^ 
 
 PALESTINE NOTES 
 and other Papers 
 
 J. WILHELM ROWNTREE 
 
 4 
 
 .ar)i) i
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 3 MlT^. Q>n/yu^-
 
 PALESTINE NOTES AND OTHER PAPERS.
 
 " LOVE, THAT ROOT OF FAITH, AND 
 UNITY OF ALL THE VIRTUES." 
 
 — ^J.W.R.
 
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 Palestine Notes 
 
 AND OTHER PAPERS 
 
 By 
 
 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE 
 
 Edited by 
 
 JOSHUA ROWNTREE 
 
 London : HEADLEY BROTHERS 
 
 14, Bishopsgate Street Without, E.G. 
 1906.
 
 K7^ 
 
 HEADLEY BROTHERS, 
 
 PRINTERS, 
 
 L(^NDON ; AND ASHFORP, KENT.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface ...... vii. 
 
 Part I. — Travel Journals : 
 
 Diary of a Visit to Palestine and the East 3 
 
 Photographing Pompeii ... 66 
 
 Mexico and the West - - - - 69 
 
 Part II. — Adult School Notes, Addresses, &c. : 
 
 The Wilderness and Glory - - 83 
 
 A Last Century Lesson - - - 87 
 
 Right and Wrong Ways of Separation - 91 
 
 Paul's Conversion - - - - 94 
 
 Wings like a Dove - . - - loi 
 
 The Place of Religion in Modern Life - 104 
 
 What an Adult School should be - 107 
 
 On Lay Ministry - - - - no 
 
 The Greatest Commandment - - 116 
 
 Not Peace but a Sword - - - 120 
 
 Gambling ..... 132 
 
 Losing and Finding .... 139 
 
 Selfishness - - . . . 144 
 
 Temperance ..... 157 
 
 " When War shall be no moke " - - 161
 
 vi. CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Part III. — Art and History : 
 
 Art and Religious Thought of the Renais- 
 sance - - . . . j^i 
 
 The Artist, the Apostle, and the Mystic - i88 
 
 Augustine — Lecture I. - - - 193 
 
 Augustine — Lecture IL - - - 206 
 
 The Friends of God ... 217 
 
 Wesley ..-._. 229 
 
 William Law - - . . . 249 
 
 Part IV. — Miscellaneous : 
 
 Miscellaneous - - . . . 263 
 
 " Behold I Stand at the Door and Knock " 270 
 
 Chronological Memoranda - - - 275
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In the volume of Essays and Addresses by John Wilhelm 
 Rowntree already published, it was sought to make accessible, 
 and to hand on to others, the thoughts which best represent 
 the main purpose of his life. The introductory sketch, or 
 preface, described this purpose and its growth, as far as pos- 
 sible in his own words. Young as he was when the end came, 
 keenly as he enjoyed life, greatly as he delighted in art and 
 in beauty wherever he found them, his words were weighted 
 with his own experience when he called to his comrades — 
 " ' gather the rosebuds while ye may,' but gather them not 
 for mere selfish enjoyment. Such roses turn to ashes, they 
 have neither the bloom, nor the sweet scent of the roses which 
 grow in the garden of eternal love. There is no freshness 
 of dew upon them." And so in a thoroughly manly fashion, 
 he sought to turn the world's gardens into gardens of the 
 Lord. He placed character before intellect, and the awakening 
 of the soul first. He was keenly alive to the difficulties, 
 to some minds more especially, in the acceptance of the 
 historical Christ, but he had found for himself " a living 
 bridge which links us to the past," and that " the personal 
 knowledge of God as revealed in Christ, convicting us of 
 selfishness, searching out our sin, destroying in its pure flame 
 the dross of our lower nature, is an experience which banishes 
 doubt, and demands no explanation." He longed exceedingly 
 to see the simple, practical, true-hearted life of Christianity, 
 as set forth in the New Testament, become a mighty power 
 in the land ; and for this he spent his life fearlessly and joy- 
 ously. Born and brought up in a small religious community 
 
 vii.
 
 viii. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 which views the Christian hfe itself as sacramental, and places 
 it above creeds and systems, knowing no distinction of clergy 
 and laity, he threw himself into its fellowship with untiring 
 zest, as the best instrument he could find for permeating 
 the present generation with the faith and hope and charity 
 of a lay Christianity. 
 
 The volume referred to is then of necessity mainly 
 devoted to the warnings, appeals, and encouragements 
 addressed by this young prophet to the fellow members of 
 his own religious society. Bearing this limitation in mind, 
 it is the more permissible to acknowledge here the generous 
 and appreciative notices of the book which have appeared, 
 not only in many organs of the daily press, but also in not a 
 few weekly journals, representing very diverse churches and 
 schools of theology. 
 
 It was proposed, if the reception of the first book should 
 encourage it, to bring out a supplemental but lesser volume 
 of John Wilhelm Rowntree's writings, of more general interest 
 than those previously selected, showing more obviously the 
 wide range and catholicity of his mind. This intention has 
 been confirmed by requests from the Council of the National 
 Adult School Union, and from the Executive Committee 
 of the London Adult School Union, for the publication 
 of some of the addresses, or notes of lessons given in his 
 Adult School work. As the Council represents some 900 
 Schools all over the Kingdom, with 90,000 members, such 
 requests could not be put lightly aside, and the following pages 
 are, to some extent, a response to these appeals. It is to be 
 wished that the piles of MS. notes for Adult School lessons, 
 left amongst his papers, could have been further utilised. But 
 they are in such skeleton form, that the ordinary reader, 
 however 'much he might desire it, could hardly make them 
 stand up, like the bones of Ezekiel's vision, a great army of 
 living thought and expression. A few examples, both of 
 his Adult School notes, and of more finished addresses, have, 
 however, been selected, and it is hoped they may be of value, not
 
 PREFACE. ix. 
 
 only to those who can recall the personality of the speaker, 
 but to workers in this great movement who had no such ac- 
 quaintance with him. The desire to meet the two requests 
 referred to, has indeed largely guided the preparation of this 
 volume as a whole. The first part contains a considerable 
 portion of the journal of a visit to Syria and the East, with 
 extracts from one or two other diaries of travel. The second 
 gives Adult School lessons and addresses ; and the third 
 some of the many lectures he was in the habit of giving 
 whether to audiences of Friends, or of other denomina- 
 tions. 
 
 Several extracts have been added from lectures and writings, 
 which could not well be inserted at greater length. For 
 instance, the six lectures on Art and Religion referred to in 
 the following pages, would make a small book in themselves » 
 but it would quite fail to do justice to the subject, or to the 
 very painstaking lecturer who prepared them, if the slides 
 on which the discourses were to a great extent founded were 
 not reproduced, and this is practically impossible. The 
 extracts may at least give some idea of the freshness and 
 force which characterised his work, with hardly any exception. 
 
 John liked to study his Bible, as one of his scholars has 
 happily phrased it, " with plenty of fresh air and sunshine." 
 He ever feared seliish indifference more than intellectual 
 doubt. He had had to sound his own way through the 
 shoals of scepticism, until he reached a clear course in deep 
 water ; and he always retained the keenest sympathy for those 
 who were still throwing the lead. He showed this in two 
 ways. As far as possible he avoided the use of well-worn 
 phrases, that lulled, rather than attracted the hearer. And 
 he availed himself of helps and illustrations from whatever 
 quarter they might be found. The writings of Tom Paine 
 had no fears for him, and he used them freely in illustration, 
 and in pressing home his own conclusions in his class at 
 Acomb. He would, no doubt, have agreed with Bishop 
 Westcott's remark, " I have learned more, I believe, through
 
 X. . JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 scholars from whom I differ on fundamental principles, 
 than through those whose conclusions I share." And yet 
 the longer he lived, the more Christ became the centre 
 of all things to him. In 1899, without abating any of 
 his appeals to the power of men's minds, as well as to the 
 devotion of their hearts, he wrote* : " We confess that if 
 the broadening of evangelical theology is to involve the loss 
 of its directness and power in saving men, we would have it 
 always ' narrow ' ; for evangelicalism, in spite of its narrow- 
 ness, has been the salvation of the Church." 
 
 He had come to feel and to know of Christ in the words 
 of the German mystic : 
 
 " None other tells unto my soul the secret, 
 The mystery divine ; 
 The love that maketh glad the inner chambers, 
 His home and mine." 
 
 Probably the best supplement to the preface of the 
 previous volume may be found in some fuller description, 
 however imperfectly given, of his radiating personality, 
 whether in boyhood, in Adult School work, in his travels, or 
 in his home friendships. To the sketch of the inner life 
 before presented, further glimpses into his outer mind, in 
 the freedom he set such store by himself, should not detract 
 from, but rather complete, the readers' true estimate of the 
 whole. 
 
 An old housemaid of the family wrote after his death, 
 that " Master John was always such a little gentleman." 
 Whether this explains a tradition current about his infancy 
 (before he had learned to speak), that, having been taken to 
 some Scarborough lodgings, he rebelled so loudly against the 
 wall-paper of the room first allotted to him and to his nurse, 
 that another nursery had to be found, it might be hazardous 
 to say. It is more certain that as a boy he was straight and . 
 honourable, but easily roused and passionate. At these 
 
 ♦ "The Outlook." Present Day Papers.
 
 PREFACE. xi. 
 
 times his language is said to have been highly impressive, ' 
 to the victims against whom it was directed. Occasionally 
 he might hurl a chair at an offender, or roast the wax doll 
 of a sister, or direct a hose pipe into a kitchen window, to 
 avenge injuries received from an unsympathetic cook ; but i 
 even these things were not done boisterously, but rather on ' 
 " principles of honour," as the dehghtful servant to George 
 Borrows in Spain, used to explain his escapades. His 
 thirst for knowledge set in early. His generalship 
 and inventiveness showed itself in boyhood, in indoor 
 games, but, most strikingly, in acting. It is said that one 
 of his fancies in his teens was to have been an actor, if only 
 his deafness had not prohibited. He was by no means the 
 good boy, or peacemaker, of the family. He was perhaps 
 most distinguished for " throwing himself tremendously 
 into things " to which he gave himself. He had a fine dis- 
 regard for the value of money. To all who knew him in later 
 life these few touches may give vivid impressions of the long 
 conflicts that must have been waged and won in the moulding 
 of his character, as it grew up into the light of noonday. 
 
 John was not twenty-five years old when, in June, 1893, 
 he started the Adult School at Acomb, three miles from his 
 own home. At first he had two volunteers from the parent 
 School to help him. Six members joined them during the first 
 few weeks, then the numbers rose into teens, and so on into 
 the twenties, until the register counted 100 names, and 
 upwards. Premises for the School and a social club were 
 built, and opened in November, 1896. The bulk of the 
 men who attended are said not to have been in the habit 
 of " going nigh places of worship," but, along with agnostics 
 and socialists, the young teacher attracted some thoughtful 
 men, both from church and chapel, whose loyalty stood all 
 the strain that his fearlessness in " dividing the word of truth " 
 as he saw it, brought upon them. He would begin with a 
 hjonn, and a pause for silent prayer, explaining that he could 
 not offer words as a formality to God. As time went on.
 
 xii. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 he frequently did engage in vocal prayer. A portion of 
 Scripture read round by the men followed. The inner 
 meaning of the passage was as likely as not to be a mystery 
 to most of those who listened. Then, with clear, incisive 
 sentences, the speaker would unfold some of the marvels 
 of the universe. It might be the crust of the earth, or the 
 stars, or some stirring life in the history of man. Whatever 
 the theme, he won his audience, by the wealth of his know- 
 ledge, and the generosity with which he presented it ; and 
 when their interest was aroused, and they felt they knew 
 more on that particular subject than they had dreamed 
 of before, he would bring all the light shed on the lesson 
 round to the passage with which they had started, until it 
 stood out with a meaning and a purpose quite new to 
 those who listened. The closing hymn, men say, never 
 sounded otherwise than genuine and appropriate. 
 
 As you listen to viva voce accounts of the rise of the 
 school, you know that the youthful leader had undoubtedly 
 many of the gifts of a great teacher, and spared no pains in 
 the using of them. His scholars assure you that he must 
 have had the run of the York museum, because of the number 
 of specimens he brought with him, to make real the formation 
 of the earth, the life of man in the stone age, or the occupation 
 of their city by the legionaries of Rome. And they know that 
 he often sat up until two on the Sunday morning preparing 
 diagrams for the lesson, for he had indeed no other time for 
 the doing of them.* In his lessons he cared yet more about 
 drawing out than putting in. At the outset, he would ask 
 anyone who could not follow what he was saying, to stop 
 him at once. He welcomed interruptions gladly, and would 
 at once turn to a blackboard, or vary his illustration to make 
 things clear. He watched the faces of the class, and when 
 once he felt sure he had them with him, it was not always easy 
 
 * He thought twelve hours a week none too much time for the 
 preparation of Sunday's lesson, and rose early, or sat up late to obtain 
 them. — Ed.
 
 PREFACE. xiii. 
 
 to stop ; but he insisted on some time for questions at the end» 
 and in this he was rarely disappointed. His deafness was, 
 of course, a difficulty, but to ensure everyone having a chance, 
 the Secretary, or some one who knew the men would sit 
 beside him, and make sure that no question was passed by ; 
 now and then he would promise to answer a question the 
 next Sunday. " The only thing that ever did upset him " 
 (one of the men said to the writer) " was to find a scholar 
 in favour of war." " But he never offended the class. We 
 saw how he liked honest opinions from everybody, and how 
 he wanted us all to think. He would teach more in a few 
 words than some men could in a day." 
 
 Notwithstanding the distance, and the loss of sight, 
 which was growing upon him, in the early days of the school 
 he visited every member at his own home, with one of the 
 regular visitors as his guide. The difficulty, as you hear now, 
 was to get him through the allotted round in anything like 
 decent time. He could not resist an invitation to join in any 
 tea that might be on the way, and was in friendship at once 
 with everybody in the house. " There never was a finer man 
 to go into a sick room," are words still to be heard of those 
 visits. He would follow up any inquiries for more know- 
 ledge, by the loan of any books he possessed, or even by the 
 purchase of new ones. He and his young wife threw open 
 their house to members of the School once a week, and 
 formed a reading circle to assist them. As a matter of fact 
 these " socials " began whilst John was helping his father 
 in the central Schools. There happened to be several blind 
 men in the "B" class, and they especially enjoyed coming. 
 Some were themselves good musicians, and one used to 
 read amusing original poems. The Acomb men had six 
 or seven miles to walk from the railway shops to their homes, 
 and then to John's house and back, yet there would be 
 twenty to thirty of them in his drawing room on Thursday 
 nights, ready to read Clodd's " Childhood of Religion," or 
 Kidd's " Social Evolution," and to discuss them to the full.
 
 xiv. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 but not to the end, — for that was often lefttotheNorth-Eastern 
 workshops. 
 
 On the men's part they soon took the business of the 
 School upon their own shoulders. The painting and glazing 
 of the new premises, the tables, lamp, etc., are the handiwork 
 of the members. 
 
 The present writer is not qualified to speak of all that 
 came from this sharing fellowship of the Acomb School 
 and its teacher. When other calls came to him, able workers 
 followed in the field. But the faces are many that still glow 
 with the light of other days, as they recall the lessons when 
 they learned " more than at any other time " in their lives, — 
 as one will tell you how, when he first went to listen, he thought 
 it a grand thing to put a shilling or half-a-crown a week on 
 a horse, and what the change that came meant for his chil- 
 dren. How another young fellow walked six miles every 
 Sunday, and found a real purpose, instead of a mockery in 
 life, and is finely following it up to-day. How, in spite of 
 some misgivings at first, and a threat to send for the village 
 policeman when the first photo of the School was taken on a 
 Sunday, the Wesleyan chapel and the Church schoolroom 
 were generously opened to them in times of need, and how 
 the work made, not only for the building up of character, but, as 
 it went on, for the unity and peace of the village. The first 
 photograph, by the bye, is interesting, with young Mrs. 
 Rowntree in the second row, and the teacher, almost the 
 youngest of some sixty stalwart men, in the fourth row at 
 the back. " There never was anything of self about him," 
 is the comment, as the picture is put back in its place again. 
 One characteristic incident must finish this conversational 
 account of John's work at Acomb. " One Sunday when he 
 came, he was taken quite aback to find it was open school, — 
 the wives were all asked to this once a month. Mr. John 
 was startled, and said the lesson he had for us would not do. 
 He seemed anxious for a bit, but soon made up his mind, and 
 when the singing was over, he gave us one of the finest addresses
 
 PREFACE. XV. 
 
 we ever had on some of the differences between King Hezekiah 
 and Queen Victoria ! " No wonder as time went on that 
 Sunday School teachers and local preachers used to join the 
 audience, " to get ideas." 
 
 No one who reads with care the papers which follow in 
 this book need ask what the teacher himself learned from 
 his Adult class. Some of the fruits are clearly visible in a 
 passage on the weak hold of the churches on the life of the 
 world.* It is worth reproducing here. 
 
 " For reasons which we have partially discussed, many 
 men, both earnest and indifferent are repelled from the Church, 
 or remain unattached. But even indifference may be more 
 in the seeming, and we seldom trust the power of love enough, 
 whether in our private or international affairs. Let us make 
 an effort to bridge the gulf which the past sins of the Church, 
 no less than the present sins of a worldly generation, have fixed. 
 
 "It is a want of imagination that confines the Adult 
 School to a particular class. Discuss the deeper side of life 
 with him at round table conferences, — no priest, no parson, 
 no holy order, simple human beings, laymen all ; or, as Friends 
 say, Priests all, in the sight of God. 
 
 " There will be no want of directness, and no parasitism 
 in such a method. Mind is close to mind. It is the method 
 of Socrates, and the message of Christ, a rare combination. 
 Sermons tend to be soporific, discussion provokes thought in 
 the mental clash. But more than that, the ordinary con- 
 gregational worship lacks too often the vital social cement. 
 We gravely doubt whether, in public worship, the right mean 
 of practice has yet been discovered. The family feeling so 
 essential is seldom experienced. The sense of fellowship is 
 generally weak, and where it exists, is, as we have seen, too 
 often exclusive. 
 
 " The Adult School has its basis in the promotion of a 
 vivid sense of human fellowship, rooted in an all-embracing 
 
 * "History of Adult School Movement," by J. W. Rowntree and 
 H. B. Binns. Headley Bros., London.
 
 xvi. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Divine Love. The small gatherings are, or should be, in 
 the family spirit ; their intensely human character, their 
 simplicity, their freedom from conventional restraint, tend 
 to keep them close to the difficult problems of life. These are 
 too often left in the church porch, but in the Adult Schools 
 they are, so to speak, laid on the table. 
 
 " Surely our questions are answered ! If we grasp the 
 idea aright, we can see before us a vista of possibilities, far- 
 reaching in their scope, and rich in dower of blessing, 
 
 " The Adult Schools may be but the bridge to a different 
 form of church fellowship, but at least they are a bridge. 
 Nor do we believe that their service will be temporary. In 
 some future church order, in that wider brotherhood, which, 
 in the far-off years shall fuse the sects, embracing them cis one 
 in living bonds, there will yet be a place for the ' round table,' 
 for the sweet discourse of kindred souls breaking in common 
 the spiritual Bread of Life." 
 
 This happy intercourse with working men at Acomb 
 undoubtedly quickened John's interest in social work of 
 all kinds, as well as the desire to strive after true equity 
 in all the relationships of life. The working builder of 
 his new home at Scalby said to the writer that most men 
 when you come to have dealings with them had two sides to 
 their natures — a business side and a religious side — but with 
 John Wilhelm Rowntree, keen though he was to get his work 
 done, there was only one united whole. The Guest 
 House, to which John gave the ancestral German name of 
 Friedensthal (the valley of peace) may be regarded as another 
 outcome of the Acomb Adult School. It is satisfactory to 
 note that upwards of 400 guests have found rest and recreation 
 there during the first nine months it has been opened. 
 
 The journals sent home whilst visiting Palestine and 
 Mexico were often written very hastily, and without any 
 thought of their ever appearing in print. They convey, 
 however, to the reader what many more laboured note books
 
 PREFACE. xvii. 
 
 of travel fail to accomplish, an impression of colour and of 
 life which is of real value. Imagination is not the strong 
 point of average Englishmen, and all descriptions by eye 
 witnesses which help a class to realise the East and the 
 common aspect of its daily tasks, may be of interest and 
 service to Adult School workers. For this reason the notes 
 from Palestine are given here almost in full. 
 
 His friend, Lawrence Richardson, who joined him at 
 Jerusalem, writes of this journey : 
 
 " We had the month of May in Palestine. This is 
 considered rather late, but we were fortunate in weather, 
 having little or none that was oppressively hot except at 
 Jericho, in the Vale of Jezreel, and again by the Lake of 
 Galilee, that is in places at or below sea-level. 
 
 "John was very sensitive to changes of atmosphere, 
 which may explain an apparent lack of interest in the Lake 
 of Galilee, but Nazareth we both enjoyed much, and later on 
 the crossing of the shoulder of Mount Hermon on the way to 
 Damascus, and coming over the ranges of Lebanon and Anti- 
 Lebanon to Beyrout were among the pleasantest parts of 
 the whole journey. 
 
 "John said often at the time that this would probably 
 be his last chance of a trip abroad. He had taken it deliber- 
 ately with a view of storing up impressions for the long years 
 of darkness which he expected lay before him, especially 
 impressions of Palestine which would be of special use in his 
 Adult School lessons and in the ministry which he had then 
 only recently begun. Fortunately his sight did not fail so 
 rapidly as was then feared, and he made many and longer 
 journeys afterwards ; indeed, with better health, less nervous- 
 ness, and being more accustomed to it, he was really able to 
 get about alone more in his last years than at this time. 
 
 "It has been my good fortune to travel abroad with John 
 over a total distance considerably more than the circum- 
 ference of the earth, and all who knew him will understand the 
 privilege it was. He was so keenly interested in everything,
 
 xviii. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 and had always taken such trouble to find out and read up 
 the best books on the countries visited. In Palestine he 
 read aloud George Adam Smith's ' Geography of the Holy 
 Land,' a book which shows how the physical features of 
 the country affected its history and thus doubles the interest 
 of seeing it. John was very fond of reading aloud on his 
 journeys, either some descriptive book like that just mentioned 
 or in idler moments, some well chosen novel. 
 
 "He could undergo considerable fatigue, though rather 
 easily upset by changes of temperature or diet, but he had 
 a remarkable power of recovery. His helplessness in strange 
 places in requiring someone to lead him wherever he wished 
 to go must have been a severe trial, but he rarely showed 
 that it was so." 
 
 Under his disabilities, frequent travellers' grumbles 
 might reasonably be expected to occur in his notes. They 
 are on the contrary exceedingly rare, whilst almost every 
 page is lit up by humour. His Haverford friend and com- 
 rade, Rufus Jones, writing under the very shadow of the 
 valley of his death, finely says of John, " Few things show 
 the true, deep nature of a man more than his humour. The 
 finest humour always comes from the finest spirit. The 
 play of his spirit was one of the loveliest things about him. 
 He thoroughly enjoyed life, and when he was with congenial 
 persons his happy spirit flowed out in sheer joy." 
 
 It may truly be said of John Wilhelm Rowntree that 
 those who judged him when either grave or gay " saw but 
 a single side." The two were constantly commingled, and 
 difficult though it be to attempt any portraiture of this 
 attractive feature of his character in print, it is certain that 
 no descriptions of him can even approach accmacy which 
 fail altogether to convey it. His fun seemed to come from 
 two unfailing springs — his splendid hopefulness and his 
 vivacious kindliness. The dial he had erected for his new 
 home was to record " only sunny hours," and he sought to 
 emulate it in this respect. To him this was a real part of his
 
 PREFACE. XIX. 
 
