Lord of the World 1

Lord of the World 1

Lord of the World

 

Author: Robert Hugh Benson

 

PREFACE

 

I am perfectly aware that this is a terribly sensational book, and open

to innumerable criticisms on that account, as well as on many others.

But I did not know how else to express the principles I desired (and

which I passionately believe to be true) except by producing their lines

to a sensational point. I have tried, however, not to scream unduly

loud, and to retain, so far as possible, reverence and consideration for

the opinions of other people. Whether I have succeeded in that attempt

is quite another matter.

 

Robert Hugh Benson.

 

CAMBRIDGE 1907.

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS

 

PROLOGUE

 

BOOK I

 

THE ADVENT

 

BOOK II

 

THE ENCOUNTER

 

BOOK III

 

THE VICTORY

 

 

Persons who do not like tiresome prologues, need not read this one. It

is essential only to the situation, not to the story.

 

 

 

PROLOGUE

 

"You must give me a moment," said the old man, leaning back.

 

Percy resettled himself in his chair and waited, chin on hand.

 

It was a very silent room in which the three men sat, furnished with the

extreme common sense of the period. It had neither window nor door; for

it was now sixty years since the world, recognising that space is not

confined to the surface of the globe, had begun to burrow in earnest.

Old Mr. Templeton's house stood some forty feet below the level of the

Thames embankment, in what was considered a somewhat commodious

position, for he had only a hundred yards to walk before he reached the

station of the Second Central Motor-circle, and a quarter of a mile to

the volor-station at Blackfriars. He was over ninety years old, however,

and seldom left his house now. The room itself was lined throughout with

the delicate green jade-enamel prescribed by the Board of Health, and

was suffused with the artificial sunlight discovered by the great Reuter

forty years before; it had the colour-tone of a spring wood, and was

warmed and ventilated through the classical frieze grating to the exact

temperature of 18 degrees Centigrade. Mr. Templeton was a plain man,

content to live as his father had lived before him. The furniture, too,

was a little old-fashioned in make and design, constructed however

according to the prevailing system of soft asbestos enamel welded over

iron, indestructible, pleasant to the touch, and resembling mahogany. A

couple of book-cases well filled ran on either side of the bronze

pedestal electric fire before which sat the three men; and in the

further corners stood the hydraulic lifts that gave entrance, the one to

the bedroom, the other to the corridor fifty feet up which opened on to

the Embankment.

 

Father Percy Franklin, the elder of the two priests, was rather a

remarkable-looking man, not more than thirty-five years old, but with

hair that was white throughout; his grey eyes, under black eyebrows,

were peculiarly bright and almost passionate; but his prominent nose and

chin and the extreme decisiveness of his mouth reassured the observer as

to his will. Strangers usually looked twice at him.

 

Father Francis, however, sitting in his upright chair on the other side

of the hearth, brought down the average; for, though his brown eyes were

pleasant and pathetic, there was no strength in his face; there was even

a tendency to feminine melancholy in the corners of his mouth and the

marked droop of his eyelids.

 

Mr. Templeton was just a very old man, with a strong face in folds,

clean-shaven like the rest of the world, and was now lying back on his

water-pillows with the quilt over his feet.

 

* * * * *

 

At last he spoke, glancing first at Percy, on his left.

 

"Well," he said, "it is a great business to remember exactly; but this

is how I put it to myself."

 

"In England our party was first seriously alarmed at the Labour

Parliament of 1917. That showed us how deeply Herveism had impregnated

the whole social atmosphere. There had been Socialists before, but none

like Gustave Herve in his old age--at least no one of the same power.

He, perhaps you have read, taught absolute Materialism and Socialism

developed to their logical issues. Patriotism, he said, was a relic of

barbarism; and sensual enjoyment was the only certain good. Of course,

every one laughed at him. It was said that without religion there could

be no adequate motive among the masses for even the simplest social

order. But he was right, it seemed. After the fall of the French Church

at the beginning of the century and the massacres of 1914, the

bourgeoisie settled down to organise itself; and that extraordinary

movement began in earnest, pushed through by the middle classes, with no

patriotism, no class distinctions, practically no army. Of course,

Freemasonry directed it all. This spread to Germany, where the influence

of Karl Marx had already---"

 

"Yes, sir," put in Percy smoothly, "but what of England, if you don't

mind---"

 

"Ah, yes; England. Well, in 1917 the Labour party gathered up the reins,

and Communism really began. That was long before I can remember, of

course, but my father used to date it from then. The only wonder was

that things did not go forward more quickly; but I suppose there was a

good deal of Tory leaven left. Besides, centuries generally run slower

than is expected, especially after beginning with an impulse. But the

new order began then; and the Communists have never suffered a serious

reverse since, except the little one in '25. Blenkin founded 'The New

People' then; and the 'Times' dropped out; but it was not, strangely

enough, till '35 that the House of Lords fell for the last time. The

Established Church had gone finally in '29."

 

"And the religious effect of that?" asked Percy swiftly, as the old man

paused to cough slightly, lifting his inhaler. The priest was anxious to

keep to the point.

 

"It was an effect itself," said the other, "rather than a cause. You

see, the Ritualists, as they used to call them, after a desperate

attempt to get into the Labour swim, came into the Church after the

Convocation of '19, when the Nicene Creed dropped out; and there was no

real enthusiasm except among them. But so far as there was an effect

from the final Disestablishment, I think it was that what was left of

the State Church melted into the Free Church, and the Free Church was,

after all, nothing more than a little sentiment. The Bible was

completely given up as an authority after the renewed German attacks in

the twenties; and the Divinity of our Lord, some think, had gone all but

in name by the beginning of the century. The Kenotic theory had provided

for that. Then there was that strange little movement among the Free

Churchmen even earlier; when ministers who did no more than follow the

swim--who were sensitive to draughts, so to speak--broke off from their

old positions. It is curious to read in the history of the time how they

were hailed as independent thinkers. It was just exactly what they were

not.... Where was I? Oh, yes.... Well, that cleared the ground for us,

and the Church made extraordinary progress for a while--extraordinary,

that is, under the circumstances, because you must remember, things were

very different from twenty, or even ten, years before. I mean that,

roughly speaking, the severing of the sheep and the goats had begun. The

religious people were practically all Catholics and Individualists; the

irreligious people rejected the supernatural altogether, and were, to a

man, Materialists and Communists. But we made progress because we had a

few exceptional men--Delaney the philosopher, McArthur and Largent, the

philanthropists, and so on. It really seemed as if Delaney and his

disciples might carry everything before them. You remember his

'Analogy'? Oh, yes, it is all in the text-books....

 

"Well, then, at the close of the Vatican Council, which had been called

in the nineteenth century, and never dissolved, we lost a great number

through the final definitions. The 'Exodus of the Intellectuals' the

world called it---"

 

"The Biblical decisions," put in the younger priest.

 

"That partly; and the whole conflict that began with the rise of

Modernism at the beginning of the century but much more the condemnation

of Delaney, and of the New Transcendentalism generally, as it was then

understood. He died outside the Church, you know. Then there was the

condemnation of Sciotti's book on Comparative Religion.... After that

the Communists went on by strides, although by very slow ones. It seems

extraordinary to you, I dare say, but you cannot imagine the excitement

when the _Necessary Trades Bill_ became law in '60. People thought that

all enterprise would stop when so many professions were nationalised;

but, you know, it didn't. Certainly the nation was behind it."