Dr. Stiggins: His Views and Principles/Chapter 2
II: History must go—A little Christian's thoughts of Heaven.
Have you realised, do you think, the full extent to which we poison the streams at the very fountain-heads? Listen to this:—
"The history of England has been too often written in the 'drum and trumpet style,' and that of the English people too much neglected. Numberless books have been written, and the imagination racked to idealise in visionary style the doubtful deeds of a class who were quite apart from the real life of the nation. Romanticists deal with episodes in the careers of that class, adopt artificial standards of virtue and morals, and by their genius cast a glamour of greatness and nobility over deeds which, judged by a righteous standard, are little short of ruffianism."
Excellent, you say, but again I ask, do you quite see where these admirable sentiments should lead you? It is easy enough to say that history should be recast, that it has been too long in the hands of the Tories and the Churchmen; but the question arises, how is this to be done? Consider the origins of our history. Were the early Britons Protestants? Truth forces us to declare that they were Pagans, and not merely Pagans but subject to that most revolting of all influences, a sacerdotal caste—the famous or infamous Druids. Little, I believe, is known of this priestly order; still there is enough for our purpose. We know that it was not permissible for any Briton without education, without training, without authority to rise and proclaim himself as good a Druid as any of those beings who celebrated their mysterious rites in the groves of Mona; we know that the priests kept education in their own hands and exacted elaborate trials from their neophytes; we know that the practice of human sacrifice was only too common. What is all this system but the Church of England in an undeveloped state, exacting its tale of infant souls to be bound up and sacrificed in the rigid framework of dogma, proud of its pompous ordinations, arrogant in repelling the claims of better men to the full privileges of the Gospel. Look again to the organisation of the State; what do we hear but stories of chieftains and princely families, of Caractacus and Boadicea? Why is there nothing said of Caractacus's cook? Why is history silent as to Boadicea's lady's maid? Always the same story: the people are neglected; and when Britain was invaded, have we a list of the private soldiers' names? No, indeed, this island was invaded by Julius Cæsar, as if the patient legionaries were nothing—and so the story goes on; a roll of so-called "great men," while the mass of the people is forgotten and despised. I declare to you that the reading of history makes my blood boil: century after century tells the same story, in sickening monotony illustrious name follows illustrious name on the slavish page, saint and hero, king and poet and knight, in an endless repetition, till one is forced to cry out in indignant remonstrance, to ask the historian whether he has forgotten that the English People ever existed.
Yet this is the farrago that we teach our children, this is the food on which we expect to rear good Free Churchmen and Liberals. Only the other day my little boy came home from school, as I could see, in a state of perplexity and distress. At first I was inclined to think that the master (who I believe to be a Jesuit in disguise) had been revolting the child's mind with the fetichism of Infant Baptism, or with some such degrading dogma, but I found that I was mistaken. The child had been learning about the Norman Conquest, and as he told me the story he burst into tears, and said at last: "But, papa, why didn't the County Council pass a resolution forbidding that bad man to conquer England? and was Mr. John Burns away for his holiday when they did it?" What could I say to the poor boy? I have brought him up in the belief that the County Council, the Free Churches, and John Burns have made England what it is, and was I to try his childish faith by confessing that none of these was in existence in the year 1066? I do not know whether I was right or wrong, but, right or wrong, I told him that the Norman Conquest was the result of the Tories being in office, and with that answer he was content.
But you see my point: the whole trend of history is absolutely undemocratic; it falsifies modern and enlightened principles on every page and in every chapter. The tendency of modern thought goes to show that the people are everything. To them the wisdom of the nation has given the supreme power; from them, we believe, all inspiration in things political and ecclesiastical proceeds. We scoff, and we scoff rightly, at the old aristocratic-sacerdotal idea that all good gifts are from above, that the universe is a hierarchy, an ordered system of graded functions and powers, in which there are varied excellencies and functions, one star exceeding another star in glory, the oak having one splendour, the daisy another. On the contrary: we affirm that all good gifts are from below, we say that wisdom is to be found in great masses of people after due preparation by political agencies, that the ministerial functions are delegated by the populace. With all due reverence, we decline to consider the lilies; we prefer to consider the cabbages and the Spanish onions. Lilies are picturesque? I daresay they are; some people have found the monarchy and the papacy picturesque; but have these things benefited the people? We refuse then this analogy in toto, as we used to say at college; we declare that daisies make excellent timber, that the blossom of the potato surpasses the proudest blooms in aristocratic gardens, that the oak is a shameless and useless consumer of the soil. Yes; but with what heart can we go on preaching these truths while at the same time we allow our children to read the so-called History of England, which diametrically opposes every one of these conclusions? We might bear to read of the conquest of England, if it were described as an irresistible popular movement; how can we honestly teach our children that this fair land was subdued by William the Conqueror?