 Master's business. He sailed from England for the last time 
 under a pressure of arrangements and responsibilities unusual 
 even for him. The necessity for breaking in upon all these 
 to go and place himself under painful treatment for the further 
 arrest, if possible, of the ever threatening blindness had come 
 suddenly upon him, and he might well have excused himself 
 from all ordinary engagements previously entered into ; 
 so far as possible, however, he kept them all. One of these 
 was a lecture long promised to the Malton Adult School. 
 It was to be on the " Atlantic Ferry," with lantern slides. 
 There was a large company. The whole lecture was brimful 
 of fun, and the audience, many of whom heard him for the 
 first time, were quite carried away by the charm of it. (When 
 the sad news of his death came a week or two after, some of 
 the listeners could not at first be persuaded that it was true). 
 The enjoyment of the company that evening was shared in 
 by the lecturer, and at supper-time, after the cares of the 
 day were over, he continued to pour out rich recollections 
 of stories and incidents met with in the course of his 
 travels. 
 
 A correspondent adds : "It was characteristic of him 
 that he passed without any discordant feeling from the stories 
 to graver themes. I remember that the ensuing Yearly 
 Meeting at Leeds loomed large, and he spoke eagerly of 
 the great service that the Quaker fellowship might yet 
 render if its members were more faithful to the great 
 call. He spoke cheerfully of his coming personal trial, and 
 very brightly concerning his realisation of the real presence 
 of Christ with His disciples, here and now." 
 
 If, as we have seen, he could rejoice with those who do 
 rejoice to the extent even of childlike abandonment, he had 
 the tenderest sympathy with the bereaved and sorrowful. 
 He knew full well the depths no less than the heights of life. 
 The following extract from a letter to a correspondent, 
 who was mourning the loss of a gifted brother, may best 
 confirm this : —
 
 XX. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE, 
 
 " Silverdale, Scalby. 
 
 " 13. xii. 03. 
 " . . . . There is a passage, I think in WiUiam Law's 
 ' Serious Call,' if I remember rightly, where that great mystic 
 says that sorrow and suffering are God's tenderest angels. 
 My knowledge of the sharp pain of bereavement has come to 
 me only through sympathy with others. And yet my heart, 
 and doubtless your own, bears witness that those words are 
 true. I remember Rufus Jones saying to me that he had 
 never felt the love of God so real as in the hours of desolate 
 grief which assailed his soul at the loss of his son. Fellowship 
 with him in that trial I felt to be a rich privilege, but it has 
 inevitably brought into prominence the more solemn notes 
 of life's music. I have felt more and more the need for a 
 sensible contact with the Divine, the sustenance of the Divine 
 love, and the hope that springs eternal from a living Com- 
 munion with the Supreme Purpose, the Life — the Father of 
 us all." 
 
 The Spectator, in reviewing the previous volume of his 
 Essays and Addresses says, " He was an excellent writer as 
 well as an impassioned speaker ; there are historical passages 
 in his ' remains,' particularly in his lectures on the history 
 of Quakerism, which are genuinely eloquent." In the last 
 volume of the Cambridge Modern History (ix.) a description 
 of Chateaubriand is given by the writer. Professor Pariset, 
 which may well, with all modesty, be applied to the writer 
 of the lectures referred to. The sentence runs : " History 
 was to him only the past restored to life, and this past he 
 made others see as he himself saw, landscape, colour, sun- 
 light. Lastly, whatever he did was steeped in his personality." 
 
 The extracts given from his lectures on mediaeval art 
 bear out this thought with curious exactness. In Diirer's 
 woodcuts, or Holbein's portraits, he saw the past restored to 
 life with " landscape, colour and sunlight." Indeed, in the 
 endeavour to bring home any incident or lesson weighing on
 
 PREFACE. xxi. 
 
 his mind to an audience, it seemed almost a necessity with 
 him to first paint in the main facts of the historic period 
 out of which the incident arose, so as to form a panoramic 
 scene piece, a reahstic background to his subject. 
 
 The power alluded to by the Spectator, marks a real 
 loss to the Church history of England by his removal before 
 he could put his hand to the history of Quakerism for which 
 he had long been accumulating materials. 
 
 Yet all those who were privileged to enjoy his friendship 
 will unhesitatingly feel that his personality was greater than 
 his gifts. His perceptions were very keen, his words very 
 forceful, his imagery often very attractive, but the power of 
 his character, the spirit of the man himself, was greater than 
 all, and made the most impression on those who knew him. 
 This was why his presence at any small gathering of individuals 
 was just as delightful as at any full-sized Conference or 
 Summer School. 
 
 An account of such an occasion has reached the present 
 writer from a personal friend of John's in the south-west of 
 England. It, too, has the deepened interest attaching to the 
 closing weeks of his life. 
 
 " It was only a visit of one right — John Wilhelm's 
 to Failand, — and he bravely faced it quite alone. It was a 
 mild day in February, and the drive from Clifton was filled 
 with eager talk, and, as usual with him, there were the large 
 hopes for men and measures. The late afternoon found us 
 at the tiny, old, thatched Meeting-House at Portishead, and 
 it was wonderful to see how our guest made himself friendly 
 with every one, as we took our tea in primitive fashion, sitting 
 about on the old white seats, or filling up the narrow gangway. 
 
 " The tea and social time was for Friends and Attenders 
 only, and when it was over the people from the village began 
 to come in. The room was soon full with a mixed audience 
 of country folk and those better educated. It was not an 
 easy audience to draw together, and the promoters might be 
 pardoned some initial wonder as to whether the delicate,
 
 xxii. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 refined figure, standing in the little gallery, would be able 
 to meet the variety of needs, when unguided by the sight of 
 the faces before him. But all questionings vanished as he 
 told of the hunger of the soul, which science and art alike 
 fail to satisfy, and went on to tell the old story of the power 
 of the personal Christ, and it was soon evident that he had 
 not come in vain, and that many differing conditions of 
 souls would go away with a clearer sense of what religion 
 might be to them than they had ever had before. 
 
 " It was pathetic to note his apparently impersonal 
 allusion to blindness, as a possible trial amongst others that 
 might come to men, and one could only dimly surmise what 
 it must be to him to be always facing such an overwhelming 
 possibility. But the personal note, whenever struck, was 
 not one of sadness, but of hopeful endeavour, the strenuous- 
 ness of the struggle lit by the certainty of the issue. 
 
 " Perhaps the address might have been fairly easily 
 equalled by an expert preacher, so far as mere phrasing 
 went, but to concede this is only to bring into stronger 
 relief the effect of John Wilhelm's personality upon that 
 audience in the little white-washed Meeting-house. People 
 remarked upon it afterwards, and those not connected 
 with the Meeting were as sensible of it as those more 
 likely, at first sight, to appreciate what he was. They spoke 
 with unusual warmth of the value of the gathering, and it 
 was felt by many that one of rare gifts and devotion had 
 been amongst us. This impression was but deepened when, 
 shortly afterwards, the papers told of his passing away, and 
 it was striking to note the sense of personal loss which came 
 to more than one of those who only heard or saw him that 
 one evening, for it had not needed Death to tell us that we 
 had been privileged to listen to one who spoke from heights 
 which were, in every sense, near to the heavenly country." 
 
 The last Adult School address given by John Wilhelm 
 Rowntree was given to the Acomb School, the scene of his 
 early labours, on the afternoon of the Sunday before he sailed
 
 PREFACE. xxiii. 
 
 with his wife to the United States. The men who could look 
 back over the twelve years that had elapsed since he had first 
 gathered them together, were struck by the deep notes and 
 mature powers of the teacher they had loved in his youth. 
 He closed his address as he had done elsewhere in the morning. 
 
 " Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes, 
 Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies, 
 Heaven's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee ; 
 In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me." 
 
 A Friend has mentioned that John, in speaking to 
 him for the last time of hymns, said how at one time the 
 impersonal hymns, such for instance as " O God, our help 
 in ages past," were most acceptable to him, but that "now 
 the personal hymns came first," and he mentioned " Jesus, 
 Lover of my soul," as an instance. The choice of a number 
 of hymns copied out in his own handwriting, and left amongst 
 his papers, would seem to confirm this statement. 
 
 Pneumonia seized him on his way across the Atlantic, 
 and his brave stewardship of life ended three days after the 
 landing at New York. All that was mortal of him was laid 
 to rest by the kindest of Friends in the Burial Ground at 
 Haverford, not far from Penn's city of Brotherly Love. But 
 his life lives on, and will live. 
 
 In the introductory sketch to his Essays and Addresses 
 already referred to, mention is made of the exceeding happiness 
 of his home life, and an instance is given of his walking some 
 six miles, though tired, one Sunday, to take his then youngest 
 child out in her perambulator, rather than break a promise. 
 Violet, a charmingly self-contained little person, was especially 
 dear to him. He seemed as if he never could have too much 
 of her company, and she was equally attached to her father. 
 After his death, she continued to speak of him, perhaps more 
 than anyone else in the family. She would come into the 
 house from looking up at the skies, and say that she had seen 
 her Daddy. At Christmas she was very urgent that he
 
 xxiv. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 should have his present along with all the rest. On her 
 mother asking her what she was to do if Violet' went off on 
 such a long errand, the reply was she should hold 'him by the 
 hand until Mother came too. On the anniversary week of 
 her father's death she became suddenly ill, and after three 
 days' illness, bravely borne, the little child passed away. 
 Who knows whether it was not to "hold her father's hand," 
 as she had said. Is not " Love, that root of faith, and 
 unity of all the virtues," as John Wilhelm phrased it, also 
 the unity of all true lives ?
 
 PART I. 
 TRAVEL JOURNALS.
 
 DIARY OF A VISIT TO PALESTINE AND 
 
 THE EAST. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 The journey East, by way of Rome and Pompeii, as 
 stated by his companion in Syria, Lawrence Richardson, 
 was partly undertaken in order that John Wilhelm Rowntree 
 might see Egypt and Palestine, and so qualify himself better 
 for his Adult School work, before his threatened loss of eye- 
 sight should become a reality. The journey took place in 
 March, April and May, of 1895. Dr. Bedford Pierce and 
 Gilbert Richardson were with him in the earlier half of the 
 tour. The traveller brought back with him 116 pill boxes 
 of shells from the shores of the Lake of Galilee, for the mem- 
 bers of his class, and a mummy ! The local references to 
 York and Scarborough show that the writer had no thought 
 of any general publication present to his mind.
 
 DIARY OF A VISIT TO PALESTINE 
 AND THE EAST. 
 
 THE PYRAMIDS. 
 
 [After some days of illness in bed at Cairo, the journal 
 begins.] 
 
 Sunday. I rose from my couch, and determined to have 
 done with care. The morning drive down the long avenue 
 of acacias to the Pyramids was a pleasant change to counting 
 flies on the ceiling. Well, and what about the Pyramids ? 
 I didn't feel physically strong enough to more than climbing 
 half-way up the Great Pyramid, and having a good peep into 
 his dark inside, though I did "do," in the proper sense, the 
 immediate environs. But though I didn't do all the ortho- 
 dox things, I had a day under the shadow of the giants, and 
 believe I have formed as good an opinion of them as the 
 average man who hops up and down again and rushes off. 
 
 The Pyramids are undoubtedly " interesting," and though 
 probably the most " done " things in the world, they will 
 still continue to be unique. Utterly different to the ruins 
 we saw at Luxor and Abydos and elsewhere, they have none 
 of the interest in detail which is supplied by bas-reliefs and 
 coloured frescoes. And, I say it deliberately, their size 
 disappoints you. There is not the impression of height given, 
 for instance, by Cologne, when you look straight up the 
 towers from the street, nor even the impression given by 
 Antwerp. You can't get a straight line, and the sloping 
 lines only carry you up 450ft. But for all that they are the 
 most impressive human buildings I have ever seen. When
 
 6 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 you are being dragged up the weather-worn rough steps, 
 you cannot get rid of the idea that you are chmbing a rocky 
 hill, and when close to, the size of the blocks, the enormous 
 masses of masonry beetling in ruddy crags about you, appal 
 utterly, when one remembers that human sinews dragged 
 all this heap together. The base is longer than the length of 
 York Minster by over looft., and our central tower wouldn't 
 reach half-way to the apex ; and the trouble of it all is that 
 this mass is practically solid. Recent clearings at the base 
 have revealed some of the casing stone of the great Pyramid 
 intact. You can't get a knife between the joints. When 
 these Pyramids were finished and polished, how they must 
 have glittered in the sun ! The inner work, of which I had 
 a good glimpse, is much rougher — as much as two inches of 
 mortar filling some of the joints — still, try and imagine the 
 labour, and under an Egyptian sun ! One feels most com- 
 fortable when the human agency is forgotten. Otherwise 
 the very stones cry out, and one hears the whistle of the 
 rhinocerous hide — remember the horrors of even the modern 
 corvee. How many beside Cheops and Khufur lay buried 
 there when all was done ? The Sphinx on the side of the Great 
 Pyramid furthest from Cairo is ruinous beyond one's ex- 
 pectations, but it is nevertheless remarkable and suggestive. 
 Its face is shattered, and has suffered on account of Tommy 
 Atkins I fear, but still it is the Sphinx par excellence, though 
 I have seen many other Sphinxes on the Upper Nile. I was 
 most surprised to find how much it is built up. The outer 
 casing of the two fore-paws has disappeared, and reveal the 
 fact that they were " stuffed " so to speak, with masonry 
 laid in regular courses. Close to, the temple of the Sphinx 
 — probably a Memnonium — discloses, after centuries of burial 
 in the shifting sand of the desert, slabs of granite of enormous 
 size, that look as if they had been dressed yesterday. Some 
 are sixteen feet long, and deep in proportion, and curiously 
 enough the joints are never in the angles as one would 
 suppose.
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 7 
 
 Wednesday, April 24th. — After further penance in bed — 
 a punishment for too hastily assuming myself to be conval- 
 escent, — ^we left Cairo, and crossed the fertile land of Goshen 
 by train, coming once more to Ismailya. But instead of 
 taking steamer here, we took the Suez railway along the 
 canal banks, with the desert rolling away on the left, and 
 appearing beyond the deep blue of the canal on the right. 
 We saw some large steamers passing through before darkness 
 closed in, and on reaching Port Said we drove straight to the 
 steamer — an Austrian Lloyd, neither large nor comfortable. 
 There was somewhat of a sea, and we wriggled and squirmed 
 our corkscrew way to Jaffa through all the livelong night. 
 
 JAFFA. 
 
 There is no harbour at Jaffa, and when we came on deck 
 we were quite at a loss to know where we were to land. There 
 was the coast, — the houses of Jaffa, yellow in the sun, with 
 white plastered domes, seemed piled up one above the other 
 as if scrambling out of reach of the surf which came in 
 white and angry. The sea was grey and swelling in momentary 
 mountains, that broke into foam, and rushed past us with 
 a grand sweep. The wretched steamer was kicking and 
 plunging like an impatient horse pawing to be off. Two 
 other steamers were moored in the roads close to, and as they 
 pitched and rolled, we could guess how unsteady our own 
 boat was. I was wondering how we were going to get into 
 the boats that were closing in on us with their lusty shouting 
 crews, when one of the sailors, calling out " Ladies first," 
 began passing us down the landing steps at the side of the 
 steamer. All I remember was, that I was told to sit down 
 on the bottom step. Below me, far out of reach, was the 
 boat in a hollow of the surges — another instant, a wave 
 lifted the boat to my very feet — strong arms picked me off 
 the ladder, and the boat sank into the next hollow only to 
 rise again. So we loaded up, and then pulled for the shore. 
 At least, what is called the shore. In front were jagged black
 
 8 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 rocks, and a sheet of foam with roaring angry surf. On we 
 swept. I took off my Kodak in my childish innocence — 
 (which I had slung over my shoulders), prepared to swim for it. 
 But of course the crew had done the same thing hundreds of 
 times and in rougher weather. We shot through the reef 
 with what seemed only a foot to spare. One minute boiling 
 foam, and the next smooth water and a quiet pull to the 
 landing. 
 
 Joppa was deUghtfully sea-blown and breezy, though 
 it can be terribly hot when there is no wind off the sea. It 
 was not strange to us. The only difference between Syrian 
 OrientaUsm and Egyptian which I at once noticed, was the 
 greater prevalence of red in the dresses, and the lesser pre- 
 valence of the blues and blacks so almost universal in Egypt. 
 The houses are as dilapidated, there are more domes visible — 
 almost all the more important private houses seem to have 
 domed roofs, — and there is more green. The orange groves, 
 which were in blossom and heavy with scent, were delightful, 
 and the vine comes largely into view. Take the old part of 
 Scarborough, and orientalise it according to my bazaar 
 recipe, turn on a brilliant light and put domes on the houses, 
 remove the castle-hill and lower the coast-line, and you have 
 a very tolerable Jaffa indeed. 
 
 The customs' examination never came off. Cooks 
 have made an arrangement with the customs in Jaffa, and all 
 Cooks' tourists are passed unchallenged : who does not bow 
 down and worship the mighty Cook ? I left my watch in 
 the customs steamer. Reported it to Cooks, and they secured 
 it at Beirut, sent it to Jerusalem, and now it is in my pocket. 
 I arrange for dragoman, etc., and all details from Jaffa to 
 Beirut at the Cairo office. At Jaffa my dragoman meets 
 me. He knows everything, all is arranged. I have no trouble ; 
 I have a meal at the hotel at Jaffa, to which I am driven from 
 the steamer, and I take my seat in a first-class carriage in the 
 train to Jerusalem without paying a cent, or troubling about 
 my luggage, or taking a ticket. The dragoman simply asks
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 9 
 
 what you have, you show him your luggage, and from that 
 time he sees to it, sees it to the train and from the train to your 
 bedroom, pays all the tips and all the fares, and you have the 
 blissful assurance meanwhile that all is paid for by you in 
 advance, and that when you reach Beirut you will have spent 
 just that sum you paid down at Cairo, and no more. When 
 you are recovering from an unpleasant passage, this freedom 
 from worry is particularly delightful. We happen to be 
 exceedingly fortunate in our dragoman. He is the drago- 
 man who took George Adam Smith round Palestine, when he 
 was writing his new " Historical Geography of Palestine." 
 He is by far the most intelligent man we have yet had — 
 very gentlemanly and very considerate, and judging by what 
 we have so far seen, able and complete. He was very pleased 
 when I told him that I had Smith's book with me, and told 
 me of certain incidents recorded therein for which he is 
 responsible. This will materially add to the interest of our 
 ride north. His name is Harma — John Harma — but I 
 shall refer to him in future by his family name. 
 
 At the Jaffa station I noticed what had escaped me 
 before, the sheepskin caps and cloaks of the peasants. There 
 was evidence in most of the costumes of greater cold than the 
 people of the Nile Delta seem to expect, and we soon felt it 
 ourselves very keenly. The season has been unusually late 
 here, and we ought to be getting it hotter, but so far we have 
 found Jerusalem remarkably like a high Swiss resort. Keen 
 dry air, mountain and sea, a delightfully bracing mixture, 
 with a hot sun. Well, I don't quite know how to describe all 
 I have seen here, or how to give you a correct impression of 
 things. I have been correcting previous ideas ever since I 
 landed. First of all, unless you have seen for yourselves, it is 
 difficult to realise how entirely the Israelites were a mountain 
 people. 
 
 Let us say that Scarborough, altered as I have told you 
 to alter it, and with all its modern parts destroyed, is Joppa. 
 First, the train traverses a fertile plain (wheat, oranges,
 
 10 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 pomegranates, and other cereal and vegetable products^ 
 analagous to the journey to Malton. All the time we are 
 approaching a range of hills — high hills, irregular, like a chain 
 of potato-heaps, green, streaked with white limestone vhere 
 the rock crops through the grass. Soon you find yourself 
 among the hills, winding into the heart of them up broad 
 valleys. This may be called the Castle Howard and Kirkham 
 Abbey stage of the journey. But now at what ought to be 
 Barton Hill we are faced by the real hiUs of Judea. It is 
 as if Levisham were to replace Barton Hill, and the train was 
 there to begin its first serious ascent. (Make the crack to 
 Goathland nan^ower and finer, more rocky and precipitous). 
 Finally where the Scarborough train reaches York, your 
 Joppa train has reached a plateau 2,000-3,000 feet above the 
 sea, and a walled and ancient city half the size of York. 
 The distance from Joppa to Jerusalem by rail is just about that 
 from Scarborough to York. It was a very curious sensation, 
 taking train to this old capital of the Jews. I think uncon- 
 sciously I had shared the feelings of the servant who, when 
 asked what Jerusalem was, replied " something religious." 
 It really is a shock to find the place is real, and a thing of 
 matter of fact to its inhabitants. 
 
 The only two places of any importance that you pass 
 through are Lydda and Ramleh, — Lydda, once a Ben j amine 
 city, lies right out on the maritime plain, and was occupied 
 by the Crusaders. Here the legend of St. George and the 
 dragon had its birth, and the plain is like a great Clifton 
 Ings, only there are orange groves and olives. The ground is 
 bright with small, dark scarlet poppies which are exceedingly 
 plentiful, as also the ox-eyed daisy. The greenness of every- 
 thing struck us very much after Egypt ; no wonder the land 
 seemed to flow with milk and honey to the Israelites, after 
 the parching sand of the desert. 
 
 Opposite opens the vale of Ajalon, up and down which 
 the tide of battle between Philistine and Israelite rolled so 
 often, but the line turns south, and we pass up the Wady es
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. ii 
 
 Surar. Above us, on the rock hill-slope, are two cowsheds — 
 that is Beth Shemesh (i Sam. vi. 9.) Here, according to 
 the Book of Samuel, the ark was brought by the five Philistine 
 lords. The wheat was waving in the valley as we passed. 
 I think it was the wheat harvest when the ark came. The 
 ancient Zorah is also visible — a hut or two on the slopes. 
 This is where the story of Samson is located. Down the 
 slopes of this valley, according to the curious Old Testament 
 narrative, the foxes (jackals) were loosed, and the jaw-bone 
 was wielded with such Christian charity. It is aU very 
 peaceful now. We pass groups of merry women who are 
 acting as navvies, picking basket-loads of stones off the 
 fields, and throwing them on the narrow-gauge track of single 
 line as ballast. I say " merry " women, for in Egypt only 
 the little girls are merry, and it is very refreshing to see these 
 brighter faces again. 
 
 Leaving Beth Shemesh behind us, we enter the gorge 
 through which and up which we win our tortuous way to 
 the more open valley on the plateau. Here we see the vine 
 cultivated, where possible, — the terraced limestone lending 
 itself to the culture, — but there are few trees, and in spite of 
 the pleasant greenness from Jaffa to Jerusalem, we saw no 
 running water. In Switzerland the gorge would have 
 re-echoed the roar of a mountain torrent. You miss the 
 sound of it, and can believe when you are told that in less 
 than a month from now, the smiling plain and green valleys 
 will be burnt up and brown as the desert almost. It is the 
 winter and latter rain that has made the wilderness to blossom 
 like the rose, and the fierce Syrian sun will soon re-assert 
 himself. In the meantime we were suffering from the cold 
 keen air, that blew up the mountains from the sea — rugs, 
 great-coats, kuffiyehs, comforters, availed not to keep us warm. 
 
 JERUSALEM. 
 
 The arrival at Jerusalem and the prospect of tea at the 
 hotel was by no means unwelcome, therefore, when at last
 
 12 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 we stopped at what seemed a south Italian town. The entry 
 to Jerusalem is not striking by rail. You come in by the 
 Yafa suburb, red roofs, Italian villas — Latin monks and 
 priests in shovel hats, — Europe in Asia. But when you pass 
 through the Yafa gate you know that you are back in the 
 East again, there is the same unmistakable dilapidation 
 and dirt. But please mark one great difference, here, and 
 in the villages. Good stone is used in place of the mudbricks 
 of Egypt, and he who has seen the latter will appreciate the 
 change. Our hotel here, the Grand New Hotel, would seem 
 very modest indeed in Cairo or in the Riviera, but it is comfort- 
 able and very clean. The manager flew into my arms with 
 joy in his countenance at the magic mention of my name. 
 He used to keep the little " Jerusalem " shop on the slope 
 from St. Nicholas Cliff to the Aquarium, just above the 
 (Scarborough) Museum, and he has been most affectionate 
 in consequence. He claims to remember me when I came 
 to dig on the sands. One is at times impressed with the 
 fact that the world is small. 
 
