired.
sent an embassy to Julius, Bishop of Rome, calling
upon him to be the judge of the charges against
Athanasius, and to summon the case to himself." —
Hist. Eccl. ii, 2.
Sozomen, a.d. 450, writes thus:
" Eusebius wrote to Julius that he should be judge
of what had been decreed at Tyre. " — Hist. Eccl. iii, 7.
Theodoret, a.d. 450, thus describes it:
" He [Pope Julius] following the law ofthe Church,
both ordered them to repair to Rome, and also sum
moned the divine Athanasius to judgement. " — Hist.
Eccl. ii, 4. 158

PRIMITIVE PAPALISTS
6. The Council of Sardica, a.d. 346, writes:
" For this will seem to be best, and by far the most
proper course, if the bishops of the Lord, from every
province, shall refer to the head, that is, the See of
Peter." — Letter to Pope Julius. Mansi, iii, 40.
7. St Gregory of Nazianzum, a.d. 307 :
_ "The faith [of Rome] was of old, and still is now,
right, binding the whole West by the saving word: as
is just in her who presides over all, reverencing the
whole harmony of God." — Carmen de Vita sua,
568-72.
8. St ferome, c. a.d. 376, writes to Pope
Damasus :
" I am linked in communion with thy Blessedness,
that is, with the Chair of Peter. On that rock I know
that the Church is built. Whoso shall eat the Lamb
outside this house is profane. . . Whoso gathereth
not with thee scattereth: that is, he who is not of
Christ is of Antichrist. " — Ep. xv.
And in another place, c. a.d. 377:
" Meanwhile I cease not to cry out: If anyone is
joined to the See of Peter, he is mine. . . I conjure
your Blessedness . . . that you would signify to me
by your letters with which bishop in Syria it is my
duty to communicate. " — Ep. xvi.
9. The Council of Aquileia, a.d. 381, writes:
' ' We . . . beseech your clemency not to allow the
Roman Church, the head of the whole Roman world,
and that most holy faith of the apostles, to be trou
bled; for from thence the rights of venerable commu
nion flow forth to all." — St Ambrose, Ep. xi, 4.
10. The Council of Rome under Damasus
a.d. 382, writes:
"Although all the Catholic Churches in the world
l59

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
are one bridal chamber of Christ, yet the holy Roman
Catholic Apostolic Church has been preferred to the
other Churches by no synodical constitutions, but has
obtained the primacy by the voice of our Lord and
Saviour in the Gospel, saying, "Thou art Peter and
upon this rock .... loosed in heaven.'" — See C. H.
Turner va Journal of Theol. Studies, Jan. 1900.
II. St Optatus, a.d. 385:
"That in that one Chair [established by Peter]
unity might be preserved by all ... . and that he
might at once be condemned as a schismatic and
sinner, who against that pre-eminent Chair should
place another. Therefore in that one Chair, which is
the first of the prerogatives, Peter sat first, to whom
succeeded Linus; to Linus, Clement .... Siricius with
whom the whole world is in accordance with us in
the one bond of communion, by the intercourse of
letters of peace." — ii, 2.
12. Pope Siricius, a.d. 385:
". . . . You referred to the Roman Church as to
the head of your body; .... in me that burden is
borne by the blessed Apostle Peter, who, we trust, in
all things protects and has regard to us who are the
heirs of his government. " — Ep. i, 20.
13. St Augustine, a.d. 391:
"I am held by the succession of bishops from the
very' Chair of Peter the Apostle, to whom the Lord
commended His sheep to be fed, up to the present
episcopate; lastly, I am held by the very name of
Catholic, which, not without cause amid so many
heresies, this Church alone has retained, in such sort
that whereas all heretics wish to be called Catholics,
nevertheless to any stranger who asked, ' Where is
the meeting of the Catholic Church held ?' no heretic
would dare to point out his own basilica or house.' —
C. Ep. Manich. Fundam. iv, 5.
160