You ask my remedy. It is a simple one enough: I would abolish history. Nay; why do you start? Is the world always to be the slave of the past? Is generation after generation to be bound fast in the swaddling bands of antiquity? There was a worthy Puritan in the seventeenth century who proposed that the new order should be consolidated by the burning of all the records of England, and I heartily wish that this most sensible suggestion had been carried out. I confess I grind my teeth when I pass the Record Office; for what is it but a great storehouse of evil precedents; an armoury from which the enemy draws arguments to support his infamous and absurd conclusions. A Romanist Cardinal once said that the appeal to history was treason to the church; I say it is treason to the people and the people's cause. We know that all Kings were remorseless tyrants; the antiquary with his wretched parchments proves many of them to have been eminently human beings, brave, courteous, and wise. We know that the Church is and always has been a conspiracy against the human race; we are confronted with documents shewing how the Church fed the hungry and clothed the naked. Nay; the minds of the people are poisoned from the same source with tales of old time merriment, of kindly traffic between rich and poor, of days when there were more spires than factory chimneys, of charity given with love and received without shame.
I say, once for all, in the words of our classical professor, Delenda est Carthago—history must be abolished. After all, our part is in the future, is it not? We are not placed in this world to delve in the graves of the past, that our minds may be enslaved by ghosts of the bad old days that are gone for ever, that in poring over the inflated records of an imaginary chivalry we may forget our Burns and our Bannerman, our Clifford and our Macnamara. Let us take example by our brothers across the ocean, who have given the world such a wonderful lesson in progress and virtue. The American child's lessons in history are simple enough; he is briefly taught that all Kings are bad, that all aristocrats are bad, that all priests are bad; that the dawn of the world's true history begins with the Declaration of Independence, and that the Kingdom of Heaven is a picturesque way of alluding to the United States. See that great nation freed from all the toils of tradition, from all the bigotry and tyranny of the past; and consider what we should be if we could escape in like manner from our dismal roll of conquests and victories, of battles and pageants, of kings and warriors, of saints and bishops. Soon, I hope, we shall have done a great deal; we shall have substituted for the unintelligible utterances of an obsolete dogmatism called creeds the simpler, more human profession of:—"I believe in the County Council Syllabus"; but how much more remains to be accomplished. Let us, I say, shut up the poisonous wells, let the springs of history be condemned, let us begin our textbooks with the simple sentence:—"Once upon a time there was a very good man named Campbell-Bannerman."
And why should not this system be carried right through the books we give our children? I can remember an old geography book from which I learned the lesson that all Protestant countries were prosperous and that all Popish ones were poor, shewing that Protestantism is true Christianity, since Protestants have naturally inherited all the blessings pronounced on the very rich in the New Testament. Thus we children were shewn how everywhere Protestants had overcome the world in accordance with the Gospel precept, and I remember my good mother telling me that Romanists never had anything better to eat than frogs or potatoes. Surely there is a good deal to be said for such a system of education as this; surely it ought to be the basis of all our education if England is to maintain that Protestant character which has made the nation what it is. We know (for Miss Corelli has told us) that a great conspiracy is on foot, that Romish gold is being lavished throughout the country, that most of the parsons are in direct correspondence with the Vatican. Indeed, it is impossible for the most casual observer to avoid the impression that mischief is in the air; as one passes along the streets one sees church doors open on every side, the mutter of the confessional sounds like the hiss of some venomous snake through the wholesome turmoil of business, and only the other day a friend of mine pointed out to me that a piano organ in the street was playing a Popish anthem called Gloria in excelsis. Are we not to strike a blow for our homes and hearths? Are the men of England asleep? Unless we are beware we shall wake up too late, and find the monasteries have replaced factories, that the brave glow of the blast-furnace has given way to the infernal fires of the Inquisition.