 Our first day, Friday, we drove with Harma our drago- 
 man, to the Mount of Olives. I write this account after 
 four days' sight-seeing, but I don't think there is anything 
 I look back to with such pleasure as the Mount of Olives, even 
 though it has not escaped the fate of everything here, and is 
 disfigured by churches and monasteries. If you wanted 
 to convince anyone sceptical as to Christianity of the truth 
 and beauty of its faith, the last place in the world to bring 
 him to is Jerusalem. Here, if anjrvvhere, Mephistopholes 
 has occasion to laugh in his sleeve ; here, if anywhere, I 
 can fully forgive the scorn and contempt of the Moslem for 
 the wrangling and squabbling sects who profess the Christ. 
 One breathes freer in the Mosque of Omar than in the gaudy 
 Christian churches, and one's prejudices are irresistibly drawn 
 on the side of the Moslem. Of course as regards sites, there 
 is little or no certainty, and an enormous amount of super- 
 stition and tradition.
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 13 
 
 THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 
 But the more one sees the He of the land, and learns the 
 connection of things and to know Jerusalem, the more one 
 feels that there could be no other Mount of Olives. It is 
 so pre-eminent, the view is so much the finest, and the position 
 fits in with the Bible narratives. I think I am inclined to 
 pin my faith to the Mount of Olives. But not, — emphatically 
 not, — to the Garden of Gethsemane. You come to this before 
 you ascend the Mount itself ; an exposed, public situation, 
 and now an artificial walled in arrangement of paths and 
 flowers. You remember the artificial plot of garden behind the 
 Hospitium (York) by the river. Wall that in with a high wall, 
 and you have a good idea of Gethsemane as it is shown. The 
 door into the garden is iron, and only four feet high. You 
 have to bend to get in. That is for fear of the Moslems. 
 The path round the garden is marked off every few feet with 
 a gaudy picture in a shrine. Once in, you are shown where 
 Peter slept, James slept, and John slept, where Judas stood 
 when he kissed Jesus, etcetera — as if some one went round 
 with stakes to mark the different places at the time. Close 
 by is a hideous Russian church. It is a relief to pass on 
 through wheat fields, and past the olive, almond and fig 
 trees which dot the slopes, picking the brilliant poppies as 
 we climb, and turning now and then to look at the extending 
 view. Two other churches spoil the summit, they stand 
 some distance apart, but both mark the exact spot where 
 Christ ascended to heaven. One belongs now to the Moslems 
 and is falling into ruin, the other, loud and vulgar, is Greek. 
 We climbed the Muezzin tower of the Moslem building, and 
 thence a wonderful view. G. Adam Smith in that excellent 
 historical geography speaks of the wall of Moab. But no 
 word-painting can give you an idea of it. It is a most im- 
 pressive barrier, stretching in an unbroken line where visible 
 along the east ; and, looking down over the hummocky high- 
 lands of Judea, in a haze of heat, is the no less wonderful 
 crack of the El Ghor, and the blue glimmer of the Dead Sea
 
 14 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 3,900 feet below us. Palestine shrinks up into a small 
 country when you visit it. In the other direction, forty miles 
 odd carry you to the Levant and Joppa ; seventeen miles 
 down the Jericho road and you are gazing up at the prohibitive 
 barriers of Moab. Judea, with all its history, with all its 
 wonderful influence on the world, is almost identical in area 
 with Northumberland ; so small was the kingdom of the Jews. 
 Read the striking chapter on the character of Judea in 
 Smith, and you will understand what the impression given 
 by the view from the Mount of Olives is. You appreciate the 
 insular character of Judea. You can understand why the 
 great armies of the foreign conquerors so often swept past 
 on the maritime plain, and took no account of the hill tribes. 
 You realise the difficulty of conquering this mountain province. 
 The lowlands are worth having, but who wants to conquer 
 these wild highland Israelite tribes in their stony hills, with 
 nothing but their fanaticism and their sheepskins ? At 
 our feet is the valley of Jehoshaphat (or Kidron) ; opposite and 
 sheltering behind the city walls is Mount Moriah and the 
 Mosque of Omar — the great enclosed space of Haram es Sherif, 
 where the Temple used to stand— one of the few certain sites. 
 Not far off we make out the dome of the church of St. Sepul- 
 chre, and the ruins of the tomb of David (falsely so called), 
 near the Jaffa gate. Jerusalem with its yellows and whites, 
 the domed roofs, the crumbling minarets, the half-ruinous 
 walls, lies at our feet, and beyond is the chain of the rolling 
 hills, brown and green and smiling in the sun. It is a picture 
 not soon forgotten — even apart from its history, a sight worth 
 seeing, and a view to be remembered. But I cannot give you 
 all the details, the few huts visible of Bethany, the green 
 streak which marks the Jordan, the crack of the River 
 Arnon, the hills which hide Bethlehem, you must take your 
 own brush, and colour in the details from your imagination. 
 
 After lunch we picked our way through the dirty 
 and crowded bazaars. A few tortuous byways, down steps 
 and between walls and over heaps of rubbish (a common
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 
 
 15 
 
 feature), and finally we found ourselves in a long lane, bounded 
 on one side by a rough wall of average height, and on the 
 other by a high massive wall of great stones. Standing in 
 a row, close to it, with their faces in many cases pressed against 
 the stone, were from one to two hundred men and women, 
 the men at one end, the women at another. One perpetual 
 wail, dismal in the extreme, filled the lane with melancholy 
 sound. They were Jews of all nationalities, — Russian, 
 Polish, Spanish, etc. — and this curious scene is repeated at 
 four o'clock every afternoon. Many were reading from the 
 Talmud and the Book of Jeremiah. I saw no very poignant 
 grief ; many of the women looked round from time to time 
 and laughed at us, and gossip was not altogether tabooed 
 among them. But women are always women, and gossip 
 is the air they breathe ! The men were more solemn. But 
 I could believe what I was told — namely that this curious 
 practice is dying out. They have wailed so long in vain, 
 poor things, that one can readily imagine they are losing faith. 
 However, I am glad they have just let me be a spectator, for 
 the sight is most curious. It is not at all poetical or suggestive. 
 A frowsier, sorrier crew I never saw ; a crowd of Irish tramps 
 might well have taken their place, and the change escape 
 detection ; bat their very prosaic character adds to the 
 incongruity of the scene. Again my ideas have undergone 
 correction, and I have had another disillusionment. 
 
 Well, after this, we picked our way over more heaps of 
 rubbish, and between great forbidding hedges of prickly pear — 
 very un-English indeed — down into the T5n:opoean, a valley 
 which runs into the vale of Hinnom, and across which Solomon 
 built a conduit for water. A few shattered stones, and an 
 arch called Rabinsai's arch, are all we can see of it however, 
 and we are soon climbing, still over rubbish, up Mount Zion. 
 Let the pious pilgrim restrain his rapture for this sacred 
 mount ; if he can forget the smells, the only inspiration he 
 will get is the view from the wall at the top. This is limited 
 after the Mount of Olives. At one's feet, hidden by the
 
 i6 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 dirty and disreputable village of Siloam, lies the historic 
 pool, I believe an undoubted site — unlike the pool of Bethesda, 
 whose site is merely traditional. The most ancient Hebrew 
 inscription yet discovered has been found in an old tunnel 
 of clumsy workmanship here, though, unfortunately, it has 
 gone to a museum at Constantinople. At present, excavations 
 are on foot, and remains have been found of part of the old 
 city wall, which here extended further afield than the modern. 
 These are now being traced, and may lead to interesting, 
 discoveries. Harma now took us to see the Ccenaculum, 
 and we went as meekly as if we had been told to go by our 
 nurse. You feel very insignificant and powerless in the hands 
 of a dragoman. Here, on no authority, David is said to be 
 buried, and you see a wooden sarcophagus through a grating ; 
 also the Last Supper is said to have taken place here, like- 
 wise on worthless authority ; and finally, this not apparently 
 being enough under one roof, the Holy Ghost descended 
 here on the assembled apostles. We listen apathetically 
 to these statements, which our guide believes to be true, 
 and notice with more interest that the building is Norman, 
 and finished in Arabic style. Here are Norman arches, and 
 round three windows the dog-tooth ornament. This building 
 dates from Crusading times, and has been converted to a 
 Mosque by the Arabs. The mixture of styles made the visit 
 worth while, unexpectedly so, I may say. 
 
 Thence we found our way, still meek, to the House of 
 Caiaphas, or, more strictly speaking, an Armenian monastery. 
 Here is the prison of Christ. At least so the Armenians say, 
 the Greeks have another prison of Christ, and deny this one. 
 It is a hole in the wall, as big as a cupboard, beautifully tiled 
 with blue and white tiles, a redeeming feature ; redolent with 
 incense, and hung with lamps. The church of the prison is 
 as gaudy, over- decorated and as heavy with incense as the 
 other churches. All these churches are built in a debased 
 Byzantine style ; unlovely, and look like bauble shops. 
 At times there is evidence of much wealth. We saw doors
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 17 
 
 of tortoiseshell in St. James, inlaid with mother of pearl, 
 and silver. Jerusalem lives on the piety and credulity of 
 the pilgrims, and has indeed no trade but religion, — no doubt 
 to many here a profitable one. It is difQcult not to let one's 
 indignation get the better of one, or to feel that " if Christ 
 came to Jerusalem," His first act would be similar to the 
 expulsion of the money changers. 
 
 THE TEMPLE AREA. 
 
 Saturday, April 2'jth. — ^The morning was well spent. 
 It was a relief to be among Mohammedans again, and I 
 must say I am glad the Temple grounds are in their hands. 
 We went straight to the Haram es Sherif, the great enclosed 
 area where the Temple once stood, and where now is the beau- 
 tiful Mosque of Omar. We had to have an escort of two 
 soldiers, and a permit from the British Consul, and felt quite 
 important. We entered by the ruinous gate called the Suk el 
 Kattanin, or the Cotton gate — a long dilapidated tunnel — it 
 was really nothing more, and emerged in a great open space. 
 Along the walls run the hostelries for the Moslem Pilgrims, to 
 whom this place is very sacred, the most sacred place after 
 Mecca ; for Mohammed ascended hence on his winged steed, 
 to heaven. We pick our way through various Mostabas, 
 raised places where the Moslems pray in the open air, and then 
 ascend a broad flight of shallow steps, and, passing under a 
 ruined arcade with graceful pillars, we find ourselves on the 
 highest plateau — on which the Mosque itself, the Dome of 
 the Rock, stands. Here no doubt was the Temple, and the 
 Mosque may very possibly cover the site of the Holy of Holies. 
 
 The Kubbet es Silsileh, an open pavilion with two con- 
 centric rows of pillars (Byzantine), beautiful mosaic floor, and 
 a dome, attracts attention before we enter the Mosque. 
 The mosaic work is exceedingly fine, and in harmony with 
 the Mosque itself. This world-famous building is, in its 
 particular way, the most beautiful I have ever seen. The 
 exterior decoration is wonderfully intricate, and here and there
 
 i8 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 the design is extremely beautiful. Blue and white predomin- 
 ate, especially the former, and a good deal of yellow comes into 
 the composition also. As one would expect, the designs are 
 entirely geometrical, and to be properly enjoyed require to 
 be seen at a moderate distance. A long way off the Mosque 
 looks ordinary and has a bluish grey tone. Each tile is separ- 
 ately burnt with a separate design ; many are Persian, and 
 some of the richest effects are produced by blocks of coloured 
 glass set in cement. With the strong sunUght upon it the 
 effect is wonderful. A circular gallery runs round the central 
 space, the rounded roof being supported by polished marble 
 pillars with gilded capitals, and the floor paved in marble 
 mosaic. The roof of this gallery and the interior of the dome 
 are the most exquisite examples of mural decoration I have 
 ever seen. The general tone of colour reminds me as much 
 as anything of Burne Jones' "Briar Rose"; green, red and 
 gold are the chief colours used, and the whole effect utterly 
 surpasses any power of description. I am naturally preju- 
 diced against polished pillars and gilded capitals, but I 
 would not alter anything in this Mosque ; the tout ensemble 
 is such that you are content to have it as it is. I don't expect 
 to see anything finer in its way than this. Round the centre 
 space runs a fine wrought iron screen dating from the Crusaders' 
 time, and in the centre lies a naked rock. This may have been 
 the rock of sacrifice ; it has a cistern underneath, and channels 
 for carrying away water or blood, but it is by no means clear 
 that it is so. The Moslems claim that it is the centre of the 
 world, that God will sit on it on the Judgment day ; that it 
 is poised on air, and though apparently resting on a wall below, 
 is not really resting upon it, only pretending to. Perhaps 
 it does to take breath at times. Mohammed sprang from this 
 rock to go to heaven ; you are shown where his head broke 
 through the roof, so it must be true ; and the rock was so 
 anxious to follow that the angel Gabriel had to come and hold 
 it down. You can see his finger-marks, so that must be true 
 also. Not far off in the floor is a block of green jasper.
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 19 
 
 Mohammed drove nineteen nails of gold into this. A nail was 
 to fall out at the end of every epoch, and when all had dis- 
 appeared, the end of the world would come. The devil 
 pulled out all but three and a half ; but the angel Gabriel 
 caught him at it, and drove him away. Very fortunate, for 
 three and a half seems a poor number. However, they have 
 lasted so long that one may take comfort. 
 
 Passing an ancient pool, we walked across the open 
 plateau to the Mosque El Aksa, much simpler and less pre- 
 tentious. It is not without interest, the pulpit is a wonderful 
 specimen of Arabesque carving at its best, dating from Nured- 
 din's time, 1168 a.d., and one of the transepts is an excellent 
 specimen of the work of the Crusaders, the roof being groined 
 and vaulted. The Mosque is indeed a Christian church of 
 Justinian (to the Virgin) transformed. Below are extensive 
 vaults called Solomon's stables, but probably no earlier than 
 the time of the Crusaders, the mangers and bridle rings 
 for the horses being of that period. A walk round the walls 
 gave us a good view, over the Vale of Jehoshaphat to the 
 Mount of Olives, and to Mount Scopus on the North. The 
 rolling hills are very refreshing after Egypt, and after much 
 sight-seeing. At one point in the wall is a pillar projecting 
 at right angles. Here Mohammed will sit astride, and Christ 
 on the Mount of Olives ; the resurrection will take place in 
 the Vale of Jehoshaphat, and all will be made to walk across 
 the valley on a hair of the prophet. Those who fall will go 
 to hell. These are crude and foolish legends, but unfortunately 
 the Christians have a stock which outnumber, if they do not 
 rival, the Moslems. We met Miss K., of York, at the 
 Deaconesses' Home in the evening, and she told us at supper 
 that numbers of English and Americans came to live at 
 Jerusalem, so as to be there if the end of the world came. 
 A queer old lady has just died, who used to go up the Mount 
 of Olives every day with a tea-making apparatus. She 
 wanted to be able to offer Jesus a cup of tea when He 
 came !
 
 20 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 "THE HOLY SEPULCHRE." 
 I think the afternoon of Friday is the most remarkable 
 we have spent since I left England. I visited the Church of 
 the Holy Sepulchre, and here seem to be concentrated the 
 superstitions and follies of all Christendom. The place 
 reminds me as much as anything of the Alhambra Music 
 Hall in London, with its gilt and its coloured lamps, and its 
 luxurious but tawdry magnificence. So bitter are the feuds 
 between the different churches of Christ, that Mohammedan 
 officials have charge of the building, and the first comment 
 you have on the faith of Christianity is in the Mohammedan 
 guard at the door. I wish I could describe the scene to you. 
 It baffles all one's powers, however. The largest clear space 
 (there is no shape or symmetry, so the ordinary terms nave, 
 transepts, etc., are impossible ; the church is nothing but 
 a congeries of chapels) is called the Rotunda, and here the 
 Chapel of the Sepulchre itself stands. It looks like a large 
 shrine, and is covered with pictures, candles, lamps and what 
 not. It glitters like a fairy fountain, or a fairy grotto rather. 
 You stoop to enter, and find yourself in what is called the 
 Angel's Chapel (where the angel sat), a few feet square, heavy 
 with incense, and loaded with ornament. You stoop again 
 and find yourself by a gaudy altar with barely room to turn 
 round. This is the actual sepulchre, and repeats the'Angel's 
 Chapel, only more so. All the time there is a stream of people 
 of all nationalities in and out, kissing the pictures, crossing 
 themselves, and bowing with the utmost piety. As we came 
 out, we saw an interesting sight. Opposite the entrance to the 
 so-called Sepulchre is the Greek chapel (every chapel must 
 have a raison d'etre, and though all are under one roof, this 
 covers the garden of Joseph of Arimathea and a round hole 
 and ball in the floor mark the centre of the world ! ! The 
 second centre I have seen in one day). Service was going 
 on here, and the singing was suddenly drowned by a loud 
 strident chant. An Armenian procession with the Armenian 
 patriarch was entering the Rotunda. Gorgeous jewelled robes,
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 2i 
 
 blackhooded monks, and gaily dressed acolytes, candles and 
 incense. On they came. Armenians and Greeks have been 
 fighting at the Easter service, so there is a bitter feeling just 
 now. Two Greek priests rushed out, and hustled their flock 
 out of reach of contamination. You could see the fight in 
 their eyes, and the pleasure with which the Armenians formed 
 up at the very door of the Greek Shrine, in order to enter one 
 by one the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre itself. This over, 
 they made the tour of the Rotunda, headed by two Mo- 
 hammedans armed with sticks to prevent the Christians 
 from fighting, a gorgeous spectacle, but scarcely an inspiring 
 one. I can fancy " the man with the leather breeches " in 
 the midst of all this ! 
 
 We naturally came home with our heads in a whirl, and 
 sick with incense, and weary of candles and coloured lamps. 
 What wonder the Moslems look down on us with contempt. 
 There is much irony in the fact that it is Jerusalem that is 
 the scene of this exhibition of weakness and folly, and still 
 more in the fact that the centre of bitterest feud is certainly 
 not the right site. These churches are spending their in- 
 cense and pictures over an unknown site, and a fraudulent 
 tomb. 
 
 Sunday, April 28th. — We walked down into the valley 
 of Kidron or Jehoshaphat, and examined what is called Solo- 
 mon's quarry. This again is a fictitious name, the date and 
 origin of the quarry are unknown. It extends for two or 
 three hundred feet under Jerusalem, and is interesting because 
 it is possible that the stone for the Temple was hewn here. 
 You see great blocks half-dressed and left lying, niches in 
 the walls for lights, and so forth. Opposite is one of the sug- 
 gested sites for Calvary — much more to my mind than any 
 other I have seen. It is a low eminence overlooking the 
 road, and with caves in its rocky face. But of course it is 
 the merest surmise, and I don't quite see how the real site 
 can be found. Neither do I see why it matters, or what good
 
 22 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 would be done if it was found. The flame of superstition 
 would have added fuel to feed it, that is all ; and a great 
 deal of sentimental writing would be produced by as many 
 future Cooks' tourists. I prefer the present doubt. 
 
 Not far from the Cotton Grotto, as the quarry is also 
 called, are the Tombs of the Kings. Here again, we have no 
 authority for the name, and may be pretty certain they were 
 not the tombs of Jewish kings, but of wealthy citizens. 
 We visited one which may have been just Uke Joseph of 
 Arimathea's. A low square-cut opening in the cliff face to 
 which you descend a few steps, closed by a rolling stone which 
 revolves in a channel specially prepared — a square chamber 
 cut in the rock about eight feet high, and a small aperture in 
 the wall of this chamber for the body. No hieroglyphs, 
 no decoration, none of the elaborate ornamentation of the 
 Theban necropolis. The rolUng stone was very interesting. 
 Wherever the sepulchre was, the stone was probably worked 
 in the same way to close just such an entrance four feet high. 
 
 The entrance to what may be taken as a necropolis of 
 the wealthy Jews is by a broad flight of steps leading down 
 into the hollow (like a quarry) where the rock tombs were 
 cut. At the foot of these steps are two excellent cisterns, 
 where the bodies were washed before burial ; a much simpler 
 arrangement than the elaborate embalming of the Egyptians. 
 
 Equally sceptical were we at the convent which contains 
 the ruins of the Roman Praetorium, and the site of the judg- 
 ment of Christ. But we enjoyed this visit. We were taken 
 round by a dear old nun, with the face of an angel, and the 
 grace and manners of a high-born lady. There was an 
 indescribable flavour of sweet cloister piety about everything, 
 and everything was beautifully fresh and clean. We felt 
 as if in a Friends' Meeting-house in the neat, simple room. 
 Undoubtedly there is a ruined arch over the altar in the 
 convent church, and here, of course, Pilate stood when he 
 gave judgment. But the dear old lady believed it, and we 
 enjoyed the sweet patter of the nuns at the Litany the while.
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 23 
 
 We were taken down into the vaults, through an infinity of 
 doors, all carefully locked after us, and locked behind us again 
 as we returned, to be shown the beginning of the Via Dolorosa. 
 In acknowledgment of the good lady's courtesy I was fain to 
 buy a small silver cross for my wife out of the stock of little 
 trinkets made in the convent, and we passed out distinctly 
 refreshed and very good friends. The Via Dolorosa is a 
 series of dirty lanes with all sorts of superstitions attached 
 to it. 
 
 BETHLEHEM. 
 
 It was a reHef in the afternoon to drive to Bethlehem, 
 over a high, breezy plateau, with the hills of Moab ever visible — 
 an unbroken barrier line, and the rolUng uplands of Judea 
 when we looked towards Hebron. You pass a Moslem Sheikh's 
 tomb, with its dome, and are informed that this is the tomb of 
 Rachel, and after an hour's drive, through fields of wheat and 
 past olives, figs and terebinth and carob trees, the considerable 
 town of Bethlehem comes into sight. There are 8,000 
 inhabitants in this flourishing place, where I had expected a 
 little village. We drove three horses abreast at a furious 
 pace, hearts in our mouths, through the narrow streets, 
 and pulled up in front of the chief hotel with much clatter 
 and noise. We went to see only one " sight " here, the so- 
 called Church of the Nativity ; to me it was a repetition of 
 the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The manger is shown 
 you (there is another at Rome I think) and the cave and so 
 forth, all gaudy with the usual decorations. The main nave 
 of the church is refreshingly simple, but that is the one re- 
 deeming feature. The Latins were holding their service, 
 and the organ was pealing as we entered. Greeks and Ar- 
 menians do not have music. Mentioning the Latins reminds 
 me that hereby hangs a tale. The Armenian altar is in such 
 a position, that if the Latins crush to pass in a procession to 
 visit the Holy Manger, they must pass close to the Armenian 
 sanctuary. The Armenians objected, and used to decline
 
 24 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 to make way, and fights ensued. The Turkish governor, 
 growing weary of this, has had to lay a carpet with one 
 corner cut off before the Armenian altar, and order the Ar- 
 menians to keep off it, crossing by the diagonal where the 
 carpet is cut off. This done, a Turkish soldier had to be 
 placed continually on guard there to watch that this rule is 
 kept. 
 
 We sketched the view from Bethlehem after enduring the 
 incense and candles for a while, and walked back in the sunset 
 light. Only then did the full glories of the Holy City appear, 
 as we approached along the broad carriage road from Hebron, 
 the mountains growing violet in shadow to the east, while 
 yet a liquid yellow Hght lit up the city walls. The sense 
 of the past history is choked out in these chapels, but out 
 in the open you breathe freely, and catch something of the 
 inspiration of the place. The Galilean in His rough peasant 
 dress and turban, no doubt, had wandered in the evening 
 over these hills with His rude following of fisher-folk, every 
 whit as humble and obscure as the peasants we met on our 
 way. One realises the extent of the idealism of the devotional 
 pictures of the west; and the help one gets in Palestine in 
 getting a truer picture of things, brings the figure of the Christ 
 nearer to you, and strengthens the human ties. 
 
