The Ideas of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 46, 2 December 1925, Page 21

The Ideas of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle may be "above the average in intelligence," as the Times of India assures us, but the account he has been giving that paper of his apostasy shows nevertheless a. greater familiarity with the Protestant legends about the Church than with the essential doctrines of the Faith he abandoned (comments the Bombay Examiner). Assuredly he was never taught at Stonyhurst "that the Creator of all things was compelled to make a blood sacrifice of His own innocent Son in order to neutralise that mysterious curse" —original sin. God, Who alone is offended by sin as such, could obviously have pardoned the offence without requiring any reparation at all. In fact, He did not choose this way, and sacrifice and suffering became the conditions of Salvation —the sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ in the first place, and after Him to a, greater or less degree of all His followers. The presence of sacrifice and of suffering in the world are plain facts enough. The Christian doctrine of the Redemption gives them meaning and dignity. Sir Arthur would deprive the world's sufferers of this' consolation, but we have yet to learn what comfort he offers them in its place. A question one would naturally like to put to one who has abandoned the Faith for another belief is, "What have you gained? What are these great new truths you have learned?" Invariably, the answer is either a garbled version of some truth already to be found in Christianity or it is simply a false doctrine, an error. Well, Sir Arthur gives us a brief—a very summary of the "good tidings" of Spiritualism. 'He has learned from it that death has no terrors, that there is a life beyond the grave, that God is merciful and His reward immense—nothing very novel so far to Christian ears. But he has learned further that "God's ' judgments are mild"— yes! exactly! In other words, there is no Hell in the hereafter of Spiritualism. Here is indeed consolation—for the wicked, for us all. To invent an up-to-date, popular religion, the first rule is: do away with Hell. So far your success is assured. But unfortunately, "things are what they are, and their consequences will be what they will be. ■ Why then should we delude ourselves"—even with the false promises of a popular novelist? And, finally, Sir Arthur tells us that his Heaven is' very like earth—if that, is any comfort, But strange indeed that the creator of Sherlock Holmes should not have smelt a. rat when this revelation "came through." If the life beyond as pictured by those who describe it in the spiritualistic seances is so like life on earth, is it not at least a very plausible explanation that the actual authors of these "revelations" simply do not know any other life, that they are not disembodied spirits at all. We do not question Sir Arthur's sincerity; we only think him rather too credulous. The alternative of course, is the devil, and it .is true he has a taste for persons "above the average in intelligence." <*> - Charity is the bond of brotherhood, the » foundation of peace, the link and strength of unity: it is greater than both hope and faith.—St Cyprian. s