I ask, then, for a scheme of education permeated by Protestantism. A little child was once asked why John was such a good man, and the answer came swiftly: "Because he was a Baptist." That is the right spirit, and I want to see it diffused through all that we teach our children. I want the children to grow up with the love of the healthier England of to-day; I would sternly restrain the teachers who proposed to bewilder those infant minds with the catalogue of crimes and villainies which masquerade as history. It may be necessary for them to learn these things, when they are older: when in the poet's words "shadows of the penitentiary" close around them; it is, unfortunately, necessary that we should make ourselves acquainted with many forms of evil as we descend through the vale of life. But why should we perplex and distress these tender little souls with the "deeds which are little short of ruffianism"—to use the words of the author I quoted a little while ago? We do not teach the little ones the story of Charles Peace or of Sixteen-String Jack, we do not force them to acquire the technique of coining or of forgery, and I have yet to learn that the Newgate Calendar is an indispensable volume in our Sunday School Libraries. Then why should we insist on these little vessels being defiled with tales which are even more flagitious and disgraceful to our common humanity? Why should books be placed within reach of the young which can only minister poison? Why should their minds, at the most impressionable age, be forced to batten on such horrors as Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt, Trafalgar and Waterloo, on the (probably imaginary) achievements of the Black Prince and the Duke of Wellington? Why should we stain their imaginations with accounts of the landing of Augustine and his gang of idolatrous monks? You talk of the love of country; we know only too well what a chapter of iniquities that phrase covers, and for my part I heartily wish that the phrase and all that it implies could be forgotten. It may be necessary, as I say, that, later on, they should acquire some knowledge of these things; some wise and tender friend, perhaps the mother, may break to them by degrees the orgie of abominations, the roll of shame which we call the history of England. Then, with but little danger, they may learn how their misguided and brutal forefathers fought and died for their country, how they drank pure beer and ate beef all the year round, how they were plunged in darkness, superstition, and ignorance till the "Gospel light first shone from Boleyn's eyes," as someone beautifully expresses it. Then they may be informed of the terrible fact that there were no Free Churches in the Dark Ages—no Free Churches, no processions of unemployed, no workhouses, no East End, no submerged tenth, no margarine, no great factories, none of the things that make us so happy in these better days that we live in. Then they may hear—and I am sure they will hear with horror—that there are things called bishops still suffered to pollute the air, that in every parish a sham-priest still hides his head from the scorn of honest men—but with the poison will come the antidote, for they will be old enough to understand that the darkness of the Dark Ages was due to the absence of all the blessings I have enumerated; their principles will have been firmly established, and they will be fired with a holy zeal to complete the good work that has been so well begun.
But let them not be taught all this while they are young; not while they are lisping at their mothers' knees their little hymns, their undenominational prayers, their simple Bible teaching about "a good man who lived long ago." No; I would have all children taught as I have taught mine. The past with all its horrors is veiled from their eyes; they know that God loves them and that the County Council cares for them; that though Earth hath many a noble city Battersea doth all excel; and last but not least they know that Mr. John Burns is always near them. For them these simple streets about us are all the world, and though I have heard Lavender Dale called monotonous I am sure it is not so to them. The architecture of the Baptist Church to which my ministry is given represents to them the last word of beauty in building; its combination of cast-iron tracery, classic columns in stucco, and fancy design in vari-coloured bricks will always remain in their minds as a vision of celestial loveliness. Last Sunday I had been telling the little ones about Heaven, and after the lesson my boy Albert came up to me with his eyes brimming over with tears, and his lip trembling. I asked the little man what was the matter. "Oh, father," he sobbed, "I've been thinking of what you told us, and I'm sure I know what heaven will be really like." I was a good deal touched, and patting the brave little fellow on the head, I answered: "Are you, my son? Will you tell father about it?" Gulping down his tears, he replied: "I think it will be like Battersea Park, only ever so much larger. And there won't be any games at all going on, and all the gentle men and ladies, and little boys and girls will be dressed like they are on Sunday. The gentlemen will all be in such