 Betlilehem is famous now for the extraordinary beauty 
 of its women. Some say this is due to Crusaders' blood, 
 I only know I was much struck with the merry, vivacious 
 manner of the people. The population is nearly all Christian ; 
 the Christians massacred and expelled the Moslems in 1830, 
 and the difference in the Christian treatment of the women 
 may partly account for this. They wear a curious head- 
 dress, white, and quite distinct. 
 
 In Camp, May 8th, '95. 
 Temperature 97° F. in shade. 
 
 Place, El Fuleh, near Shunem, on the Plain of Esdraelon, 
 where the Philistines encamped when Saul was killed.
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 25 
 
 I expect you will smile at the date, remembering when 
 I last wrote, but just you come here and write a diary with the 
 thermometer at 97° F. and a close heat withal ! But the 
 fact is, riding and camping mean next to no opportunity 
 for writing. Moreover the country is so steeped and saturated 
 in history that you spend all your time reading up. We have 
 G. A. Smith's " Historical Geography of Palestine " with us, 
 and are reading it as we go along. It makes a delightful 
 companion, and adds enormously to our understanding of 
 what we see, as well as our understanding of the book 
 itself. 
 
 CAMP LIFE. 
 
 The life in camp is very healthy and really very luxurious. 
 We two Englishmen have no less than eight servants, and 
 eleven four-footed beasts and three tents ! It would be a 
 libel on Cook and Son — the immaculate dispenser of creature 
 comforts — to call this " roughing it." 
 
 It is a picturesque sight to see the camp following sitting 
 round, Eastern fashion, eating out of the common flesh-pot 
 (common in the sense that it is common to aU I mean), the 
 red glow of the charcoal and the faint glimmer of the lamp 
 flickering on the dusky limbs and many-coloured raiment. 
 That is the sentimental hour, when, the heat of the day for- 
 gotten, and the glaring hiUs softened to mysterious violet 
 in the gloom, we stroll, with cigarettes lighted, after the sump- 
 tuous evening meal, up and down outside our temporary 
 " Castle." Then tongues are loosened, and there steals a 
 comfortable sense upon one of being at peace with all the 
 world. We accept our dragoman's invitation, and squatting 
 down Arab fashion among our cooks and muleteers, drink 
 the coffee cup of friendship with them. Then come the 
 jokes at our remissness in rising ; — how often we had to be 
 called, — and the time we take to dress, — and the things we leave 
 in the tent, — or we praise our cook's soup and his excellent 
 rice pudding and his vegetables and chicken ; and after more
 
 26 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 amicable converse, and tales of former adventures with other 
 parties from the valiant John, we turn in under the brilliant 
 stars and the waxing moon to sleep the sleep of the just. 
 Breakfast, when at last the patient waiter, after much calling, 
 has got us safely seated at the table, is a royal repast. A plate 
 of bread and milk, first-rate tea, bread, Danish butter, English 
 marmalade, Jaffa honey tasting of the orange groves, potted 
 meat, eggs, — and, — I ought to mention the one drawback, — 
 innumerable flies. 
 
 Lunch is without our tents, and usually contrived so 
 as to be timely by some bubbling spring or under the grateful 
 shade of fig or olive. We recline on a carpet spread for us, 
 and what Nabob could turn up his nose at the lemon and soda, 
 the sardines, the cold chicken and salad, the dates and figs, 
 and the little cup of inevitable coffee, heated on the ex- 
 temporized furnace while we eat and doze ; — John, the drago- 
 man, in his long blue-embroidered cloak, his pistol in his belt, 
 sits gravely on another carpet, smoking his nargileh, which 
 the groom prepares with due reverence as for a lord. Our 
 horses champ and whisk away the pestilential flies, nose 
 in grass, or gulping grateful draughts from the battered tin 
 which serves as their trough. And when towards the close 
 of a hot and thirsty ride we see our tents gleam white before 
 us, by some magic transported from our last resting place — 
 there is a cry of " To your tents, O Israel," for we know that 
 fragrant tea and English biscuits are waiting, set out with 
 civilised propriety on snowy table-cloth. And dinner, 
 illuminated by candles, is a sumptuous finish to the day's 
 regal repasts. We have a kind of feeling that we are not 
 performing a feat quite so heroic as across Darkest Africa ! 
 
 In Camp, Mansurah. On the slopes of Mount Carmel, 
 overlooking Esdraelon, Nazareth visible. May 9th. Delicious 
 cool sea breeze, 70° F. in tent. 
 
 Here goes for a dry and an uninteresting itinerary — 
 jottings from my pocket-book, little else — with no season- 
 ing of " Fine writing ! "
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 37 
 
 THE DEAD SEA. 
 Tuesday, April ^oth. — Manetho, Strabo, and the newly- 
 arrived L. R., who shall henceforth figure as the Philosopher 
 with a big P., left Jerusalem on horseback at 2 p.m. Wind 
 high from the sea, but a hot sun. We were soon zigzagging 
 down the rocky path into the Vale of Hinnom (the horses are 
 wonderfully sure-footed) and over steep grass-slopes. In 
 this vale children used to be offered as sacrifices to Moloch, 
 whence the place became known to the Jews as Gehenna, or 
 Vale of Fire, and this I suppose has given rise to further cos- 
 mological developments much enlarged on by some, Milton 
 for example. I understand, however, that allusions to this 
 division of the cosmogony are falling into disrepute nowadays. 
 We pass under frequent olives, by fields of wheat ripening, 
 and when I say fields, of course I don't mean hedged-in 
 enclosures, but open patches. Few peasants were in evidence, 
 one wondered where the reapers were to come from, we passed 
 not a single village. Rounding a hill-slope into the valley 
 of Kidron, lo ! and behold, an armed Bedouin, sitting silent 
 with gown and curved scimitar, on a beautiful glossy black 
 Arab horse. This is our escort, without which we may not 
 travel in this part of the country. Our ride is in the main a 
 descent. Bit by bit the scenery grows wilder, and all vegeta- 
 tion vanishes. First of all, goats and sheep and a few smiling 
 vales of corn, the lower fields ripe for harvest ; but after a 
 while no life of any kind, except a stray marbled white butter- 
 fly, and a dusty black beetle hurrying out of our path, or a 
 gruesome, repellent centipede. The rounded hills become 
 more and more rocky ; we have entered the Judean desert. 
 The prevaiUng colour of the landscape, from being a doubtful 
 green streaked with white limestone, is now reddish, and as 
 we enter a deep gorge, the rocks glow here and there as if 
 from internal fires. We follow an ascending stony path 
 along one side of the gorge for some way, the chasm at our 
 left deepening and with more precipitous walls. Suddenly 
 rounding a corner we see the Monastery of Marsaba, and the
 
 28 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 tents of our camp flying the Union Jack. The camping 
 ground is a sandy cliff top, walled in by higher cliffs on three 
 sides. In front is the monastery, clinging to the precipitous 
 side of the gorge, and facing a bare desert wall honeycombed 
 with caves. The Monastery, which we visit, is a Greek peni- 
 tentiary for recalcitrant priests — a curious scrambling building 
 in a weird and desolate spot. Here a court, there a block of 
 terraced building — far up above more buildings, tunnellings, 
 staircases and towers — you could invent a weird ghost story, 
 or a fanciful fairy tale, or commit suicide with equal propriety 
 here. With its flying buttresses and higgledy piggledy 
 arrangement, it all looks as if stuck on to the cliff face by 
 cement. Somewhere about 530 a.d., S. Saba lived here — a 
 pious anchorite (read George Eber's " Homo Sum " if you want 
 to know more of the desert anchorites). He found a lion 
 in the cave he lived in, but each amicably settled which 
 corner they would occupy. So the legend runs, and you are 
 shown the cave. From the grand terrace of the Monastery 
 we looked down into the gorge below, and saw the jackals 
 roaming in search of food ; at night the tent watch kept his 
 rattle going, to scare away hyaenas. Surely a more lonely, 
 unearthly penitentiary nowhere exists. Wind changed in 
 the night to South-East. Sirocco. Temperature rose in tents 
 at night to 84° F. 
 
 Wednesday, May 1st. — Breakfast 6.15 a.m. Off before 
 7 a.m. Wind veers to the North. No sun till noon. Wild 
 ride over rolling and rocky uplands. Here and there the low 
 black tents of the Bedouin — swarthy people. These are the 
 " ravens — black people " of the Old Testament, who fed 
 Elijah. Now and then, down some rocky Wady, covered 
 with detritus and sparsely green here and there, we see the 
 deep blue Dead Sea in a haze of heat thousands of feet below, 
 and beyond, the Wall of Moab. Wind blows cool, but as we 
 descend, the heat comes on gradually. After a pleasant 
 canter— the horses canter beautifully, but can't trot — ^we
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 29 
 
 make a tremendous descent down a rocky torrent bed — 
 dry as a bone. Now and then we have to lead our horses, but 
 they take us nevertheless v/here English horses could never go. 
 Above to the West, on a high hill, we see a white tomb Mosque, 
 which the Mohammedans believe to be the tomb of Moses, 
 and which they visit in pilgrimage once a year from Jerusalem. 
 A great sight, I am told. 
 
 At last we are down on long ridges of sand dunes sloping 
 down to the head of the Dead Sea. Here is a tropical jungle 
 and glorious rushes, towering over our heads with great 
 feathery plumes, but our dragoman tells us we shall get these 
 at L. Huleh, so we pass and spare them. Wherever, as here 
 on these marshy flats, there is fresh water, the shores of the 
 Dead Sea are luxuriantly clothed in sub-tropical verdure, as 
 at Engedi. We were disappointed in not finding the Dead 
 Sea dead enough. Birds do fly across it, and there is no par- 
 ticular curse about it, it is simply a lake in the desert. Still, 
 its immediate shore of pebbles with the withered branches 
 cast up thereon gave some impression of the want of life in 
 its waters. We bathed in the Dead Sea, and could not sink. 
 I got a photograph of the Philosopher floating, feet and head 
 above water, without the slightest effort. The taste is vile, 
 and the smart in a raw place I had, excruciating. More- 
 over, we were all horribly sticky when we dressed, so a bathe 
 therein is more interesting than pleasant. Of course Sodom 
 and Gomorrah are not at the bottom, as even Kinglake seems 
 to suppose in his " Eothen." The lake has been there, only 
 deeper, since Tertiary times. G. A. Smith says that we must 
 look for the site of these towns in the plain to the North, 
 and if the account of their destruction may be taken as 
 historical, the site is desolate enough in all conscience. I 
 was not prepared for this. I had thought that the valley of 
 the Jordan was a tropical jungle, whereas it is a flat sandy 
 desert — at least at the southern end — intersected by verdure 
 only where the Jordan coils its snake-like way along. We 
 noticed as we rode to the Jordan, after lunching on the
 
 30 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Dead Sea shore, how imposing — nay, forbidding — the moun- 
 tains of Judea and Samaria looked ; fully as impenetrable 
 as Moab to the East. No wonder the Israelites were afraid 
 to enter in and possess the Promised Land. 
 
 We ought to have seen Hermon to the North, but were 
 prevented by the heat-haze ; indeed, the heat nearly ren- 
 dered us incapable of noticing anything, and we rejoiced at 
 reaching the green trees and muddy swift stream of the world- 
 famous river. It was really a cool day for the Jordan valley, 
 though it was ioo° F. in the shade. It must be remembered 
 that we were over 1,200 feet below the Mediterranean, and 
 3,900 feet below Jerusalem. These facts require to be borne in 
 mind, if there is to be a due apprehension of the extraordinary 
 nature of this deep crack — the El Ghor. 
 
 The Jordan is amazingly small and ordinary when you 
 come to it ; like the Nidd, for all the world, only swifter and 
 far muddier. We heard a dove cooing — the spot is supposed 
 to be that where Jesus was baptised — the voice of the Turtle 
 was heard in the land. This stream, our first running water 
 since Jerusalem, made us appreciate as never before the 
 allusions to water in the Psalms and elsewhere in the Bible. 
 " Thou shalt lead me beside still waters," "As a hart thirsteth 
 after the water brooks," etc., have a new meaning to the 
 traveller in Palestine. I lazed in a boat, taking to the water 
 to avoid some grubbing pigs on the banks, and utterly failed 
 to realise where I was. Here the pilgrims are baptised to 
 this day — but somehow I only felt as if back on some good 
 old English stream, and my heart yearned for that tight Uttle 
 island. After all there is no place like home. We rode on 
 in the late afternoon to Jericho, across melancholy dry stream 
 beds, paths of straggling vegetation — the henna used to dye 
 the finger-nails is cultivated here — and finally patches of 
 corn, yellow and ripe. New Jericho, an hotel, some Turkish 
 official's private house, some miserable huts," a few palm 
 trees, that is all ! Then a thistle-covered common, donkeys, 
 Bedouin, their black low tents and cattle, dirty and degraded
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 31 
 
 looking people — the women terribly ugly, poor things, a 
 stream, a burst of luxuriant vegetation, cactus hedges con- 
 cealing palms and tropical shrubs and masses of towering 
 red flowers, and we find our tents at the foot of a tumulus 
 concealing old Jericho, and by a good spring. Wind strong, 
 North, and cool. Temperature falls to 72° F. in tent. 
 
 Thursday, May 2nd. — Start 8 a.m. Wind veers to 
 West, cloud driven sky. Gleams of sunshine. Ascent to 
 Jerusalem exceedingly fine. A most impressive ride — low 
 part of the pass guarded by ancient watch-towers, reminds 
 one of the St. Gothard above the Devil's Bridge. Crossing 
 a ridge the scenery is less grand and majestic, but still wild — 
 like Llanberis, say. Good carriage road all the way. We 
 pass another monastery clinging to the cliff wall like Mar 
 Saba — called Mar Yahanna. The brook in the gorge is 
 by some supposed to be the brook Cherith where EHjah was 
 fed by the Bedouin, and the mountain overlooking Old 
 Jericho to be the scene of the Temptation, which is hardly 
 likely. 
 
 We meet flocks of goats and donkeys, troops of armed 
 Bedouin on horseback with long guns, barrels brass bound, 
 and stocks inlaid with mother of pearl ; the round swelling 
 hills become greener, and the breeze distinctly unpleasantly 
 chilly after the hot El Ghor. Veiled Moslem ladies pass in 
 a carriage with armed escort — whither bound ? 
 
 We reach at twelve, after four hours riding, the " Apostles' 
 Well," another merely traditional name. Round this is gath- 
 ered a concourse of Bedanese, donkeys, women, children, 
 horses, and fine dark-looking men, in black and yellow striped 
 cloaks and black kuffiyehs, armed with a short knife and gun. 
 They are of particular interest when one remembers that they 
 give us a picture of what those wandering Hebrew tribes, 
 under their great powerful sheikh Moses must have looked 
 like, when they came as invaders to the land of the Canaanite — 
 a great wave of emigration out of the desert sea away there
 
 32 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 behind Moab — one among many waves, that from time to 
 time have washed up on the eastern shore of Palestine, and 
 peopled its hills and valleys with desert drift. One feels 
 grateful for the realistic picture of the past which such a scene 
 affords. I watched these people giving their beasts the 
 longed-for draught, as we sat at our lunch, and felt that the 
 Old Testament was getting to be real for me bit by bit, though 
 one's western ideas need considerable readjustment at first. 
 And if it is a reality from which much that we call " mira- 
 culous " had to be eliminated, this elimination is not a loss, 
 but an infinite gain. The unbridged gulf that yawns between 
 a past teeming with miraculous interventions, and a prosaic 
 present where miracle is reduced to law, is bridged by a new 
 human interest, as one feels these old Bible people were only 
 human beings after all, and subject to the same unalterable 
 laws of a God, the same yesterday, to-day and for ever. After 
 this well, a steep ascent. We have now been climbing four 
 hours up a fine pass. Surely Jerusalem will be below us 
 over this ridge — No ! There is the Holy City above us still — 
 and there the Mount of Olives on the right — the squalid, 
 wretched hovel of Bethany — all are above us. I know 
 nothing that can more impressively fix the height of Jerusalem 
 above the plain on one's mind than this view upward, after 
 a long climb of hours. We rode in past my Golgotha ; the 
 Philosopher says that in certain lights the caves in its rock 
 face give the appearance of a skull, and that it is seriously 
 supposed that this explains the phrase " the place of the skull." 
 However, be this as it may, the Philosopher immediately after 
 had a bad throw from his horse, from the wounds of which 
 he is only now recovering ; and so back to the New Hotel. 
 
 Friday, May yd. — Manetho left us for England, amid 
 sad farewells from the bereaved remainder. Before the 
 Philosopher and Strabo start North, I just want to put on 
 record the manner of veiling among the Moslem women 
 at Jerusalem. This is peculiarly ghastly in its effect. A
 
 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE, 
 
 Aet. i6. 
 (F)oin a photo by If. Eslo'it, York).
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 33 
 
 thin handkerchief, with a pattern and colour like a bandanna, 
 covers the whole face. You cannot see the face, or a suggestion 
 of a face behind, though the lady can see out. In a white 
 shawl and with their coloured face cloths, these women look 
 like the sheeted dead come to life — or mummies that have 
 strayed far from Giseh. 
 
 TO SAMARIA. 
 
 We started in rain after a cold night (Therm, down to 
 60° F. in the bedroom). Strong wind, North- West. As we 
 climbed the slopes of Scopus, we met a long pilgrimage of 
 Russians straggling over two miJes, some on asses, some on 
 foot, of the peasant class apparently. There were 700 of them, 
 and some of the women seemed very ill with the long march 
 from Nazareth, being supported by their husbands as they 
 rode by on their mules. I suppose these poor people will 
 go the round of the shrines, etc., in Jerusalem, and probably 
 spend many a hard earned penny in useless ceremonies. 
 We had a fine retrospect over Jerusalem, which ought to 
 have been our last, but we got another glimpse in making a 
 detour to Ramallah. The road was very rough — like a dry 
 mountain stream bed; scenery, bare rolling uplands — red 
 soil, very stony ground, not a square foot being without its 
 white limestone detritus ; patches of green corn and occasional 
 olives. Wind continues cold and strong, though the rain was 
 slight, and soon ceased. Stony and abominable, a mere path 
 as the road is, it is one of the great caravan routes from Jeru- 
 salem to Damascus. We met frequent strings of ill-kempt 
 donkeys, with dusky ragged drivers sitting sideways. We 
 pass Tell el Ful, a high hill crowned with the ruins of a Crusa- 
 ders' fort — the most frequent ruins we have seen in Palestine. 
 We deviate from the usual route to the east, climbing a hill 
 crowned by the village of Ramah of Benjamin — a wretched, 
 squalid, dirty group of hovels, with wheat growing on the sod 
 roofs. Here we had a fine view of the village and battlefield 
 of Michmash, and the long line of the Moab hills opposite.
 
 34 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 It is open, rolling hill country, and the eye is struck with the 
 long, sweeping curves of the gradual swelling mounds and 
 hills. The soil gave a decidedly red look to the foreground, 
 indeed this colour is quite a feature in the district. I got 
 a careful sketch of the battle-field before leaving. As we were 
 riding away through the green corn, our muleteer missed a 
 carpet ; we rode back, and John threatened to the assembled 
 villagers that he would send for ten Turkish soldiers, and 
 arrest the whole village. The threat, after much talk and 
 gesticulation, took effect. The house of the thief was re- 
 luctantly pointed out, to which we rode in force. The door 
 was barricaded, and had to be broken open. There was a 
 castigation administered to the recalcitrant owner of the 
 house, and the carpet was then borne out in triumph. 
 
 We lunched in a fig orchard at El Bireh (the ancient 
 Burok) now a fanatical Moslem village, the distinguishing 
 feature of which are the ruins left by the Templars. (We 
 saw some columns in a pigstye at Ramah, dating also from 
 Crusading times). 
 
 A French party of six, travelling North, here passed us, 
 camping by our tents at Bethel. We felt that we had suffi- 
 cient equipage, but these six people had a train of fifty 
 horses and mules — palanquins for wet weather — and were 
 carrying their chickens alive in crates. Here we branched 
 off from the usual route once more — to the West — over a 
 high, ploughed field. Looking back, we saw the hills beyond 
 Jordan — looking forward ten minutes later, lo and behold, 
 the blue Mediterranean. What a small country Palestine is ! 
 
 Our detour to Ramallah proved interesting. The Amer- 
 ican Friends have a mission here, which we visited. It is 
 chiefly for girls, who live partly as boarders — I think twenty- 
 four reside on the premises — the rest in the village.* Ramallah 
 is decidedly cleaner than most of the villages. It has several 
 missions, which seem to be doing their duty socially as well 
 as religiously, and bringing about a better sanitary condition. 
 *The school has since been much enlarged, and now includes boys.
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 35 
 
 I noticed the brighter faces of the women. Christianity 
 stands out very favourably by Mohammedanism in the treat- 
 ment of the gentler sex ; the position of woman, indeed, 
 seems to me one of the greatest blots on Mohammedan 
 civilisation. The girls sang hymns to us in English and 
 Arabic, in a schoolroom filled with European furniture. I 
 only objected to their costume, sober and Quakerly perhaps, 
 but a prim uniform, most incongruous and unsuited when you 
 have the Oriental sense of colour to guide you. Leave the 
 national dress alone, I say.* 
 
 After a pleasant visit and chat, in the cool, white- 
 washed building — so clean and spruce, though simple withal, — 
 we rode down to the head of a green vale of corn, where under 
 a grove of olives our tents were visible. This was Bethel 
 in all probability. At present it is known as Betin, and is 
 a fearfully squalid collection of hovels. I hope the Irish 
 cabins I have so often heard of are no worse than these. 
 There is not much suggestion of the historic interest attaching 
 to the place from Jacob to Josiah. We suppose that the 
 unspeakable Turk must be responsible for much of the present 
 condition of things, coming as their misrule does after the 
 stormy centuries which succeeded Christ. But reading again 
 in the tent the account of the battle of Michmash, we were struck 
 with the simple provincial style of the account. The warriors 
 who mustered against the Philistines must surely have been 
 much like the primitive agriculturists we have been passing. 
 " For there was no smith in Israel," and the ox-goad is fre- 
 quently to be seen in use during the day's ride. The one 
 striking feature of Bethel now is the ruined Crusaders' 
 church. One realises what a grip the Crusaders did get after 
 all on the country, and it is possible to appreciate Smith's 
 remarks on the subject when we see almost every height of 
 strategical importance, almost every site of religious interest, 
 stamped with the impress of their civilisation. In a day or 
 
 * This is so now, the children sitting in meeting look like a garden 
 of flowers. — Ed,
 
 36 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 two, we shall pass over another battlefield (I am writing 
 now at Nazareth), that of Hattin, where, I suppose, this 
 civilisation received its death-blow ; where, as Smith says, 
 " a militant and truculent Christianity, as false as the relics 
 of the True Cross round which it was rallied, met its judicial 
 end." 
 
 Saturday, May 4th. — We were glad to be off. The night 
 had been very cold, Temperature 50° F. in the tent, and a 
 nasty, damp, white mist. On horseback before nine, after 
 some delays. Rode in the cool breeze through fig orchards 
 and over awful roads ; descending after an hour or so into a 
 lonely valley, overhung with crags and green with grass, gay 
 with flowers and shaded by noble olives. Here we pass the 
 usual camping ground of those going North, at what is called 
 the Robbers' Spring — the sky clearing the while and deepening 
 to an intense blue. We are entering the northern kingdom 
 and leaving Judea behind, traversing the debatable ground 
 where the boundary fluctuated North or South of the more 
 natural division from Michmash down Ajalon — according as 
 North or South was strongest. And a change is really coming 
 over the country. Figs and oUves are more numerous than 
 I have seen them since Bethlehem ; the bleak, rolling uplands 
 are giving place to a succession of shallow, flat-bottomed 
 valleys — alps — with more trees and great sheets, rather than 
 the patches we noted in Judea, of waving corn. The whole 
 aspect of the land is more open and smiling, and as we pro- 
 ceed North, continues to open out and become yet more fertile. 
 Bethel seems to mark a distinct stage in our journey, looking 
 back on it. 
 
