The New Zealand TABLET WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1925. ROMANCERS ON RELIGION

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 52, 30 December 1925, Page 33

The New Zealand TABLET WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1925. ROMANCERS ON RELIGION

A SHORT time ago the London Daily Express, as a device to interest people during the "silly season," invited sev- :...;"■'..■ eral prominent novelists to express their opinions on religion in a series of articles. Among those who wrote were Arnold Bennett, author of the hardly decent Pretty Lady, Sir Conan Doyle, the senile Spiritist, Rebecca ■■fi. West, whom we do not read, Phillips Oppenheim, whom we rate very low, Hugh Wal- - r".. pole, who is said to be one of our best in a "':-;. period of poor authors, and Compton Mac- . kenzie, who is a convert to the Catholic : i[ ■'"■■:•• Church. Hilaire Belloc was invited to con- :;".": tribute, but refused 'because, as he has since explained, "The popular press to-day will : -\. not print the Catholic Truth save as an >"/ occasional stunt, and the 'stunt press is ; ; an evil which men who boast the high Catholic culture should avoid like a bad smell." Let us pause here to ponder on the twofold fact that the daily press (and the weekly press) of the day is practically all part and - -- parcel of. "the stunt press," and that this .;■;;?•■',-. v cultured and able writer finds nothing milder : with which to compare it than "a bad smell." Plain talk like this appeals to people who -'- retain their common sense. . '-'• * * * * ;• , Mr. Mackenzie did not refuse, and his ' article was a noble confession of the Faith Z&?j£ which he found, In contrast to the nonsense *§> contributed by many of his colleagues, he V ".-, has something definite to say. "Fortunately - .v:,. the Catholic Church is not at the mercy of an •"•'%>individual apologist. Her dogmas rest on VvV;, something firmer than the shifty sands of ;;•, scientific theories. In no Galilean, cave will

... 9 any enthusiastic young palaeontologist find the skull of Jesus Christ, and thereby make it advisable for theologians to change the date of the Incarnation by a trifle of 2000 years." Of the confessional he wrote: "I am prepared to maintain that abuses of psycho-analysis already exceed by far the sum total of the abuses of the confessional for which it is an inadequate and pretentious substitute." And of Spiritualism \ "Did I possess the required credulity I might seek consolation and assurance in Spiritualism, but my reason revolts less from a belief in the resurrection of the body than from a belief in ectoplasm; and if I had to fancy for- myself a'postman's eternity after death — an endless rat-tatting on easily manipulated tablesl should prefer to be granted a certain faith in my ultimate obliteration. . . . If I did not believe and disbelieve with a deep conviction that I was believing what was true' and disbelieving what was false I should never have allowed my voice to be heard at this symposium of testimony." It is astonishing how many of these famous authors seem hazy about what they do or do not believe, and if any one thing emerges from the series it is the certainty that most of them are incapable of expressing concerning religion an opinion that is worth two straws. Yet, it is the opinions of such people that influence silly readers. The Observer published a final summing-up by Professor Jacks, editor of the Hibbert Journal. Commenting on the verdict the Universe says: "Except for the Catholic writer, Mr. Compton Mackenzie, and the zealous upholder of Spiritism, Sir Arthur Con 11 Doyle, this Judge of Appeal cannot find that these writers know or care or believe anything as to the End or the Beginning, or about religion taken in any sense you like. Their brilliancy as popular novelists drops to auk boredom when asked to deal with such an unprofessional and unprofitable question as this stale old query, ' What is at the End?' Except for Rebecca West's intuitive woman's wit, Professor Jacks can find nothing worth writing or reading in all the arid waste of these useless exercises." What most of them have to say concerning the most important of all questions, is;therefore, not worth reading. Yet, how many fools are swayed by their words when they publish novels which contain explicit or implicit attacks on the fundamental principles of our Christian morals They are more ignorant than a child of ten who knows his Catechism, but they pretend to teach thousands of readers who buy the "best sellers" of the present day. Hence, the people of the British Empire continue to be what Carlyle found .them: "mostly fools." * * * Naturally such" an exhibition of ignorance was not allowed to pass unnoticed by Mr. Chesterton. As he, at least, is a novelist who is worth hearing, we quote his criticism by way of conclusion: "It is very desirable to know what some of our most brilliant contemporaries believe or disbelieve; always supposing that the brilliant contemporaries know. But most of them seem to be quite agnostic even about

their own agnosticism. Some of the most intelligent of them practically say,, so.- ;.. Mr. Hugh Walpole says sadly: "I know that all this is desperately vague.' Only Mr. Hugh .' || Walpole also, we are sorry to say, clutches %F"J madly at the cliche of saying that he "wants. ."." his religion 'stripped of dogmas'; presumably in order to make it still more desperately vague. Some of them explain why they'" cannot believe in what they call • orthodox Christianity and give a rather wavering outline of a rather unorthodox Calvinism. Some .|§| of them merely give descriptions of ~ their fM own childhood, in the manner, of some '\ of that modern fiction whch naturally comes more natural to novelists; the sort of novel \ of which the first volume brings us to the child's first experience of having his hair >;:;.' cut. But as they were brought tip in a religion that they do not believe in, and We do - not believe in, these memories hardly help \% us to consider whether we agree with what they believe. Mr. de Vere Stacpoole de-*' scribed how very dull it was to sit in the % pew of an Irish Protestant church, and how -\Jj the only relief was to see Queen Victoria's -7] yacht arriving in the bay. It is indeed a "\| parable of many things; but hardly one revealing a new religion. We doubt whether "'. it can really be true that Queen Victoria isll§ the Female Messiah now promised us by the : author of Divine Fires. Mr. Arnold Bennett *' began with a number of statements that , \ were at least clear though entirely negative. ! He ended with statements that. became less "$ and less clear, as they attempted to be posi-jvj tive. He said several sensible things -in ."4 which he was dogmatic without knowing it, ~*'M as in his doctrine of good works, and of -j course he also repudiated dogma. It never "a| come into anybody's head to define a dogma. S Mr. Arnold Bennett once said that nobody 'i • 1 who accepted one of these mysterious pieces I of furniture could have ' a first-class mental I apparatus/ He is now kind enough to say \ that he does know one or two people of good 1,1 intelligence who accept the orthodox dogmas 1 of Christianity, though with mental reserv- n i ations.' How in the world, unless his belief J i extends to witchcraft, he can know what • 3 mental reservations are made by these in- :' J telligent people he does not explain, any':\| more than anybody in this symposium really ,'<V explains anything. The symposium, how- 1 ever, is in one way really interesting and 1, $ important. It marks something curiously lopsided about modern life. These men are - f some of the ablest and most acute artists' we -. i have. It is amazing that they should be able to imagine, to create, to sympathise, to?3| describe, and not be able to think. They can'luf tell us what is in the subconsciousness of a •-; suicidal South American violinist, but they -; cannot tell us what is in their own heads. K % It is very strange." ---r^ The "Tablet" Library /■- LANDED PER LAST MAIL "3 The Anchoress's Window (by a Nun of Tyburn -v' Convent) —4/6. > The Anchorhold (Enid Dinnis)— " - :^tt God's Fairy Tales (Enid Dinnis)—4/6. ' ; Once Upon Eternity (Enid Dinnis)—4/6 Mystic Voices (Roger Pater)— : \^Si