beautiful shiny black clothes, with bright silk hats and white shirts, every one of them, and the young ones will have fair moustaches and small chins and bright blue silk ties, and all the old gentlemen will have white beards like fringes all round their throats, and every one will have a Bible in one hand and an umbrella in the other, though the sun will shine just as it did at Clacton when we went on the Sunday School excursion last summer. And the ladies will be in lovely dresses like mother's best; red and blue and green, all new, like the parlour curtains, with large roses in their hats, and all the little boys and girls will be in velveteen and lace. And the flowers in the beds will be ever so much larger than they are now; there will be geraniums as big as breakfast cups, and double dahlias bigger than my hat, and all sorts of flowers, as bright as they were at the Wesleyan Flower Show at Clapham Rise, and much brighter than any of the flowers that the bad rich people have in their horrid hothouses. And Gawd will sit on a great white throne in the middle, almost as fine as the Albert Memorial that I saw when you took us to Hyde Park, and Dr. Clifford will tell everybody how bad the Tories were, and Mr. John Burns will talk about the House of Lords, and everybody will be so happy that they will say 'cheers,' and 'laughter,' and 'hear, hear' for ever and ever. There won't be any bishops or priests or popes there, because they are all burning in the bad place, and very bad people like Father Damien you told me about when I was naughty will be burnt worse than anybody, because they tried to deceive the good people, only the nice, good Presbyterian minister found him out. There will be thousands and thousands of angels, like ladies in nightgowns, with very large wings, flying about everywhere as if they were so happy they didn't know what to do; but they will talk a good deal to the ministers, who will all be there. And there will be ever so many harmoniums, and American organs, all playing beautiful hymns, and the little children will give services of song in a large beautiful building just like our church; all about the Kings of Israel and Judah and the Hittites and the Hivites and the Amorites, which will make people feel very good. Then some very nice gentlemen from America will come in and say they come from God's own country, which is almost as good as heaven, and all the angels and the ministers will sing the Glory Song, and then everybody will have tea, with lots of jam."
Do you know that I could scarcely answer my little son? I do not know whether it is a father's partiality, but it seemed to me that in these few simple words, bubbling up from the child's heart, there was more spiritual truth than in all the works of foreign Romanist poets whom it seems the fashion to praise nowadays. I have looked into the works of Dante—you know the book to which I allude—a book oddly, and I cannot but think irreverently, entitled "Divine Comedy." The title, with its theatrical associations, could not fail to jar upon me, as you may imagine, but when I came to examine the work itself I confess I was astonished that such a book should be so openly and widely circulated. You have heard my little son's vision—for so I dare to call it—and you must have been struck, I think, by the total absence of dogma, of that passion for definition which has been the plague of Christianity in the past, and is so still. God sits on a great throne, good men inculcate the duties of citizenship, all raise the voice of praise to the accompaniment of rare and exquisite music, there are services which delight the emotions and instil a knowledge of Bible History. Nay, the picture may be in a sense fanciful, it may not in all respects correspond to the latest conclusions of philosophical thought; but at all events there are no creeds here, no cramping, disturbing dogmas, no pseudo-scientific "theology," no arrogant assumption of authority. And, after all, criticism apart, the English Sunday that our good Puritan ancestors won for us is, to my mind at all events, no bad symbol of that heavenly home for which we are all bound. A child may do much worse than think of heaven as an eternal Pleasant Sunday Afternoon. This, then, I say is the result of the teaching that I would give to the little ones; you will notice that there is no thought of kings or saints or heroes in the child's mind, no pompous cathedral stuns and dwarfs his imagination, popes and priests are present only as vague embodiments of evil, destined to final punishment; he thinks of the good people about him, of the simple music he has heard Sunday after Sunday, of the eloquent discourses of which I have told him, and thus forms a picture which, for all I know, is as "inspired" as the vision of John. I do not understand why Battersea should not be as holy as Patmos, and a Christian child in the England of to-day may, for all I know, have a clearer vision than the Eastern solitary of the first century.
But when I turn from little Albert's simple story to the so-called "Divine Comedy" of Dante; what a gulf yawns between them!
But this opens up a new vista before us, and I think I will defer my remarks on this subject to some succeeding afternoon.