 As on the ride from Rome to Naples, we notice how the 
 villages are almost always perched on the hill tops — seldom 
 in the plains ; with their flat roofs they are often difficult to 
 distinguish from the limestone ribs, which everywhere peep 
 through the green hillsides. We see yet two more Crusaders' 
 Castles — one of Baldwin, another Casale San Cirles — and
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 37 
 
 then enter the broadest, flattest, upland valley we have yet 
 seen ; like a bit of the Plain of Sharon stranded on the 
 heights. Crossing the well-cultivated fields and picking our 
 way up through a large fig orchard, and then through ripening 
 corn and banks of glorious flowers, morning glory, dahlias 
 and pinks, etc., we find ourselves at an olive tree, large and 
 isolated at the entrance to a shallow wady ; standing alone 
 on the height with ruined masonry under its shadow. Here 
 we spread our carpet and lunch. The spot is now called 
 Seilun ; once it was Shiloh, to which memories of the Ark, 
 of Eli, and Samuel attach themselves. Now there is nothing 
 for the eye to rest upon except open vales of ploughed land 
 and corn — rounded hills of undecided outline. Bees are 
 humming and passing from flower to flower, beetles swarm, 
 flying with heavy clumsy flight across the field, and every- 
 where the nimble lizards pop in and out among the stones. 
 A gentle sea breeze tempers the noonday heat. Shiloh is 
 a very pleasant spot for a picnic and a doze for such of Cooks' 
 tourists as so incline, but its slopes will no more be covered 
 with the black tents of the Bedouin Ben Israel awaiting 
 the allotment of their portions. 
 
 On the hill, down the opening vale, we see Sebim (Sebonah, 
 Judges xxi. 19), and then turning more distinctly northward, 
 we regain the usual route, from which we have made a detour, 
 and in the late afternoon reach a rocky ridge of some height. 
 The view at this point was very fine. On our left, immediately 
 facing us, Ebal and Gerizim — reminding me forcibly of the 
 Malvern hills. At our feet the long fertile upland plain of 
 El Muknah, and beyond over a distant ridge of mountain, 
 faint, indescribably delicate with its fairy-like blue and white 
 — the splendid triple crown of snowy Hermon. Evening 
 was fast gathering her shadows as we descended with this 
 view before us, — the sight of snow after hot Egypt and thirsty 
 Judea is an experience more memorable than a first glimpse 
 of the Alps — and we reached Hawara, — our camp — on the slopes 
 of Gerizim, but a short time before darkness swooped down on
 
 38 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 us. Time here is 3J hours later than with you in England, 
 and twilight is very short, the approach of darkness very 
 swift. It is quite dark now about seven, the sun setting 
 about 6.30. 
 
 Sunday, May $th. — We did not keep Sunday here, 
 intending to keep our Sunday on Monday at Seboste. We 
 had another cold night. Temperature 54° F. Off at 8.20, 
 sky cloudless. Burning sun but cool breezes. We rode North 
 for a space up the broad El Muknah,!with its corn and olives, 
 and then turned up West to the gap between Ebal and Gerizim, 
 a high pass, where Nablus, the ancient Shechem lies. On 
 our right we see a white dome, a bit of wall, and some green 
 trees. That is Jacob's well. I will not plunge into the 
 controversy as to the site, as my remarks would be valueless, 
 but might mention that we had read G. A. Smith on the 
 subject with interest the night before. 
 
 Reaching Nablus, high up (800 feet), we nevertheless 
 find the pretty town of 20,000 inhabitants gay with luxuriant 
 verdure, palms, vines, pomegranates, and (not seen since 
 Jerusalem) cypresses. This is a place of great importance, 
 connecting with the country east of Jordan. We saw the 
 telegraph posts, which if we followed them would take us 
 to Es Salt beyond the " Ghor." Here are Turkish soldiers 
 lounging along the streets. Somehow I always think of the 
 Armenian atrocities when I see them, though I have found 
 them most obliging and polite, and though more than once 
 we have had a Turkish guard, armed with bayonet fixed, 
 patrolling as a night-guard for our camp. 
 
 MOUNT EBAL. 
 
 We struck off early to the right to climb Mount Ebal, 
 leaving our horses in a Moslem cemetery. The Moslems have 
 two headstones on their graves, not one, as we have. We 
 climbed a path hedged in by extraordinary hedges of cactus, 
 most unearthly and forbidding they look too, and in an hour
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 39 
 
 reached the top. Gerizim is the proper mountain to do, 
 as of course it has more historical interest, " Neither in 
 this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem," etc. But Ebal is 
 higher, and G. A. Smith gives a chapter to the view, and we 
 determined to climb the latter on that account. We had 
 a perfect day, and a marvellous view. I have never had 
 the sense of looking down on so much outspread history 
 before, and over such a vast extent of country. Our northern 
 limit was Lebanon — 150 miles away, to the south the upland 
 of Judea beyond Hebron, fully fifty miles away. To the 
 west there was the sea — to the east we saw beyond Galilee, 
 beyond Jordan, to the mountains of the Hannam. It is not 
 often given to mortal men to scan at a glance 200 miles of 
 country, where almost every peak suggests or conceals some 
 historic spot. 
 
 I gave my time to sketching a complete outline panorama, 
 which I managed to secure in spite of a blazing sun, from 
 which no protection was possible, and the fact that it was not 
 possible to get the view from one spot. The top of Ebal is 
 a long ridge, with no definite peak ; the mount is really only 
 a great shoulder 3,077 feet above the sea. It is impossible 
 in this journal to give the view in detail ; the view would 
 make excellent material for an illustrated lecture, but it is 
 not possible to make myself clear in a brief outline journal 
 like this. Looking east, rises the dark mass of Carmel, 
 breaking the line of the blue Mediterranean. North of this 
 is the sweep of gold where Acre lies, and Haifa snuggles under 
 the promontory ; the flat green there is the Phoenician plain 
 connecting with Esdraelon by the now hidden glen of El Rais. 
 South of Carmel sweeps the golden hne of coast again. We 
 make out Caesarea and with the glasses Jaffa — four vessels 
 at anchor in the roads — the plain of Sharon like a map and 
 the Shephelah breaking down the ridges, green and grey and 
 brown, from the mountain on which we stand. Due south, 
 over Gerizim, appear the highlands of Judea. (It is in- 
 teresting to note, by the by, that Gerizim is of Memmahte
 
 40 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 limestone, of the same tertiary formation as that found in 
 the high Himalayas). East is the wall of Moab and Gilead. 
 We make out where Es Salt must lie, can see the valley of 
 the Jabbok, the Jebal Ajlun, catch a spur of Gilboa ; see 
 the dominating Hermon, the grandest and most conspicuous 
 feature in the whole panorama, and just to the west, faint 
 and far, but unmistakable, snowy Lebanon. Smith and 
 Baedeker neither of them mention this. But we are sure of 
 our point. The Philosopher made the most careful examina- 
 tion and we located the mountain with certainty at last. 
 We intend to write to G. A. Smith and tell him of his omission. 
 We had a most exceptionally clear day and expect that it is 
 rarely that Lebanon is seen from this point. 
 
 Coming down we ride through the whitewashed town, 
 and lunch in an olive grove which overlooks the valley. I 
 must say that while Nablus looks beautiful from below or 
 on the approach by the road, the view down from where we 
 lunched or from Ebal is the reverse of pleasing — the flat roofs 
 look so very unprepossessing as you see them from above. 
 Half a dozen houses have the red roofs pitched as in Europe, 
 which are getting so common in Jerusalem and Jaffa, and 
 these in the green setting of the palms and other trees looked 
 very picturesque. I don't think, except for association's 
 sake, that we can regret the coming in of the European 
 architecture. Nablus is a fanatical place or we should 
 have stopped here, but our dragoman says the visitors often 
 have trouble, and Seboste is now becoming the more usual 
 place to stay. Thither we rode in a delicious fresh breeze off 
 the sea. We saw nothing of the few remaining families of 
 directly descended Samaritans who still live in a separate 
 quarter at Nablus — nor were we there at the right time 
 to see their Passover festival, still observed in Gerizim to this 
 day, but we felt that the wonderful view we had had amply 
 made up for anything we might have missed. Illustrative of 
 the happy-go-lucky character of Oriental sanitation I may here 
 record en -passant^ that barely outside the town, on the Tafa
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 41 
 
 highroad, one of the few real roads in Palestine, we passed 
 a dead donkey decaying with intolerable stench, one leg 
 already a bleaching bone, and two men cutting off what was 
 no doubt their supper from its corrupting sides. Excuse me, 
 but a detail hke this is necessary if you are to understand 
 the difference between East and West ! 
 
 We rode on, not reluctantly, and soon the " Vale of 
 Barley " opened out lovely in afternoon sunhght with 
 sufficient waving barley to justify its name. Dotted with 
 villages and trees, this was perhaps the brightest bit of country 
 side we had seen. Climbing slowly up zig-zag paths to the 
 right, we passed flocks of goats and sheep following their 
 shepherds, a large black snake three feet in length, dead on 
 the path-way, looking as if the shepherds had just killed it, 
 and then breasting the ridge, a puff of strong sea air, and lo ! 
 the hazy blue Mediterranean. Down into a lovely glen of 
 olives and figs, past a well where the women were gathering 
 for water, and up a stony steep path to a platform, brought 
 us to Seboste. This miserable^ village — all that is left of the 
 city of Omri, of Ahab, of Herod, crowns a hill surrounded on 
 all sides by fertile valleys. Its flat houses and the minaret 
 of its Mosque, a Crusaders' Church converted into a 
 Mohammedan place of worship (there are also remains of the 
 Crusaders at Nablus), look exceedingly striking and pictur- 
 esque, terraced among the trees. The glen, through which 
 you approach, carries you quite out of the scenery which has 
 hitherto prevailed, and you feel to have entered a new country. 
 We pitched on a platform which was levelled to make a 
 site for a temple of the Herods, and indeed the hill is every- 
 where terraced, and ruins peep out of a tangle of weeds and 
 towering thistles. I don't think we have before or since had 
 the impression of decay and of the glory of a departed civilisa- 
 tion so strongly as at Seboste, with its ruined theatres, its 
 desolate colonnades, its ruined wheat-sown hippodrome, cut 
 in a huge semi-circle into the hill-side. This little wretched 
 village does not suggest a siege by Ben Haddan — or a three
 
 42 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 years' struggle with Sargon. Where is all the Greek and 
 Roman life that once made the hippodrome, the theatre, 
 and the temple gay with the colour and movement of many 
 people ? What tales of passion, love, hatred, slander, of 
 devotion and of selfishness lie buried under the wheat fields ! 
 What a contrast, these ragged tatterdemalion peasants, 
 droning out a monotonous and unintellectual existence, year 
 after year following each other with Oriental sameness! 
 
 Monday, May 6ih. — Remained in camp, temperature 
 at night (min.) 66° F., and spent the day " reading up " and 
 dozing, and exploring the hill with camera and sketch-books. 
 Numerous swallow-tail butterflies, speckled black-beetles 
 swarming on thistles. Captured a magnificent iridescent green 
 beetle and a horrid black scorpion. Saw innumerable lizards 
 and chameleons — the latter are wonderful illustrations of 
 protective colouring : they change to green in the grass and 
 a mottled gray on the stone, and often I have mistaken them 
 for a crack or ridge in the stone. The mosque, once a church 
 of St. John is curious, as it retains the mark of the Crusaders, 
 though the greater part is now Arabic, while in the court 
 are pillars of Herod's time. 
 
 With all their poverty and rags I have not seen what I 
 call really degraded looking people, unless the Jericho Bedouins 
 can be called so. Certainly you do not see, either here or 
 in Egypt, in a whole tour of months, such as I am taking, 
 as much real human degradation, as much self-conscious 
 degradation, as you can see in the low parts of London in one 
 day. Here the most ragged beggar has some suggestion, at 
 any rate, of dignity about him. 
 
 Returning to our camp in the evening we passed the 
 threshing floor. Here two oxen yoked together were treading 
 out beans, there a man with a rude fork was tossing and 
 beating corn, a clumsy and primitive method of winnowing. 
 
 As the light waned I seized the opportunity of sketching 
 the ruined columns. I soon had an innumerable host of
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 43 
 
 admiring youths, who presently struck with an idea, climbed 
 the columns and attitudinised for my benefit. I was fain 
 to include them in my sketch, and to pay the inevitable 
 backshish. 
 
 Maximum temperature in tent during day only 84° F. 
 owing to the breeze. 
 
 Tuesday, May jth. — Off at 8 a.m. Temp, at night 58° F. 
 Hot, cloudless but breezy. Ride up a fine rocky glen from 
 which we miss the water sadly. Olives, figs, sycamores, 
 apple and pomegranate trees in dense orchards. 
 
 Numerous droves of black cattle — shorthorns ; not Hke 
 the great Egyptian buffaloes, but small, like our mountain 
 cattle. Wherever there is a view north we get frequent 
 glimpses of Hermon — dominating the whole landscape. I 
 never realised before how important an element this great 
 snow-capped pile is in a Samarian landscape, 
 
 ESDRAELON. 
 
 We ride all day through a succession of the broad, flat 
 bottomed valleys which seem to be the feature of Samaria as 
 the upland downs are of Judea, and as we proceed towards 
 Esdraelon, these open out still more into great flat Ings, 
 forming a series of easy passes, as Smith says, for an invader 
 from the north. The reapers are at work here in the barley 
 fields — the vales being alive with peasants for the first time. 
 The women reap in long rows, squatting on their heels, with 
 their skirts tucked up to the waist, singing, as they reap with 
 primitive hooks. Those who have babies bring them along 
 in sledges covered with filthy cloth hangings. Every now 
 and then a little naked fly-pestered thing is taken out to be 
 fed. We pass a well where there is the usual pretty group 
 of women, in this part of the country remarkably beautiful 
 and attractive, and quite conscious of the flashing briUiance 
 of their teeth, as they smile at you. The well-side in Palestine 
 takes the place of the afternoon tea-table at home. It is
 
 44 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 here that the gossip and the scandal take unto themselves 
 the swift wings of speech, while at home it is whispered over 
 the tea and biscuits, with chairs drawn close and many an 
 expressive look ! 
 
 The fields where the reapers have no call, are those occu- 
 pied by the plough, and here the men find their work, ploughing 
 with clumsy ploughs of bent branches, yoked to oxen and tipped 
 with iron. The march of progress is slow here. I heard an 
 American in the train to Jerusalem sighing because he hadn't 
 the contract to supply that vale of Sharon with steam ploughs ! 
 I suppose that will come some day ! 
 
 Shortly before reaching Dothan, we are thrown into a 
 state of excitement at the capture of a green chameleon, coiled 
 up now in his last sleep in my bottle of spirits of wine. 
 Dothan appears to be the most probable site of the well where 
 Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites. The well is there certainly, 
 only as it is half full of green, slimy water, I can hardly fancy 
 Joseph remained in it long. Perhaps it was dry then. It 
 lies by a huge cactus hedge sixteen feet high, which encloses 
 a European house and a modern thrashing machine. A great 
 flock of sheep, goats, and herds of cattle were reposing at the 
 well with their shepherds, and to heighten the suggestiveness 
 of the place, a string of loaded camels, perhaps en route for 
 Egypt, were taking their noon-day repose. We lunched on 
 a fine hill overlooking the well, where shade was procurable. 
 The hills are almost always rounded in Palestine. I think 
 I may leave the word out and let you take it for granted in 
 future. The fact is that the country looks everywhere dis- 
 tinctly roche montonnce. We suppose there can have been 
 no ice action, as the ice wall stopped short of Palestine, of 
 course, even in glacial times. Is it possible that Hermon and 
 Lebanon sent down glaciers ? Or is it the way limestone wears ? 
 
 After Dothan we notice the soil changes in colour. Since 
 Jerusalem we had commented on its redness, now it is brown. 
 Snakes seem to abound about here ; we passed a large one, 
 four feet long, black and yellow, also dead as the previous one
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 45 
 
 at Samaria, and had an exciting chase after an equally large 
 copper-coloured one, which was watching us pass with raised 
 head and glittering eye from the meadow grass. 
 
 After Dothan and lunch, and two hours repose in the shade, 
 we rode across country, through barley up to our saddles 
 (they don't seem to mind this here), in order to rejoin the 
 Jericho road; crossing a stream, sluggish and reedy, and 
 noticing for the first time how much whiter the corn grows 
 here when ripe. " The fields are white unto the harvest, 
 but the reapers are few." Both statements are correct. The 
 thin line of reapers in these great valleys, squatting on their 
 heels with primitive hooks, look few for the work they have 
 to do. The hills are now much lower and less bold in outline 
 than at Samaria. We have been coming down a sort of 
 gigantic salmon ladder, a series of hollows each lower than the 
 last. Pass a brilliant blue bird perched on a near rock, turn 
 down a shallow, narrow wady, and there, white in palm, 
 orange, lemon, almond, apple, pomegranate and other fruit 
 trees, are the houses and minaret of Engannim, or Jenin, 
 a market town of some little importance on the edge of Es- 
 draelon. In the evening we strolled out to a Moslem cemetery 
 on a low mound to the east of the town. Before us stretched 
 Esdraelon, undulating, bathed in soft sunset hght. 
 Chequered with shadow, to the west, Carmel, fine and im- 
 posing, the gradually rising hills of Galilee. To the north, 
 Nazareth visible, and Harmon towering behind. Mount Moreh, 
 Shunem, Jezreel, Mount Gilboa, bring the eye back along the 
 east. It was a view of no httle interest, and we came upon it 
 quite casually and unexpectedly. Next day we were to get a 
 better prospect from Gilboa. Temperature at night, 68° F. 
 Wind changes to sirocco. East. 
 
 Wednesday, May 8th. — Sirocco, hot, stifling, close. Tem- 
 perature at 4.30 p.m. in shade, 97° F., though it fell rapidly 
 to 64° F. at night ! Like a drop from an English average 
 summer day of 65°F. to 32° F. and in 3I hours too !
 
 46 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Rode across level plain, ploughed land, and cornfields, 
 to Mount Gilboa, starting 8 a.m. Reached the summit of this 
 bare rocky hill by 10.30, to find a dirty village occupying the 
 best point of view, and a cactus hedge doing its best to 
 obstruct where possible. Here was a woman wielding the 
 distaff — and from awful holes in the ground crept out numer- 
 ous dirty children, dogs and chickens, which apparently live 
 together. In spite of the dirt, the girls here too are very 
 pretty. The Philosopher's field-glass was much admired. 
 One man in looking through it at the village of Nazareth, 
 intimated that he could put his foot in Nazareth, and dwelt 
 in a long and excited harangue on its merits and marvels to 
 the assembled village. I gave my strength, however, 
 not to the villagers, but to a careful sketch of the views — 
 which took some considerable time. I wanted to get a 
 thorough grip of the plain of Esdraelon, and the subsidiary 
 plain of Jezreel, with a view to a better understanding of their 
 bearing on history. And as since then we have crossed and 
 recrossed the great plain, and practically circumnavigated 
 it, I think we have clearly impressed its features on our 
 minds. 
 
 JEZREEL. 
 
 At our feet was the treeless plain of Jezreel, brown, green 
 and yellow, sloping rapidly down to Beisan in the Ghor. 
 Beyond the Ghor was the long line of Gilead, hazy and grey- 
 blue in the heat of the sirocco wind, which blew up from them 
 hot and lifeless. The plain of the Jordan in the Vt^ide bit by 
 Beisan was just visible through this haze also, and what a 
 heat there must have been down in that crack ! ! We could 
 make out where Galilee lay hidden — thence the eye was led 
 up to the heights of lordly Hermon. Safed was visible set 
 on a hill just not eclipsed by the dark dome of Tabor. Oppo- 
 site rose Moreh — Little Hermon — or the Jebel Dahi, whence 
 the line of Galilean hills, with Nazareth white on the green 
 slopes, led the eye away to the grey sea. (It was not blue
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 47 
 
 when the sirocco was blowing, but grey, under a leaden 
 haze). 
 
 On the plain at the foot of Mount Moreh, we can spot 
 without the glasses the mud village of Shunem (the villages 
 of the plain are mud like the Egyptian, for the plain is clear of 
 the stones which cover the hills and upland valleys). A little 
 further out is El Fuleh — a Crusaders' fort — the camping 
 ground of the Philistines when Saul met his death, and when 
 Gideon and his men watched the slaughter in Jezreel. Also 
 the scene of a victory by Kleber with 1,500 horse over 25,000 
 of the Turkish cavalry. Surely Napoleon must have been 
 one of the great Persian or Egyptian warrior kings in a pre- 
 vious existence. The Plain of Acre is hidden by the hills of 
 Galilee, running down to the glen pass of Tel el Rias which 
 connects that plain with Esdraelon. Carmel rises up steeply 
 from the flat chequered carpet of brown and green, dark with 
 its oaks and shrubs, — a strong contrast to the great treeless 
 plain, where Carmel runs down to lesser elevations to meet 
 the mountains of Samaria. We can just locate Megiddo, now 
 Lejjun (a controversial site), and looking southward the hills 
 of Samaria rise in height as we glance east, Jenin, white in its 
 green oasis of trees nestling at their foot. Not so compre- 
 hensive a view as Ebal — it is a view at close quarters — that 
 from Gilboa is nevertheless amply worth the detour. It is 
 unquestionably the best point of view for the great [plain. The 
 descent from Gilboa was steep and awkward through dirty 
 villages where, again, people seemed to come out of holes 
 in the ground, and the huts are only ventilated and lit by a 
 single door — the families living all together, apparently not 
 excepting the fowls and goats. At the foot we came to a cliff 
 with a cave in its face, whence welled a spring of beautiful 
 water — Ain el Jalud — with a great pond of clear water lapping 
 the cliff -base. Here the natives were bathing in considerable 
 numbers, and many horses and goats came to drink. It is 
 supposed to be the spot where Gideon's men lapped ; we 
 noticed fresh- water crabs here — the first I have seen. Lunch
 
 48 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 was a hot, and not altogether resting occasion. We could get 
 no shade, and this spring, almost at the head of the Vale of 
 Jezreel, is below sea-level. A group of girls and boys who had 
 been bathing, came and watched us with awe. A present of 
 chocolate frightened and mystified them, even though I ate 
 some myself, and made the Philosopher eat, I could not 
 get them to do more than look dubiously at it. One of 
 the girls, ragged, and not perhaps over clean, nevertheless 
 possessed great beauty. One sees the most extreme types 
 among the women here — from an ugliness which is really 
 revolting, to a beauty rare in England. But it is always 
 the young girls, twelve to seventeen years of age, who strike 
 you ; there seem to be no women who can stand the wear 
 and tear of their hard life, and they seem rapidly to wizen 
 and grow old. You ride over a swelling upland of ploughed 
 fields before you reach Esdraelon proper. A low ridge 
 connects Gilboa and Moreh, and just on the ridge which 
 marks off the plain of Jezreel as distinct, stands the mud village 
 that was once royal Jezreel. Across dark brown soil, almost 
 peaty in appearance, and through great brakes of thistles 
 we make our way to El Fuleh, where, beside the miserable 
 huts, we still trace the Crusaders' moat, and here also are our 
 tents. At night there rose an unpleasant malaria, which, 
 however, did us no harm ; it appears all this region is still 
 a swamp in winter. 
 
 How we rode thence next day to Megiddo and Mansura ; 
 how the day after we climbed Carmel and rode down to its 
 farthest point ; looking up the coast even to Acre ; how 
 we slept at Haifa and rode on thence to Nazareth where these 
 lines are written — all these things will be set forth at a future 
 date. At present, good-bye. 
 