PRIMITIVE PAPALISTS
Again he writes, after quoting a letter of
Pope Innocent, a.d. 419:
"Do you see what the Catholic faith holds by her
minister ?"—Op. Imperf. vi, n.
Again at Carthage he said, a.d. 417:
"Already two councils have been sent to the Apo
stohc See concerning this matter, and rescripts have
come from thence. The case is concluded: would that
the error would soon cease also." — Serm. 131, 10.
14. Pope St Anastasius, a.d. 401 :
" I will certainly not be wanting .... to call upon
the parts of my body throughout the various regions
ofthe world." — Ep. 1. ad Joan. Hieros.
15. Paulinus of Milan a.d. 417, writes to
Pope Zosimus:
" Let that which . . . has been publicly brought to
light be now cut off by your Holiness with the spiri
tual sword, that the flock of the Lord [the whole
Church] which you govern as a good shepherd ....
may no longer be torn by this wild beast's teeth." —
Op. S. Augustini, vol. x, Appendix, p. 1723 [Migne).
16. Pope St Innocent, a.d. 417:
"You decided that it was proper to refer to our
judgement, knowing what is due to the Apostolic See."
.... "You have .... preserved the customs of the
Fathers, and have not spurned that which they de
creed by a divine and not human sentence, that what
soever is done, even though it be done in distant pro
vinces, should not be ended without being brought to
the knowledge of this See ; that by its authority the
whole just pronouncement should be strengthened;
and that from it all other Churches (like waters, flow
ing from their natal source and flowing through the
different regions of the world, the pure streams of one
161 11

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
uncorrupted head), should receive what they ought to
enjoin." — S. Aug. Ep. 181.
17. Pope St Zosimus, a.d. 417 writes:
"We must pray incessantly that, by the continual
grace and unceasing assistance of God, from this
fountain [the Apostolic See] the peace of the faith and
of Catholic brotherhood may be sent into the whole
world." — Ep. ii.
18. Pope St Boniface, a.d. 419, writes:
" Never was it lawful to discuss again any matter
which had once been decided by the Apostolic See." —
Ep. xiii.
19. Pope St Celestine, a.d. 422:
"We, on whom Christ has, in the person of holy
Peter the Apostle, when He gave him the keys to open
and shut, imposed as a necessity to be engaged about
all men . . . ." — Ep. iii.
20. Council of Ephesus, a.d. 431, writes in
sentence of deposition against Nestorius:
"Whereas [etc.] .... we being necessarily com
pelled by the sacred canons and by the letter of our
most holy Father and colleague, Bishop Celestine,
Bishop of the Roman Church, with many tears, have
arrived at this sad sentence against him." — Mansi, iv,
p. 1212.
21. Pope St Sixtus III, a.d. 434:
" The blessed Peter, in his successors, has delivered
that which he received." — Ep. vi.
22. St Vincent of Lerins, a.d. 434, writes:
"Pope Stephen, of blessed memory, Prelate ofthe
Apostolic See, together with the rest of his colleagues
indeed, yet above the rest, resisted; thinking, I ween,
that it was right that he should conquer them all by
the devotion of his faith as much as he surpassed them
by the authority of his place." — Common, vi.
162

PRIMITIVE PAPALISTS
23. Pope St Leo, a.d. 450:
" By the see of blessed Peter, made the head of the
universe, thou (O Rome) mightest rule more widely
by divine religion than by earthly empire " (Serm. 82).
"... The first of all the Sees ... the Head . . . that
See which the Lord appointed to preside over the
rest. . ." {Ep. cxx). "The care of the universal
Church should converge to the one See of Peter, and
no part anywhere be at variance with its Head."
— Ep. xiv.
24. Council of Chalcedon, a.d. 451, writes
in the sentence of deposition, read by the papal
legates and signed by all the bishops, against
Dioscorus: " Wherefore the most holy and blessed archbishop
of great and elder Rome, Leo, by us and by the
present holy synod, together with the thrice blessed
and glorious Peter the Apostle, who is the rock and
base of the Catholic Church and the foundation of the
orthodox faith, has stripped Dioscorus of the epis
copal . . . dignity." — Mansi, vi, p. 1,048.
And the Council writes to Pope Leo:
"The bishops . . . over whom you presided as ahead
over the members . . ." — Op. S. Leonis, Ep. 98.
And of Dioscorus:
"He [Dioscorus] stretched forth his madness
against him who was entrusted by the Saviour with
the guardianship of the Vine — we mean your Holi
ness ..." [and further with regard to the twenty-
eighth canon] " - . . We beg you honour the judge
ment with your approbation also; as we have added
our consent to the Head in all good things, so let the
Head fulfil what is befitting towards the children ..."
[and further] "... We have made known to you the
whole tenor of the business, for our own defence and
163

The RELIGION ofthe PLAIN MAN
for the confirmation and approval of what has been
done by us. " — Ibid.
25. Anatolius, Patriarch of Constanti
nople, a.d. 451, writes to Pope Leo with
reference to the Council of Chalcedon:
"This decree the holy synod and we have referred
to your Holiness in order to obtain from you approval
and confirmation. . . For the throne of Constantinople
has your apostolic throne as its father." — Op. S.
Leonis, Ep. 101, 5.

164