 MEGIDDO. 
 
 May gth. — We had dosed ourselves with quinine so that 
 malarial Fuleh did us no harm, and we started at 8 a.m. 
 to find a cool breeze instead of the exhausting sirocco of
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 49 
 
 the day before. Our ride was across Esdraelon, back in a 
 south-west direction to Megiddo, which we wanted to explore 
 at close quarters. Esdraelon was a sort of no man's land, 
 but is now the possession of wealthy Beyrout Christians, 
 who collect revenues from the miserable mud villages. The 
 white house of a steward (we will hope a just one) was our 
 first land mark. The undulating ground (of a rich peaty, 
 brown colour) was chiefly occupied by fields of yellow corn, 
 but great stretches, as yet unreclaimed, yielded only thistles 
 and hemlock — great towering brakes of them lining our 
 path. Nothing could be less suggestive than the squalid 
 mud hovels, and the wilderness of weeds which make the 
 village of Lejjun (or as some have it Megiddo, and I confess 
 to feeling personally satisfied with G. A. Smith's plea for 
 such an identification). I sat on the roof of one of the dwel- 
 lings, and looking across the thistles and the great sheets 
 of ripening corn, took a pencil sketch of the historic pass, by 
 which so many armies have tramped north or south over to 
 or from the Vale of Sharon. It was sufficiently unassuming 
 — a herd of camels, perhaps on their way to Gaza, feeding on 
 the slopes of the hills, and cattle grazing on the round swelling 
 rise of ground which forms the pass itself. Fragments of 
 masonry indicated the ancient site, and the sheikh of the 
 village took us up through the corn to show us a ruined 
 column which looked very forlorn indeed, standing there 
 by itself " all alone." It is all that remains above ground 
 of the ancient Legio. In a hot sun we skirted the rising 
 spurs of Carmel, lunching under the grateful shade of a large 
 olive, and crossed the famous brook Kishon, very much a 
 brook and densely shrouded in oleander. Our camp was 
 at Mansura, a little hamlet on the slopes of Carmel. The 
 foreground was dotted with numerous white tents — not 
 the tents of Sisera, who camped near that very spot, but 
 Turkish cavalry with horses out to grass. Esdraelon's 
 military traditions were asserting themselves. At night our 
 minimum temperature was 64° F.
 
 50 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 CARMEL. 
 
 Friday, May loth. — We at once began steeply to climb 
 from our camping ground by a rugged path overhung now 
 and then by crags. The scenery very rapidly changed, 
 and we felt our surroundings to be distinctly more English. 
 A fine oak tree at one point overhung with welcome sug- 
 gestions of home — our first oak since England. The flowers 
 were luxuriant — especially a hollyhock-like plant and others 
 like tissue-paper roses, which all faded, unfortunately, in 
 the saddle bag a few minutes after being picked. One was 
 struck, after the bare plain, with the wealth of undergrowth 
 and trees, thyme, wild almond, terebinth, olive, fir, sycamore, 
 and at the same time we felt on our faces the dampness of 
 the breeze from the sea. It is this latter that explains the 
 former. Carmel is green long after the surrounding country 
 has been burnt brown. At the top (the highest point over- 
 looks Esdraelon, not the sea) we came upon a chapel marking 
 the spot where Elijah is said to have withstood the prophets 
 of Baal. Clouds were rolling in from the Mediterranean, 
 and unfortunately prevented us seeing the full extent of 
 the view. 
 
 Landward we could not see beyond Tabor and Gilboa. 
 To the south we got a peep at Sharon, hazy and cloud- driven, 
 and looked over the shallow ridge, or potato heap rather, 
 which divides it from Esdraelon. 
 
 So far we had had a Druse guide, who had engaged to 
 take us to the point looking over the sea. Here, however, 
 he calmly left us in spite of all expostulation, and we were 
 left to find our way alone. John, the dragoman, did not 
 know the exact path, for strictly speaking there are no paths, 
 and we soon lost our way in the dense jungles of thorn and 
 wild almond, etc., etc. We had read that leopards can still 
 be shot on Mount Carmel, and momentarily expected their 
 roar, and flashing teeth in our horses' throats — but they must 
 have been tame leopards ; with all our beating about the bush 
 we failed to raise a single specimen. And here I just wish
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 51 
 
 to say that I don't agree with G. A. Smith when he says that 
 Mount Ephraim, Mount Carmel is better taken as meaning 
 a " Mount " rather than " hill-country." I had looked on 
 Carmel as a single mount or ridge at one time, but in this ride 
 of ours we found it to be a group of bold hills, with flat high 
 valleys like Alps, villages, etc. At times you get so among 
 these vales that you might be in Samaria — and though you 
 frequently have views of Esdraelon, which with its squares 
 and patches of green and yellow and brown looks like a badly 
 designed carpet, you by no means have a continuous view, 
 nor the sense of being on a ridge until you near the sea. At 
 Es Fujeh, a Druse village, we had a fine view north to Acre, 
 and looked over the golden sweep of sand to the green plain 
 beyond, but Galilee was hidden all day in mist. After pres- 
 sing sundry Druses into our service here and there as guides, 
 and losing our way again when they left us with full but 
 false directions, we finally lunched in a copse where the 
 mountains dip to the sea, and where the rest of our road 
 was in view. With the cold sea breeze in our faces (welcome 
 after the sirocco) we rode down to the extreme point which 
 is disfigured by a large Carmelite monastery with iron barred 
 windows. Here from the terrace there was a glorious view 
 — south as far as Athlit — north to Acre with Haifa at our 
 feet. It was very refreshing to hear the wave music again, 
 and to see the white fringe of foam on the beach. Among 
 its green trees we noticed too, the pleasant relief of the red 
 roofs of the German colony — giving unwonted colour to the 
 scene. The flat roofs of the East are not picturesque, especi- 
 ally from above. After our horses had manceuvered round 
 considerably in fear of the Monastery dogs, which were very 
 obstreperous, we rode down a delightful path into Haifa. 
 Vineyards and hops on either hand spoke of the German's 
 love for his Roth Wein and Bier, while almond, fig, olive, 
 apple, acacia and great stacks of geranium, but especially 
 the palm trees, reminded one of the southern latitudes. It 
 was curious to see how neat everything was, to see German
 
 52 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 faces and the wicker perambulators, and unveiled women 
 a veritable " Deutsche Wirthschaft," along with the cypresses 
 away here in Syria. When we came near the sea our horses 
 shied at the sound of the waves — we could hardly get them 
 on at all — that speaks volumes for the dryness of the land, 
 for surely a waterfall would have trained them to this had 
 they ever heard one. 
 
 We found our tents under an olive tree of great dimen- 
 sions in the outskirts of the dirtiest part of the Mohammedan 
 quarter, and the view from our tent door of the palms, whole 
 groves of them — the yellow strip of coast and the sea beyond, 
 reminded me strangely of Egypt. 
 
 NAZARETH. 
 
 Saturday, May nth. — We had seen Nazareth now since 
 reaching Jenin, and to-day we really set off to go there. 
 We were glad to make haste and leave the plain for the i,ooo 
 feet of elevation which Nazareth enjoys, as the heat soon 
 became close and oppressive. Especially on the long flat 
 road skirting the base of Carmel were we made to feel the sun's 
 unmerciful lash, for there was little or no shade, and the white 
 dust of the road — a real road for once — reflected the dazzling 
 light and beat back the heat into our faces. " It was 'ammer, 
 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'igh road," with a vengeance. 
 It was an unwonted experience ; instead of picking our way 
 over a dry stream bed, to be cantering hour after hour and 
 actually covering the ground. As we rode out of Haifa 
 we had an excellent mirage across the plain to the north, 
 giving the impression of a palm-bordered lake where we 
 knew only the plain of Acre to be — also, to remind us that 
 this is not a land of Parish Councils, we came on a dead donkey 
 in the Nazareth highway, which was being devoured by dogs, 
 — a prelude only to a dead horse, which we were to see later 
 in the day on the village green (threshing floor) in Nazareth 
 itself, undergoing the same process. What would become 
 of the Oriental without his dogs ? An interesting testimony
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 53 
 
 to the summer heat, and an ilhistration of Scripture withal, 
 was to be observed in the booths or summer houses of boughs 
 and leaves built on the flat roofs of the village huts. We met 
 women bending under great heaps, miniature stacks of green 
 leaf foliage, which was to be made use of as a summer residence. 
 Then I must not forget the railway : G. A. Smith and 
 Baedeker, both in haste to be up to date, mention a railway 
 from Haifa down the vale of Jezreel and up the east side of 
 Tiberias to Damascus. They both reckoned without the 
 unspeakable Turk. He has in some way or other fallen foul 
 of the French Company* who were constructing the line, 
 and all is at a dead stop and likely to be. The line follows 
 the road, overgrown with thistles two miles out of Haifa, 
 and then stops. What could you want more than this, and 
 the dead donkey in the road, to tell you that you are in the 
 great and glorious Ottoman Empire ? 
 
 Baedeker also speaks of the " excellent carriage road to 
 Nazareth " just finished. It may have been quite excellent, 
 say after the manner of a country lane before the winter 
 rains, but now there is no evidence whatever of any attempt 
 at keeping the road in repair, and the wash-outs are as the 
 rains left them. I pity those who travel this road by carriage, 
 especially those who travel by the sort of rude country waggon 
 service which has been established, and which we passed 
 as it jolted and swayed and tilted its way down to Haifa. 
 Commend me even to the irritating trot of a Syrian horse 
 by preference. At one point I ought to say, however, they 
 were really making a bridge. The engineer was European, 
 the navvies were women. 
 
 I think I never saw so many chameleons in one day 
 as I did on that ride — they were everywhere — even gazing 
 skyward with a curious intentness, as if reading the stars, 
 from the tops of the telegraph posts. They are a very curious 
 feature in your day's ride — they have such an unearthly 
 
 * Afterwards the Thames Iron Company, Ltd. — Ed,
 
 54 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 appearance, as if made of crumpled paper with nothing 
 inside. 
 
 Lunch was under a spreading oak tree, in cool shade, and 
 with oaks dotting the vale on every side. For all the world 
 this first low Shephelah of Galilee was like Surrey, and had the 
 greenness of our own dear old country. But with a difference, 
 for as we lunched there passed a procession that has been 
 repeated over and over again since Abraham's day. A long 
 line of camels laden with corn from the Hauran, going down 
 to Gaza — and if they could not sell their goods there, on 
 to Cairo. 
 
 Camels from the Hauran had been reposing round our 
 tents at Haifa, coming in the evening and sitting down with 
 that curious telescopic action that a camel has, folding himself 
 up bit by bit deliberately as if it hurt him to sit down ; but 
 these were going no further than Haifa, and indeed passed us 
 shortly after the first string of camels had gone by, in their 
 return journey. Nothing changes in the east, and I am almost 
 glad that the railway to Damascus is not going to be finished 
 just yet, these bits of fossilised history are none too common. 
 
 A descent into the plain of Esdraelon, followed by the final 
 steep ascent of the main Nazarene range, soon brought us up 
 to a sort of plateau land, limestone and shrub with the sug- 
 gestion almost of English moor country. East, Carmel, 
 Haifa, the sea, all hazy and grey-blue, except for the gleam of 
 yellow sand. North, round hills, grey-green and yellowish 
 brown, rising as you look still further north to the highlands 
 of upper Galilee — Sepphoris, and sundry other mud villages 
 peeping out here and there. North-east, Hermon. East the 
 dark green rounded hill of Tabor, and south the great plains. 
 Such roughly was our view as we clattered along to the strag- 
 gling village in its hollow depression in the edge of the cliff -like 
 ranges of hills,which bears one of the most world famous names. 
 
 A first view of Nazareth is most disappointing. Hideous 
 modern churches and an excessively vulgar renaissance resi- 
 dence or school, brand new, are the objects which strike you
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 55 
 
 as you breast the rise in the road, and ride down through the 
 suburbs. We pass the well, the 07ily spring, where, no doubt, 
 young Mary came with the other village girls to gossip and 
 perhaps get impatient for her turn as the girls do now. They 
 were laughing and chatting, and I am afraid pushing and squab- 
 bling, as no doubt in days of yore, as we rode past. A gay 
 motley crew in their loose, baggy, many coloured trousers 
 and sashes. Our tents were barely ready for us, we had ridden 
 so fast, and before they were up we had had a lively introduc- 
 tion to Nazarene society. Somehow or other, I don't know 
 how, a man and his wife, living near the camping ground, 
 started to abuse our cook in good round Arabic. The hubbub 
 grew momentarily — outsiders joined and took parts — all our 
 camp followers rushed out and began hurling back Arabic 
 equally vigorous at the offenders. Harma not liking the 
 look of things, sent for the soldiers, and soon he was en- 
 tertaining the officer at coffee and giving his account of the 
 affair. Two soldiers arrested the man, but we were entirely 
 averse to any proceedings being taken, and said we did not 
 wish him to be sent to jail ; let him apologise and promise 
 " never to do so any more." This he did, whether at the bay- 
 onet's point or how I do not know, and the affair passed away 
 just as it was about to make an unpleasantly large stir in the 
 village, a considerable crowd having collected in due course. 
 We were able to appreciate Baedeker's statement that 
 " the Nazarenes are of a turbulent disposition," after this 
 without any difficulty. 
 
 After dinner we climbed up to a sort of pass in the Tiberias 
 road (sic) where Hermon came into view, and were rewarded 
 by a lovely sunset. We made up our minds we would keep 
 to the hills, do no sightseeing, visit the well once or twice 
 and stop two days. This we did, and as a consequence Nazar- 
 eth grew upon us. We have not had our memory marred 
 by monkish superstition, candles, incense and false relics 
 and sites. We carry away with us chiefly the memory of 
 breezy hills with an extensive prospect, of a grey-green hollow
 
 56 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 dotted with white houses and a few cypresses, and perhaps 
 above all the gay bustling scenes around the village spring. 
 And I don't feel that I have missed anything in " doing " 
 Nazareth so lazily. One can only stand Jerusalem once, 
 and does not crave to have it repeated. 
 
 Sunday, May 12th. — A very heavy dew in the night — 
 the tent wringing wet, and the dew dripping off the eaves into 
 the ground like rain. 
 
 It was Sunday, and we simply lazed all day, reading, 
 strolling about on the hills, and writing. Our tents were 
 on the slope of the hill wliich you climb on the ride to Tiberias 
 — high up, and overlooking the hollow with the scattered 
 village. A very nice site it was for a camping ground if only 
 the Nazarene dogs had sought some other trysting ground 
 at night, and howled and barked their serenades elsewhere. 
 So lazy were we, that our chief expedition was to a hill com- 
 manding a fine view that rises behind the village. We had 
 the same view as I have already described, only complete 
 and \ little more extensive, including land across Jordan. 
 Our old travelling companion, Hermon — seen every day 
 since Bethel, — reminded us of Pilatus, having just about as 
 much snow as Pilatus in early summer, and appreciably 
 less than when we first saw him, so fast was the snow dis- 
 appearing. 
 
 I wish, as over and over again I have wished while in 
 Syria, that I could number botany as an" accomplishment " ; 
 — I can only say of the Nazarene flowers that the ground 
 seemed mainly covered by a sort of scrub — not prepossessing, 
 — which is enlivened by pinks, purple asters, and the same 
 hollyhock-like plant I noticed in Carmel. The dogs we found 
 troublesome, as they rush out and bark at you quite un- 
 provoked. Of course you find the mixture of religion here 
 again as at Jerusalem. We met a long string of girls in prim 
 uniform under the charge of nuns, and continually came across 
 a monk in brown gown, or a shovel-hatted Latin priest.
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 57 
 
 The girls, many with a distinct beauty foreign to the 
 prevailing types we had seen, and suggesting French or 
 Italian blood, are the most interesting, quarrelling round 
 the well, and striding through the streets with their great 
 black jars on their heads. Even little tinies, three or four 
 years old, go to the spring carrying little wooden dummy 
 jars upon their heads to make believe they are carrying 
 water. They do not seem to mind being sketched or photo- 
 graphed — we found we were able to do both with impunity. 
 
 Monday, May i^th. — (Night temperature 58° F.). I 
 consider I was very diligent in the morning — painting in 
 Edward Worsdell's outline pencil sketch of the view from 
 behind Nazareth, especially as a cold, dry wind dried up 
 the washes before you were prepared for it, and rendered 
 painting difficult. 
 
 In the afternoon we witnessed the arrival of the Pasha 
 of the district coming over from Tiberias to visit Tjnre, where 
 the Christians and Mohammedans had been fighting and killing 
 each other. He was an old man, enormously fat. Appar- 
 ently all Nazareth, i.e., male Nazareth, went out to meet him 
 in procession. Mohammedans first, and Christians afterwards. 
 Poor old Pasha, he must have suffered on the rough Tiberias 
 path. He was an enormous old Turk, — one feared to see the 
 horse break in two as he rode down past the tents, gingerly 
 and slow. 
 
 Tuesday, May 14th. — Throughout we found Nazareth 
 very pleasant and cool. At no time did the tent exceed 
 80° F. which we have got to find very endurable. 
 
 THE LAKE OF GALILEE. 
 
 The ride down was not eventful, nor was it at all a striking 
 one. We went by way of Kefr Kenna {possibly Cana of 
 Galilee), down bare valleys clothed with scrub at times, 
 occasionally between remarkable hedges of cactus, and
 
 58 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 pushing our way through thorny brakes and across cornfields 
 when we made short cuts. 
 
 At Kefr Kenna the horses were stopped to drink at the 
 village trough, which proved to be a Roman Sarcophagus, 
 with battered stone wreathing still visible upon it. We 
 lunched, as we always do when we can, in an olive orchard, 
 and rode over bare uplands, rolling and featureless except 
 for the somewhat striking top of Kurn Hattin, marking 
 Saladin's great victory over the Crusaders — the death blow 
 of all the Crusades. Here an eagle, perched on a telegraph 
 pole, allowed us to get a near view of him, and then rose and 
 sailed away into space. Great herds of black cattle, driven 
 by Bedouin with formidable clubs and staves, passed us from 
 time to time. We purchased specimens from the astonished 
 natives to illustrate the rod and staff that comforted free- 
 booting David, who must have been far more like the fierce 
 dark-looking cattle drovers in their black and yellow cloaks, 
 than the idealistic pictures one is accustomed to. 
 
 At last the Lake of Galilee comes into sight. The long 
 level wall of the opposite shores — unrelieved and unbroken — 
 the one relieving feature. Old Hermon presiding over the 
 scene at the northern end. Nothing has more surprised 
 me than Galilee. I suppose one unconsciously idealises 
 historic scenes such as crowd the shores of this lake, and it is 
 somewhat disturbing to preconceived ideas to find these 
 stirring scenes set in such commonplace surroundings. But 
 the dreariness of Galilee is not its worst feature — the dull 
 black basalt shores are at least more tolerable than the awful 
 oppressiveness of the climate. 
 
 Our descent was steep, and our first view of the one town, 
 Tiberias, striking and picturesque. Anyone who has been 
 to Tiberias will smile when he is told that it is a health resort 
 for the natives. Of course, the attraction is the sulphur 
 hot spring, it is certainly not fever -stricken Tiberias itself. 
 
 We rode through its close, stuffy streets — hung across 
 with rags to keep off the sun ; we looked into its slummy
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 59 
 
 courts, smelt its many and fearful smells, and were not sur- 
 prised to see the washed-out pale faces of the inhabitants 
 — (mainly Jews who had been paid their passage from Europe 
 by wealthy brethren who still maintain them). And yet 
 Tiberias is named as one of the four sacred towns by the 
 Jews, the others being Hebron, Jerusalem and Safed. 
 Baedeker says that the King of the Fleas lived at Tiberias. 
 If there is such a functionary, I think the locality must be 
 correct, but how human beings can come here by choice 
 I do not know. I have not heard it suggested before, but is 
 it not possible that the climate, along with the invasions 
 from beyond Jordan and other causes, has had its share in 
 depopulating the district ? The once populous lake of Galilee 
 was 600 feet below the sea 1,800 years ago as now — and then 
 as now, the sea breezes would pass over to the Hauran and 
 send no healing breath down to those feverish shores, while 
 the sun would beat down just as fiercely and mercilessly.* 
 
 Our tents were near the springs and faced the lake — 
 a decidedly pleasant situation and well away from the town, 
 whose black basalt castle dates from Herod's time, and 
 whose ruined walls and white houses were more picturesque 
 at a distance. 
 
 May ijth. — The temperature at night fell to 70° F. 
 — cool for GaUlee — but owing to the moist density of the 
 atmosphere, much more trying than 80° F. at Nazareth. 
 We simply streamed with perspiration all night. The drago- 
 man had told me at Nazareth that the camp followers were 
 always glad to get out of the Galilee and Huleh district as 
 soon as possible. I could understand him even then — much 
 more so two days later — and if the natives feel this, is not 
 it rather in support of my argument as to the climate being 
 a depopulating agent ? 
 
 We had a morning bathe, though the Galilee water is 
 not pleasant — a disagreeable taste and smell, and green scum 
 
 *May it not well be that the land, no less than the people, has 
 "developed by way of deterioration" under Moslem rule. — Ed.
 
 6o JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 on the surface, and shortly after seven, having had our break- 
 fast, rode south along the shore to see the exit of the Jordan. 
 A party of natives had pitched their tents outside the Baths, 
 coming all the way from Jaffa for the purpose — and such 
 baths — the stained, damp, filthy exterior of the buildings 
 ought surely have been sufficient to keep all customers at a 
 distance, not to mention the frightful smell. 
 
 The Jordan makes a modest exit — through a plain, I 
 suppose, of its own making — an agreeable green patch among 
 the arid hills. What a place of ruins it is ! We rode past 
 great blocks of black basalt masonry, ruinous and grass grown, 
 nearly all the length of the ride. We bathed from a ruined 
 wall and the bottom was bad because of the blocks with 
 which the shores are lined. If only Galilee were under English 
 government and proper excavations could be made ! 
 
 At 9.30 a.m. we were back at our camp, already limp 
 with the heat — not the direct heat of the sun, for the sky was 
 grey, but the close heat of an unventilated greenhouse. We 
 took ship and sailed to Capernaum, — at least to Tell Hum, 
 which may very possibly not be Capernaum at all — so great 
 is the doubt and obscurity in which the ancient sites are 
 buried. We only had to pay twenty francs for the trip — 
 very modest. We should have declined to go, but were too 
 limp to sit in our saddles. We wanted to sail out into the 
 middle of the lake, but that would be five francs more — in 
 fact, any deviation was five francs, so we had to just put up 
 with it and be sailed and rowed, we did not care what, to 
 Tell Hum. I never want such another experience. There 
 was no relief. I can understand people going crazy with the 
 heat. The heat of Egypt though probably greater, was far 
 more endurable as it was dry and crisp. Now and then we 
 had a pretty bit — oleanders giving the banks a blaze of 
 crimson colour. 
 
 At Tell Hum we met three English ladies with their 
 dragoman, and explored the black basalt ruins with them. 
 But there was notliing to see — the monks (there is a monastery
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 6i 
 
 there) had hidden everything under a pile of rubbish for fear 
 of the Turkish government, so there was nothing left to do 
 but to sketch and lunch, and row back to Khan Minyeh, our 
 camping ground. Here we bathed again and gathered the 
 curious shells that looked as if they ought to be on a seashore. 
 
 There is a beautiful spring here welling out under a crag, 
 and bubbling among basalt ruins, numerous tortoises basking 
 in its shallow, clear water — and great brakes of tall papyrus. 
 The place was not healthy — camping practically in a marsh 
 — but the three ladies had their camp there, too, and what 
 three ladies were not afraid of, we were not going to be. Late 
 in the evening the ladies' dragoman passed our tents, his 
 hands full of birds. He had been shooting, and had got a 
 number of blue kingfishers, magnificent colour — but I begged 
 a specimen in vain. 
 
 At night the temperature fell to 75° F. It was not pos- 
 sible to sleep much — the dense swarms of mosquitoes defied 
 evasion and got inside the curtains. The poor camp followers 
 had a fearful time of it — John being bitten all over his portly 
 self and very doleful thereat in the morning. In addition one 
 of the grooms caught a fever, small wonder — and we were 
 glad when, on May i6th, we set off over the hills to Huleh, a 
 doleful and washed out crew. 
 
 THE GALILEAN HILLS. 
 But we were not destined that day to get much 
 fresher air — occasionally a puff came from the west, but 
 that was all. We rode over country similar in character 
 to that which separates Nazareth from Galilee. A large 
 Khan (Khan Jubb Josef) surrounded by cattle was the first 
 object of any note unless one were to mention the ants busy 
 all day dragging grains of bearded wheat to their little colonies. 
 They were very busy harvesting indeed. Before we descended 
 into the Huleh valley, we passed a colony floated and financed 
 by Rothschilds. Barbed wire fencing — well cultivated 
 ground, red-roofed houses, white, neat and clean. How this
 
 62 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 land would blossom out again if it could be rescued from the 
 dilapidating influence of the Turk. Huleh is merely a moun- 
 tain tarn. It looked rather dreary, hung over by a heavy 
 heat haze which made the mountains opposite indistinct. 
 As with Galilee, Hermon dominated everything, and gave 
 the only character to the scene that the view possessed. 
 
 At a spring and beside running water we lunched. An 
 old mill stood near, and here evidently the cattle from far 
 and near were wont to take their noonday siesta. It was 
 not long before we were surrounded by a lowing herd, and 
 finally we found our operations with the sardines and soda 
 water followed in breathless suspense, awestruck and admiring, 
 by thirteen Bedouin shepherds. One of these was playing 
 a lute made from a reed, and carved rudely during his leisure 
 hours. Being again reminded of David, I managed with 
 some diplomacy on John's part to purchase this treasure 
 for the vast sum of threepence, which seemed mightily to 
 please. 
 
 A tiring ride in oppressive heat brought us about 5.30 
 to our tents, pitched on a patch of dry ground at a spring 
 called Ain Masas, not far from the great marsh which lies 
 north of Huleh. Beyond us was a large Bedouin camp — 
 dozens of the low black tents being scattered over the plain. 
 We were allowed to stroll up close to them without let or 
 hindrance, and to watch the evening meal from the common 
 pot, which served for all the family. We were a little anxious 
 as to malaria. We could see the ominous white mist rise 
 over the marsh, but providentially the wind blew from our 
 side throughout the night. When we went to bed there 
 rose on every side, not a murmur, but a roar of frogs — even 
 I could hear it. Again the temperature fell only to 75° F. 
 and again the close, damp air made us suffer considerably. 
 I had just dozed off when a crash woke me. The Philosopher 
 was lighting the candle, and the tent was every now and 
 then lit up by vivid flashes of lightning. The rain was coming 
 down in torrents, and the wind blowing a hurricane, had
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 63 
 
 almost carried off the tent. Found Strabo and the Philoso- 
 pher sitting up in bed, luggage scattering over the marsh, 
 and the tent no one knows where. However, we were spared 
 that. John was out before we had time to call, and we heard 
 him and his men rush out into the rain and hold on to the 
 straining ropes, hammering down the pegs and making all 
 square again. It was a near shave, but soon the storm 
 rolled away down to Galilee, muttering and rumbling among 
 the hills, and we were able to turn over and sleep with our 
 confidence in our dragoman considerably increased. The 
 work had been promptly and smartly done. 
 
 Friday, May lyth. — Still oppressive. The thunder had 
 not cleared the air. Hermon was hid in heavy cloud. 
 
 Starting before eight, we rode weary and unrefreshed 
 by our sleep over the steaming plain — all the streams swollen 
 with muddy torrents from the rain, — and the ground soft 
 and muddy. It was squelch, squelch through the bog, 
 and splash, splash through a running stream, or stumble, 
 stumble over rough, rocky paths — and all the while you were 
 steaming in a Turkish bath. At seven o'clock breakfast, 
 the thermometer had risen to over 80° F. and was rising then 
 — and a damp heat like that is as exhausting as anything I 
 know. We were scarcely in the mood to enjoy the glorious 
 banks of oleander, or wonder at the great masses of papyrus. 
 But at length the change came. We had crossed the plain 
 to the east and breasted the first low spurs of Hermon, — we 
 had crossed the Hasbana — one of the sources of Jordan, 
 a cold mountain stream roaring down over its rocks like a 
 Swiss torrent, a most welcome sight and carrying with it a 
 whiff of the pure mountain air. We had lunched under fig 
 trees within earshot of the roar of Jordan's main stream 
 issuing from its cave — and were close under the fine castled 
 hill of Banias — the ancient Caesarea PhiHppi — when lo ! 
 behold the clouds vanished and from the west, chasing them 
 before him, came the cool sea breeze. It was wonderful
 
 64 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 the effect on one's spirits, and how the colour of everything 
 changed under the old cloudless blue we had learned to 
 associate with the East. Behind, like a nightmare, lay Galilee 
 and Huleh, before us the heights of Hermon and the charm 
 of Damascus. If you want to see Galilee, look down on it 
 from the heights, but do not go down to the lake itself.* 
 After lunch we strolled up and examined the actual source 
 of the river that over two weeks before we had seen flowing 
 into the Dead Sea. It was issuing from a number of shallow 
 caves at the foot of a limestone crag in a lovely wooded glen. 
 Above on the rock face were two niches, Greek — dedicated 
 to the god Pan. This spot, and no wonder, had impressed 
 the ancients. The water was icy cold. The Philosopher 
 bathed in it and came out gasping in half-a-minute. Less 
 venturesome I only dipped my head in it, and withdrew it 
 dizzy and aching. It was a refreshing contrast to the warm, 
 slimy water of Galilee. And so we passed out of Palestine 
 zig-zagging up, up, in magnificent air, and with widening views 
 over the Galilean hills — up, up, till the valleys became rocky 
 and bare, and the snow on Hermon seemed close too. Half- 
 an-hour's climb above, and finally breasting a ridge of rock 
 we came on a mountain valley under Hermon's very crown, 
 and there were our tents pitched by the village of Mejdel esh 
 Shems, between 3,000 and 4,000 feet above the sea. The air 
 was magnificent, and we noticed at once the difference in the 
 people. Down in Galilee and Huleh they were a poor, fever- 
 stricken set of people with no go about them — here the children 
 were romping about the green — the men were fine and sturdy, 
 and the women good-looking and with plenty of colour in 
 their cheeks. We went to bed with all our available rugs, 
 etc., pressed into the service, and a hot water bottle was 
 actually a comfort. Temperature at night 47° F. 
 
 * The account of the Lake of Galilee is a warning against Europeans 
 visiting it so late as May. In the earlier spring it may give very diff- 
 erent impressions, and leave memories of great and attractive beauty. 
 Sails on the lake have been a crowning enjoyment to some of J.W. R.'s 
 kinsfolk. — Ed.
 
 PALESTINE NOTES. 65 
 
 Saturday, May 18th. — We woke immensely refreshed 
 by a really good night, to hear a rather queer tale from John. 
 Mejdel esh Shems is a Druse village, and four days previously 
 a Druse had murdered the son of a Kurdish village sheikh, 
 at Artuz, on our way to Damascus. The Druses had been 
 behaving badly, driving off cattle, etc., and the Kurds would 
 have no more of it, and were out on the war- trail, sworn to 
 kill every Druse they could get. Moreover, an American 
 had been robbed on this very route a little while ago. The 
 awkwardness of it all lay in the constitution of our party. 
 Two of our muleteers happened to be Druses from this very 
 village. However, we decided to travel with the baggage 
 and to disguise the Druses — and accordingly set out, a large 
 and imposing party. As a matter of fact, all we saw of the 
 disturbed state of things was an armed Druse sentry silent 
 on the hill-slope as we descended the pass, and a troop of 
 Turkish cavalry sent out to restore order. Nevertheless, 
 the incident was very suggestive. The state of things in Old 
 Testament times was after all very similar to this. 
 
 [The travellers visited Damascus and Baalbec, and returned 
 by way of the Friends' Mission at Brumana.]
 
 PHOTOGRAPHING POMPEH. 
 
 You must understand that at Naples I had with me a 
 companion both charming and witty. He had only one fault. 
 He was an amateur photographer. Perhaps I must not blame 
 him. In these days of Weissmann and Romanes we trace 
 everything to heredity. We don't blame, we never get 
 angry, we only murmur " poor feUow," and sincerely pity. 
 Perhaps some primeval protozoa had indefinable yearnings 
 somewhere in his body to perpetuate for posterity the dear 
 lineaments of his brother jelly fishes, and it may well be that 
 through aeons of days this yearning crystallised into the 
 concrete photographic brain. This, of course, is a process for 
 which my friend was not responsible. It was lovely weather 
 We had knocked off Rome in the early morning. Not built 
 in a day, they say, but it had revealed its charms to us in an 
 hour, and in the afternoon we were on the threshold of the 
 City of the Dead. 
 
 Still in the narrow, untenanted streets, as narrow as our 
 Shambles, York, or at best as broad as High Petergate, you may 
 trace the ruts of the chariot wheels, and picture to yourself 
 what grand old rows there must have been between the Pom- 
 peian cabbies as to right of way, richer perhaps in gesture, 
 but surely not in fertility of speech than their contemporaries 
 in London town. 
 
 But the quaint little wine and oil shops, with their marble 
 slabs pierced with round holes for the cool stone jars, the 
 mosaic shop signs, the shocking depravity of brick fluted 
 columns covered with cement — shams even in ancient Pompeii 
 — the real lead pipes in the baths pro\ang how ancient and 
 respectable is the plumber (heredity again) — the perfectly 
 
 66
 
 PHOTOGRAPHING POMPEH. 67 
 
 preserved baths — all these wonders fished out of the lava 
 deeps were only so much stock in trade for my friend the 
 amateur. 
 
 Think how much fine writing I might indulge in. Here 
 you have all the material for effective rhodomontade. The 
 roofless houses, the blue Italian sky, the everlasting hills, 
 the shortness of human life, the swiftness of Nemesis, the 
 threatening curl of volcanic smoke, like the growl of a watch- 
 dog only half asleep (though I am not sure of the likeness 
 between a curl of smoke and a watch-dog's growl !) 
 
 The sleep of ages in the grey enveloping dust — the 
 deserted barracks of the gladiators — the arena where they 
 fought and died — the dumb testimony to a gay, luxurious 
 life, petrified now in the remains which still seem to writhe 
 under their glass lids in the museum. 
 
 It is a splendid opportunity ; but I shall have to forego 
 it. That is the curse of photography ! when you would be 
 poetic, the camera with its hard matter of fact nature, single- 
 eyed to photographic effect, dispels the fairy vision, and with 
 its sharp cUck, frightens the fluttering Nine back to their 
 Olympian home. 
 
 For the whole of a long hot afternoon our amateur 
 toiled on. He was very diligent. He climbed up impossible 
 ways, up dangerous, crumbling walls, and fixed his little 
 instrument with skill, first for this, and then that panorama. 
 
 He was very careful. How he calculated the time 
 exposure in all the difficult circumstances, how he watched 
 the direction of the sunlight, how he sought for fine effects 
 of light and shade. 
 
 He was after all a master, this amateur, and the proud 
 consciousness that comes with the mastery of art lit up his 
 face, as he threw himself into the work with his whole soul. 
 
 Particularly do I remember the elaborate operations in 
 a certain Pompeian garden. But recently discovered, and 
 only half excavated, emerging from the dust and scoriae, 
 which had so long covered the bright mosaic like a pall, the
 
 68 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 wall decorations — the marble carvings in their freshness were 
 strikingly suggestive of the bygone days. 
 
 The picture was worth securing ; the classic foreground, 
 the heaps of grey ash still concealing half the mosaic designs, 
 the loud-voiced Yankee's impious inquiries from a world 
 which knows not yet the mellowing influences and sobriety 
 of age. 
 
 This was to be the amateur's masterpiece, and when at 
 last we found ourselves in the train, coasting the bay, and 
 nearing the twinkling lights of Naples, it was not to be 
 wondered at that I was treated to a retrospect of the labours 
 by which an amateur becomes a master. Solemnly was I 
 warned of the pitfalls besetting the unwary footsteps of the 
 tjTo. I was properly humbled, both at the magnitude of the 
 enterprise if I aspired thereto, and the height of the pinnacle 
 from which my friend looked down. 
 
 It was somewhat unfortunate, indeed very unfortunate, 
 that on arriving at the hotel, our friend, the amateur, found 
 he had made a little omission. 
 
 He had in fact, forgotten to put any films into his camera, 
 and I am given to understand that without films photographs 
 are apt to be obscure.
 
 MEXICO AND THE WEST. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 A delightful diary remains of a journey in 1898 to 
 the West Indies and Mexico, and back by the United States. 
 John Wilhelm Rowntree (who was greatly in need of a 
 holiday) was accompanied by his wife, and friend, Lawrence 
 Richardson. The tour was evidently a time of great refresh- 
 ment. Some extracts from the journal referring to Mexico, 
 and the crossing over to the United States will give a fair 
 idea of its descriptive power.
 
 MEXICO AND THE WEST. 
 
 The travellers, after visiting Trinidad, the Barbadoes and 
 Jamaica, "of all the islands the most delightful," sailed for 
 Mexico. They arrived at the City of Mexico on the 13th 
 March, 1898. 
 
 The journal proceeds : — 
 
 Our chief delight this first day was an extensive indulgence 
 at the barber's shop. After the heat and dust of two days' 
 travel, a haircut and shampoo are bliss unspeakable. The 
 only fly in the ointment was the publicity of the whole pro- 
 ceeding, the barber's shop opening on to the street direct, 
 and the chairs being only just inside the arch. A man feels 
 an ignominious reptile when lathered up to the nose, and left 
 thus by the barber for the sport of the passers-by ! 
 
 From the barber's we passed to the Bank. Were there 
 letters ? Yes ! After that Mexico City was a matter of 
 indifference to us, and we retired to the hotel with our spoil, 
 spending the afternoon \vriting, reading letters, and unpacking, 
 and doing all those hundred little things which people call 
 " settling in." 
 
 Mexico City is in some ways disappointing. Evidently 
 every year will lessen its picturesqueness. American in- 
 fluence is everywhere apparent, and is bringing Mexico down 
 to the dead level of what we call " civilisation." This level- 
 ling process is really very serious. The world won't be nearly 
 as interesting to our children and children's children as it is 
 now. Here, in the far west, the same destruction of indi- 
 viduality which I have seen going on at Damascus and Cairo 
 is visibly at work. The sombrero is yielding place to the 
 bowler and tall hat, the serape to the overcoat, and already 
 
 71
 
 72 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 the well-to-do Mexican ladies, with the rare exception of an 
 ancient Conservative dame, are yielding to the seductions 
 of Paris, and abandoning the becoming mantilla. We heard 
 Carracas called the Paris of South America. Judging by the 
 buildings newly erected and in course of construction, the 
 Mexicans seem anxious to win for their city the title of the 
 Paris of Central America. The same debased — debauched is 
 really more expressive — Renaissance mars every street. The 
 Rue de Rivoli seems destined to be repeated from Damas- 
 cus to the farthest west. Won't it be a duU world when all 
 this is accomplished ? However, there are some lovely 
 bits which will take a good deal of spoiling. The Jockey 
 Club in the Calle San Francisco, of which for the nonce L. R. 
 and myself have been appointed honorary members, with full 
 opportunity of gambling away our substance in baccarat, — 
 is a glorious old building in blue and white tiles, over a hundred 
 years old, and with a grand central court. This, with its 
 tiled basin and plashing fountain, we have secured in a couple 
 of photos, which will describe better than pen and ink. Not 
 far off in the same street is the Hotel Iturbide, an old palace 
 with a wonderful array of elaborate waterspouts, and a f agade 
 the style of which it would be difficult to locate. 
 
 March lyth. — I only wish I could give you some clear 
 idea of all we have seen, and especially of the wonderful 
 brilliance of the colouring. Please remember, when you are 
 wading through my dreary descriptions of tramcar rides and 
 Cathedrals, that the reality was infinitely interesting. First 
 of all, there is the brilliant and incessant sunshine. I have 
 been able to dispense with my sunshade because I have become 
 acclimatised, but I have not yet dared to discard my double 
 Terai hat in the fierce blaze of the Mexican sun. And sun- 
 shine in Mexico is something altogether different from sunshine 
 in York. Strong colour in the tiles which glitter on the Church 
 domes, or which adorn the facades of the houses, is not out of
 
 MEXICO AND THE WEST. 73 
 
 place ; on the contrary, very effective, in the sharp, clear 
 light. You get colour effects quite foreign (I do not say 
 superior) to those in England — effects which, while they lack 
 the soft greys and atmospheric haziness of an English lands- 
 scape, have a charm and interest of their own. 
 
 Every day when you awake, and draw aside your window 
 curtain, there is the same cloudless blue — the same brilliant 
 colour, the same glare of the white houses, and the same sharp- 
 ness of the black shadows, the same emphasised distinctness, 
 even of distant architectural details. There is a sense of 
 perpetual summer, which is certainly an unwonted experience ; 
 and I want you to remember that all I have described, except 
 where I particularise to the contrary, must be understood as 
 taking place or being seen under such cloudless skies and bril- 
 liant sun. But, even more than the sunshine, there is the 
 ever present human interest. I tell you that we take cars 
 to San Angel, and come back by Coyoacan and Tlalpam, 
 but that is simply a skeleton truth, and it is, alas, impossible 
 to clothe it in flesh and blood. The people in the car, on the 
 road, in the villages, are an interest and a sight in themselves. 
 Any car ride will do, any objective may be selected ; the 
 scenes by the wayside are sure to make the excursion interest- 
 ing. Here goes a waggon, drawn, not by two oxen, but by 
 two bulls, helpless under their heavy yoke. By their side 
 runs a little copper-coloured fellow in a shirt that barely 
 reaches below his armpits, his frowsy head decorated by two 
 sombreros, one on top of t'other. He carries an ox-goad, 
 with which he pricks up the team with zest, turning his black, 
 bead-like eyes on you as you pass, and flashing a smile with 
 his white teeth. In the waggon with its solid wood wheels, 
 more square than round — roofed with rushes, squats the 
 mother, dressed in a low-cut white chemise and blue gown — 
 a tiny little baby at her breast. Sprawling by her is the baby 
 next in age, deep black eyes, towsled hair, scanty little smock, 
 bare, fat brown legs, and a grave philosophical look on its 
 little face. By their side sits the father, a big, burly Indian,
 
 74 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 with a short, thick, black beard, tall sombrero ; wrapped in 
 his scarlet serape, beneath which peeps his white trousers, 
 and bare dusty feet. Or again, here are two Spaniards — 
 pasty-faced, smartly dressed, with black sombreros and tight 
 trousers. See them meet, how they fall on each other's necks 
 literally, and clasp each other round the waist. See them 
 sway to and fro ! Are they wrestling ? No ! only embracing 
 each other. Now they slap each other on the back, and then, 
 they are separating, but not without a kiss on either cheek. 
 And what is this ? A funeral procession of tramcars ? Even 
 so. In Mexico, the heaviest merchandise is conveyed in 
 tram rulleys, and the deceased rides to the cemetery in a 
 funeral tramcar, which he enjoys all to himself, — the ordinary 
 plumed, glazed affair, only on rails. And he is followed by 
 his sorrowing friends, in other private tramcars. Truly, it 
 is a City of tramcars, this ! And here along the pavement, 
 see these women and girls squatting before their wares. 
 Look at that basket of greenhouse flowers — at those piles of 
 fruit — golden oranges, red bananas (Mexican bananas are 
 red when ripe), dark brown sapotes, golden melons, great 
 dark green water-melons, piles of red tomatoes — such a size ! 
 and a hundred other fruits besides ; whal splashes of rich 
 colour beside the dusty footpath. See the candle-seller in his 
 serape and sombrero, with a great stick balanced over his 
 shoulders, and dozens and dozens of candles thereon for sale. 
 If they are as good as Mexican matches, they are very good 
 indeed. Mexican vestas are long, and strike at both ends — 
 a great economy. 
 
 You really " borrow " a match here, for in Mexico, the 
 unused end is returned with a bow to the owner. And there 
 is a water carrier. Watch him with his load ; see the band 
 across his forehead, attached to the barrel on his back. They 
 must have strong necks, these Mexicans, for this is their 
 favourite way of carrying things. I have seen the cargadores 
 (porters) carry my heaviest trunk, containing books, just this 
 way, and it is a trunk that takes two of us to lift. And so I
 
 MEXICO AND THE WEST. 75 
 
 might go on, first with this, then that, street scene. They 
 leave a vivid impression of picturesque colour and costume, 
 of movement and life. The variety of types, from the pure 
 Castillian, with his steely blue eyes and light hair, to the dark 
 peon — there is every shade of difference, every degree of blood. 
 And now and then across the stage, one sees a group of noisy 
 Americans, people who chip bark off the Noche Triste tree, 
 and guess they are going to whop Spain, and less often the 
 silent and dignified Englishman, with his solid air of business. 
 Yes! my journal may be uninteresting, but Mexico, with its 
 sunshine and its people, its many races and its teeming life, 
 is just the reverse. 
 
 CROSSING THE FRONTIER. 
 
 The difference between the left and right bank of the 
 Rio Grande is real and profound. The first evidence of change 
 came while we were yet in the train passing over. Instead 
 of the gentle, smiling, accommodating " devil-may-care,-for-I- 
 don't," official of Mexico, a brisk peremptory gentleman 
 bustles into the car. Where are you from ? Guadalajara ! 
 Before that ? Mexico ! Before that ? Puebla ! Been in Vera 
 Cruz ? Yes, last month ! Will you swear to that ? Sign 
 your names h^re, and, with an abrupt movement, this official 
 leaves us to interrogate someone else. They, alas, prove to 
 be a family of Cuban refugees. A lady, who looked very ill, 
 a tired pathetic looking figure, her husband, a lady friend, 
 and two children. They had come direct from Vera Cruz. Then 
 you must go into quarantine till April 23rd ! Poor things ! 
 they were in a great way, but there was no help for it. Uncle 
 Sam had decreed, and they must obey. We were indeed 
 fortunate that our visit to Vera Cruz had been in March ; 
 otherwise we should have been compelled to join the Cuban 
 refugees. 
 
 Then came the examination — polite, but severe, with a 
 heavy duty on the curios of over a sovereign. Uniforms
 
 76 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 are at a discount in the U.S.A. The only means by which 
 it was possible to detect a Customs' Officer was by the peremp- 
 tory fashion in which certain well-dressed gentlemen de- 
 manded to see the inside of our trunks. 
 
 Strolling about outside our train, I found that the 
 Pullman had been hitched on to a train of the Southern 
 Pacific Company, which has a legend "The Sunset Route" 
 emblazoned on all its freight cars. I noticed, with sorrow, 
 what I am proud to say you do not see in the British West 
 Indies, that some of the cars had painted metal notices " for 
 NEGROES," and others " for whites." The nigger is 
 not allowed to travel with the white. The waiting-rooms 
 are even more offensively marked " ladies," " gentle- 
 men," " coloured people." I suppose coloured people 
 are never ladies or gentlemen. It is strange that I, 
 an Englishman, from a benighted country, which still supports 
 such a mediaeval institution as a monarchy, should find my 
 first sentiment on the Republican and free soil of the States 
 to be one of indignation at the insulting inequality and 
 injustice to a coloured race, who are yet, on paper, free and 
 equal citizens with the whites. On the platform, everyone 
 was discussing the War. News had arrived that the United 
 States troops were ordered to concentrate in Florida, and the 
 Eagle Pass garrison was preparing to leave. There seemed con- 
 siderable interest, but, on the whole, sentiment seemed 
 opposed to war. This we found to be the case till we got to 
 Chicago ; but, of course, casual conversations are apt to lead 
 to incorrect deductions when taken as applying wholesale. 
 On leaving Eagle Pass, the country for the first hour or two 
 was in no way different to that over the border. Flat, over- 
 grown with scrub, occasional cactus, and little cultivation — 
 but, by degrees, changes crept in, and when we reached San 
 Antonio, about 7 p.m. (Central time and one hour later than 
 Mexican time) the evidences of cultivation were frequent. 
 Here, we had two hours and a half for dinner, and oh ! what 
 a difference ! ! Stepping outside the station, we found our-
 
 MEXICO AND THE WEST. 77 
 
 selves in a long street of irregular wooden houses, mostly 
 shops ; no style about them, and no continuity in design or 
 arrangement, but attractive and clean looking, at any rate. 
 An American street, side by side with, say, a street in Berlin, 
 is a revelation of the national character. Hasty, loose- 
 jointed, ephemeral, utilitarian, individualistic, each house built 
 by itself in a style of its own, without regard for its neighbour — 
 the individualism of American Republicanism stamped upon 
 it. In Berlin, the heavy solid stone and dull ponderous 
 Renaissance of an entire street in line, and in complete sup- 
 pression of individualism — there you have the solid, military, 
 dragooned state of the Old World, in contrast with the free, 
 untrammelled licence of the New. 
 
 We took an electric car to the Menger Hotel, going at a 
 rate which would make sleepy York citizens sit up in amaze- 
 ment, and set them all writing to the Herald in shocked protest. 
 There is a reckless go and energy about these Americans, that 
 is highly exhilarating, especially when you have been lulled 
 into a sweet sleep for weeks, in man ana land. They drive 
 their cars through crowded streets at ten, fifteen, twenty 
 miles an hour ; though they do put a cow-catcher on to 
 prevent you getting run over. 
 
 Our road lay between pleasant wooden, two storied villas 
 — all lit with electric light, judging from what we could see — 
 and all standing in their gardens, open to the street. On the 
 inevitable Piazza were rockers — the inevitable rockers, a 
 luxury we have only to experience to adopt also. Thin- 
 wheeled buggies, with fast trotting horses, kept passing us — 
 everything fast. It was like a tonic to be back in a country 
 where time seemed to have money value. 
 
 NEW ORLEANS. 
 
 April iSth.—To tell the truth, we were glad to get out, 
 as our cheeks had had occasion to change colour at breakfast. 
 On our arrival the night before, two reporters had attacked us. 
 To the first we were brief — to the second even briefer. Our
 
 78 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 horror on seeing the morning papers, however, was consider- 
 able. My wife, who never said a word, was reported to have 
 been very pleased with New Orleans ; though she had been 
 in the City only twenty minutes, and had arrived after dark ! 
 I was reported to have made some swashbuckling statement 
 to the effect that if America wanted us in the War, we were 
 there and ready, the ground for which statement being the 
 following. Is English sentiment with us ? To which I 
 replied that I had been from England some months, but I 
 had no doubt the English people were with the United States 
 of America, even if certain newspapers were not. L. R. and 
 myself had also been made to deliver our souls through a 
 quarter of a column in a manner we did not recognise as our 
 own, and for the substance of which not the slightest material 
 was afforded in the brief conversation. So much for American 
 journalism. A question put to L. R. as to where we came 
 from, drew from him the answer " Mexico," a further question 
 the explanation that we had come via the West Indies — no, 
 not on business — mental deduction of the reporter, whom 
 we had tried to suppress, took unpleasant shape in the 
 following statement : " Two wealthy Englishmen are visiting 
 this City." It was some time before we could see the humour 
 of the thing. All hotel arrivals are chronicled in this fashion, 
 so we were not conspicuous, fortunately.
 
 PART II. 
 ADULT SCHOOL NOTES, ADDRESSES, &c.
 
 ADULT SCHOOL NOTES, ADDRESSES, &c. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 An attempt was made to get some of the notes of these 
 addresses ampHfied by those who had Hstened to them, but it 
 was found that it would be impossible to do this with justice 
 to the speaker. When he got into touch with his audience, 
 he would often leave his notes altogether ; his stories, flashes 
 of humour, personal experiences, and most earnest appeals 
 would become fused as it were into one whole, and no one 
 now could hope to bring them to life again as they then poured 
 from his lips. 
 
 Several skeleton notes of such addresses are given, as 
 prepared by his hand. Some of the fuller discourses were 
 given to evening audiences, and not as Adult School lessons.
 
 THE WILDERNESS AND GLORY. 
 
 THIRTY-FIFTH CHAPTER OF ISAIAH. 
 
 (Revised Version.) 
 
 In two verses we have mentioned, 
 
 Wilderness, 
 
 Glory of Lebanon, 
 
 Excellency of Carmel and Sharon. 
 
 This brings to mind the fact that great extremes of climate 
 
 and scenery exist side by side within a very small area. 
 Only at most two days ride from Jerusalem rises Mount Ebal, 
 
 just over 3,000 feet. 
 View : — Lebanon. 
 Carmel. 
 
 Golden strip of sand to south of Jaffa. 
 Hill tops beyond Hebron. 
 Hills overlooking Damascus. 
 Wall of Moab. 
 '''Glory of Lebanon " an apt phrase. Jebel Libnan culminates 
 
 near Damascus in Jebel Makmal, 10,016 feet high. 
 " Thy nose is like the tower of Lebanon that looketh towards 
 
 Damascus." 
 Snows, deep-cut gorges, steep sides, as seen from humid 
 
 Beirut. 
 Orontes and Litany. 
 Excellency of Carmel. 
 Contrast to plain of Esdraelon. 
 Sirocco. " A dry wind by the high places in the wilderness 
 
 towards the daughter of my people, neither to fan nor 
 
 to cleanse." 
 
 83
 
 84 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Temperature in tent. Bare unsheltered plain. 
 
 Salt smell so grateful. Sea breezes and vegetation. 
 
 " Thine head upon thee is like Carmel." 
 
 Carmel i,8oo feet above Esdraelon, 400 feet at the sea. 
 
 In Tacitus' time, an altar to the God of Carmel. 
 
 Pear, pine, wild almond, oak and vines, wild olive, arbutus, 
 carob, box, myrtle, juniper and thorn. 
 
 Leopards and deer in the undergrowth. 
 
 A green spot in summer when all else is arid and burnt up. 
 
 But variety best shown in journey across Sharon, via Jeru- 
 salem to Jericho and Moabite range. Total distance, 
 seventy miles. 
 
 1. Sharon, orange groves, wheat fields, palms, shadoofs 
 
 (Egyptian delta). 
 
 2. Shephelah. Scenery of Southern Europe. 
 
 3. Judean uplands ; like Central Germany. Shepherds 
 in sheepskins, stone roofs, snow deep in winter. 
 
 4. Yet from Mount of Olives you see into Jordan valley, and 
 Dead Sea lies in shimmering veil of intense heat. 
 
 5. Lift eyes to Belka. Moab, " where cold is always at 
 home." 
 
 (Table-land of Arabia not hot. Strong frosts in November. 
 Ice has been met with as late as March in Gilead and 
 temperature in air 38° F. Arab poets fond of applying 
 epithet " cool-blowing." Romans called land beyond 
 Jordan " Palestina Salutaris.") 
 
 Own experience in April. Fires at Jerusalem, rugs in bed 
 and bed- warmers ; at Jericho over 90° F. 
 
 Picture the desert — Marsaba and Judean Jungle. 
 
 Interesting to note how climate and lie and shape of land 
 influenced history and moulded the character of the 
 people. 
 
 Philistia — gave the name to the country, yet where are the 
 Philistines — they occupied the plain luxuriant and fertile, 
 but they did not place their stamp on the world. 
 
 Armies of Egypt and Assyria passing over from time to time.
 
 THE WILDERNESS AND GLORY. 85 
 
 Samaria more open and fertile than Judea, but not there 
 that we must seek the people who gave character 
 to the history of Palestine. Open valleys too easy to 
 attack. 
 
 It is to Judea that we must look. Here was the great city 
 of the Jews. An unlikely place. Difficulty of water. 
 Height above sea, 2,500 feet, 3,700 above Dead 
 Sea. Impression on riding from Jericho. Here, on a 
 desert plateau so unsuited for the purpose, " She arose, 
 who more than Athens and more than Rome taught 
 the nations civic justice, and gave her name to the ideal 
 city men are ever striving to build on earth, to the City 
 of God that shall one day descend from Heaven — the 
 New Jerusalem." 
 
 Contrast degraded Bedanese of Jericho with Judean Shepherd. 
 " In such a landscape as Judea where a day's pasture is 
 scattered thinly over an un fenced tract of country, 
 covered with delusive paths still frequented by wild 
 beasts, and rolling off into the desert, the man and his 
 character are indispensable. On some high moor across 
 which at night the hyenas howl, when you meet him, 
 sleepless, far-sighted, weather-beaten, armed, leaning on 
 his staff, and looking over his scattered sheep, every one 
 of them in his heart, you understand why the Shepherd 
 of Judea sprang to the front in his peoples' history ; 
 why they gave his name to their king and made him the 
 S5nnbol of Providence ; why Christ took him as the type 
 of self-sacrifice." 
 
 Many of us have to live on barren uplands and look with 
 longing on the luxuriant plains of Sharon, the easy tillage 
 of Jordan, but it may be that the very hmitations and 
 deprivations we complain of are our salvation, and 
 the very means of our progress. 
 
 Clever boy at school versus dull boy. 
 
 Man with a library and all opportunities of leisure. 
 
 Life is not so much a question of means as of men.
 
 86 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Without the Spirit of God expressing itself in us as a solemn 
 determination to win our spurs in the battle of life, the 
 best means are worth little and poorest become mighty, 
 
 " You may see thousands with every opportunity of im- 
 provement which wealth can gather, with teachers, 
 libraries and apparatus, bringing nothing to pass, and 
 others with few helps doing wonders, and simply because 
 the latter are in earnest and the former not. A man in 
 earnest finds means, or if he cannot find, creates them. 
 A vigorous purpose makes much out of httle, breathes 
 power into weak instruments, disarms difficulties and 
 even turns them into assistances." Every condition 
 has means of progress if we have spirit enough to use 
 them. 
 
 Judea barren now. First portrait, but read Gen. xlix. 
 
 " Binding to the vine his foal. 
 
 And to the choice vine his ass's colt, 
 
 He has washed in wine his raiment. 
 
 And in the blood of the grape his vesture. 
 
 Heavy in the eyes from wine. 
 
 And white of teeth from milk." 
 
 Evidence of return. Perseverance wins this vegetation from 
 barren soil. 
 
 And so to those on the barren moorland of a limited life, if 
 they realise it is a sacred burden, the life they bear, we 
 shall find their " desert rejoice and blossom as the rose." 
 
 " Glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it — the excellency 
 of Carmel and Sharon. 
 
 The eyes of the blind man shall be opened, 
 
 The lame one leap as an hart, 
 
 The glowing sand shall become a pool, and a way of holiness 
 made, in which even fools shall not err, and we shall 
 come "with singing unto Zion, everlasting joy upon our 
 heads, and we shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow 
 and sighing shall flee away."
 
 A LAST CENTURY LESSON. 
 
 [January 6th, 1901. Leeman Road and Acomb.] 
 
 Mark vi. 25-46. 
 
 Discuss verses. (Introductory). 
 
 Withdrawal, not of sympathy, but of self. 
 
 Need, amid thronging events, for retirement. 
 
 Mount Hermon, uplands, Hauran, the lake, the twinkling 
 lights of cities by the sea. 
 
 Panorama — spiritual panorama. 
 
 In the stillness and hush of the solemn mountains, the com- 
 mune with God, the clear vision of His will and purpose. 
 
 Such opportunities are needful to all men. 
 
 The beginning of a new century is an opportunity for retire- 
 ment to the mountain for prayer. 
 
 It does not necessarily close or open an epoch. Eighteenth 
 century lived on to the thirties, next epoch closed in the 
 eighties. 
 
 But seeing there are such occasions, may as well use them, 
 even if artificial. 
 
 Draw first two brief contrasts — religious and social. 
 I. — Social. 
 
 Gradual deterioration since Elizabeth. 
 
 Improvement in middle of eighteenth century. 
 
 Two important changes. 
 
 War. 
 
 Industrial Revolution. 
 
 Chronic scarcity and growing pauperism. 
 Wheat, io8s. per quarter, 1795. 
 
 87
 
 88 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Enclosure system — evictions. 
 
 Act of Elizabeth. One cottage — four acres of land, repealed. 
 
 Succession of Poor Law Acts. 
 
 Resulted in half wage being paid by landowner, and half by 
 State. 
 
 Cottages pulled down, threw inmates on poor-rate, and so 
 reduced wages. 
 
 Labourers were often discharged to reduce them to paupers 
 and then hired back on above terms. 
 
 Weekly sale of labour. Ten men for 5s. This from 1795 to 
 1834. 
 
 1800. Combination Act. Absolutely forbad any combina- 
 tion for higher wages or fewer hours. The working 
 class was unrepresented. 
 
 Even the Reform Bill merely gave more power to the upper 
 and middle classes. 
 
 The golden age of the capitalist. 
 
 Napoleonic wars cost £800,000,000. 
 
 Everything was taxed, even bricks, stones, glass, hats, etc. 
 
 Food was dear. In these terrible circumstances of war, 
 heavy taxation and pauperism, modern industry had 
 birth. 
 
 England had the monopoly. English spinners clothed Na- 
 poleon's Moscow army. 
 
 Factories sprang up like mushrooms. No restraint. 
 
 Riots to destroy machinery in 1812-16-26. 
 
 Punished by hangings. 
 
 Spinning by machinery in 1800. Not till 1840 that weaving 
 machines seriously threatened handlooms. 
 
 Use of workhouse children. Nominally apprenticed. One 
 idiot in twenty. Worked sixteen hours a day. On 
 Sundays cleaned machinery. Kept to work under the 
 lash. Slept in relays in beds never cool. Chained 
 to prevent escape. Buried at night in waste ground 
 to avoid comment when they died. This lasted till 
 1840.
 
 A LAST CENTURY LESSON. 89 
 
 Children sold by starving parents. 1815, Bankrupt's effects 
 included gang of children who were put up to sale as 
 his effects. 
 
 September 29th, 1830, Oastler's letter to Leeds Mercury, 
 challenging statement that no slave could breathe on 
 English soil. 
 
 Development of agitation and legislation. 
 
 Franchise, education, material improvements of travel, 
 three days versus three hours to London, telegraph, gas, 
 electricity. 
 
 Cheapening and freedom of press. (Once a tax of 4d. on 
 each paper). Sydney Webb has drawn impressive 
 picture of the change. 
 
 1851, amalgamation of engineering societies gave great impetus. 
 
 Now 1,800,000 members of trade unions and 3^ millions of 
 money. 
 
 In 1844, industrial co-operation, founded by Robert Owen 
 earlier in century, took proper root among Rochdale 
 weavers. 
 
 Now Balloon Street does 75 millions of annual trade. Manu- 
 factures 12 millions annually in its factories, has its 
 own ships importing direct from America, Australia, 
 Asia and Europe. Along with this a remarkable series, 
 however imperfect, of factory acts, employers' liability 
 acts, etc. Still Sir Robert Giffen tells us that 8 milUons 
 live in England under 20s. per week per family standard. 
 
 Turn briefly to religion. 
 
 Calvinism — almost universal in influence. 
 
 Election and rejection. God as a Grand Turk. Hell fires. 
 
 Rousseau and French Revolution. 
 
 Robert Burns' " A man's a man for a' that." 
 
 Calvinism — a religion of privilege. 
 
 Is God's action independent of morality ? 
 
 Darwin and Evolution. 
 
 Ideas in melting-pot. Escape from a gloomy creed had 
 not yet led us to accept positive faith.
 
 90 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Calvinist firmness and purpose needed now amid seductions 
 of the world. 3,328,000 sermons a week but little effect. 
 Town life and break down of Sunday. Effect on character 
 serious. Mafficking, etc., not solely caused by the war, 
 but signs of a growing frivolity. 
 
 Uncertainty of outlook. 
 
 Rule over 400,000,000 persons. Football, Sport, Comic 
 papers. Imperialism, — i.e. bigness. Bishop of Hereford 
 on little nations. Greece. Athens smaller than the County 
 of Glamorgan. 
 
 " Her citizens; imperial spirits. 
 Rule the present from the past,- 
 On all this world of men inherits 
 Their seal is set." 
 
 Florence smaller than Bolton ; Venice smaller than Salford. 
 Impossible to say what is to be the line of progress. Some 
 
 say democracy — some say not. One thing clear. 
 Decline of British supremacy in Trade, — greatness shall not 
 
 rest on bigness. America produces double iron and 
 
 steel of England. Last year her coal output exceeded 
 
 ours. Other nations making their own, and improving 
 
 quality. 
 On what shall our national greatness rest ? On character. 
 Personal thoughts. 
 Whatever factory legislation, etc., may do — it can do nothing 
 
 unless character is ennobled. 
 Individual part — clean life. 
 Kindness to wife and bairns, etc. 
 In this sense take the opportunity, now that the evening 
 
 of the old century has come, and go up alone into the 
 
 mountain and pray.
 
 RIGHT AND WRONG WAYS OF 
 SEPARATION. 
 
 Matthew vi. 5-18 (especially 16, 17, 18) ; Mark ii. 15-28. 
 
 Contrast between John the Baptist and Christ. Tendency 
 
 shown to forget contrast. 
 Hermits, Monks, Nuns. 
 A right and a wrong way of separating ourselves from the 
 
 world. Quite possible to make the mistake of the 
 
 monastic orders in principle, with different practice. 
 One can quite understand that, by almost unconscious degrees, 
 
 those who see clearly the sin and sorrow of the world in 
 
 sharp contrast to its heartlessness and gaiety, may grow 
 
 morbid and take exaggerated and gloomy views. 
 Asceticism — denying art, literature, etc., reading only the 
 
 Bible, suspecting any harmless pleasure because we 
 
 hke it. 
 Otherworldliness. Danger of its being unpractical. 
 Howling wilderness theory wrong. 
 Hot-house growth not the desirable thing. 
 Such a thing as artificially forcing the spiritual growth. 
 Ideal : — the oak deep rooted in the soil of God, and weathering 
 
 the storm of the world, not the forced bloom under glass. 
 Open-air faith what is best, both from its greater practical 
 
 vahte and influence, and its greater force in the world 
 
 of thought. 
 A faith afraid to examine its own basis, afraid of criticism, 
 
 that refuses to understand that which it opposes, is not 
 
 a faith destined to conquer the world. 
 
 91
 
 92 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Very necessary to hit the right hne of separation — the right 
 Hne of contact with the world. 
 
 Reaction (undoubtedly). 
 
 We have seen the same thing in history. 
 
 Puritanism and the Restoration. Contrast early Puritanism 
 and later (Col. Hutchinson). 
 
 Calvin played bowls on Sunday. 
 
 We are not going to check the reaction by morbid asceticism 
 or reverting to the narrower view of life. 
 
 As the world grows older the vision of God grows clearer 
 and wider. 
 
 If the Church has in the past failed to satisfy the whole complex 
 nature of man, and to inspire every department of life 
 as she should do, it is not because Christianity is 
 one-sided, but because the vision has not been broad 
 enough. 
 
 The old way the easiest. 
 
 To advance will require not merely broader views of life, 
 but deeper faith in God. The difficulty is that many 
 so-called broad people who are ready to denounce any 
 strong views as narrow and fanatical (and that is the 
 fashion now-a-days), only cloak their own want of prin- 
 ciple in this way. 
 
 Invertebrates. Terribly easy to excuse selfishness this way. 
 
 What then is demanded of us ? Not the wild honey and 
 locusts or camel's hair of the stern ascetic of the desert, 
 but the robe of healing ; the mingling in the crowd with 
 sympathy aiid love. 
 
 Before all let us be sure of our principle — of a firm hold on 
 God, of a fixed purpose in life ; then let us, while yielding 
 nothing of this, join oft in the work of the world and its 
 play too. And not in a censorious spirit — not pitying 
 those we come into contact with. If people say of us 
 " Oh, don't ask him, he will be a wet blanket," there is 
 probably something wrong. Christ wouldn't have been 
 invited if he had been a wet blanket.
 
 RIGHT AND WRONG WAYS OF SEPARATION. 93 
 
 There is need particularly for two things : — Sympathy (deli- 
 cate sense of touch), and a sane, healthy cheerfulness. 
 
 By all means let us look evil bravely in the face. We have 
 no right to blink facts and shut our eyes to sin and sorrow, 
 but let us set over against these a firm faith in God's 
 everlasting love, and fatherhood, and let this faith show 
 itself in ourselves, by unwearying, cheerful service. 
 
 Do not let us be of those who, full of big concerns, leave the 
 little attentions of life as infra dig. " It is but the little- 
 ness of man that seeth no greatness in a trifle." 
 
 Let it be said of us that we make the social air the sweeter 
 for our coming. 
 
 And God's love is wide. Let us beware lest 
 
 " We make His love too narrow 
 By false limits of our own, 
 And we magnify His strictness 
 With a zeal He will not own." 
 
 If we will face the world — with a strong hold on the realities 
 of God, with a deep and intense sympathy for man, 
 we shall yet give to the present time those whom 
 Dr. Maclaren said at Manchester we need — " the still, 
 strong man in a blatant land." 
 
 And that will be a quietness of spirit which will be more 
 fruitful than much fussy agitation (note the calm 
 strength of Jesus). 
 
 Read " Quiet from God." 
 
 "To sojourn in the world and yet apart, 
 
 To dwell with God, and yet with man to feel, 
 To bear about for ever in the heart 
 
 The gladness that His spirit doth reveal. 
 
 Not to deem evil good 
 
 From every earthly scene. 
 To see the storm come on, 
 
 But feel His shield between."
 
 PAUL'S CONVERSION. 
 
 References : — 
 
 Tennyson's "Ancient Sage," p. 550. 
 
 " The shell must break before the bird can fly," and closing 
 stanzas. 
 
 Paul's Conversion. 
 
 I Cor. XV. 8 ; Acts ix. 1-9 ; xxii. 6-1 1 ; xxvi. 12-18 ; Romans 
 vii. 9 ; Gal. 1. 13-15. 
 
 Bruce's " Paul's Conception of Christianity." 
 
 Chap. II. Paul's Religious History, especially pp. 28 and 31-35. 
 
 Weisacher, Vol. I., pp. 79-82. 
 George Fox. "Journal," Vol. I., p. 1 1. 
 
 Ftske. 
 
 " Through Nature to God." The chapter on " The everlasting 
 Reality of Religion," especially pp. 189-191. 
 
 Dr. Hart. 
 
 " The Way, the Truth, the Life," pp. 34-36. 
 
 Quote Tennyson : — 
 
 " The shell must break before the bird can fly; 
 
 . . . but night enough is there ; 
 
 In yon dark city ; get thee back, and since 
 
 The key to that weird casket, which, for thee 
 
 But holds a skull, is neither thine nor mine, 
 
 But in the hand of what is more than man, 
 
 Let be thy wail,- and help thy fellow men, 
 
 And make thy gold thy vassal, not thy king. 
 
 And fling free alms into the beggar's bowl. 
 
 And send the day into the darken' d heart ; 
 
 Nor list for guerdon in the voice of men, 
 
 A dying echo from a falling wall ; 
 
 Nor care — for hunger hath the Evil eye — 
 
 To vex the noon with fiery gems, or fold 
 
 Thy presence in the silk of sumptuous looms ; 
 
 Nor roll thy viands on a luscious tongue. 
 
 Nor drown thy self with flies in honeyed wine : 
 
 94
 
 PAUL'S CONVERSION. 95 
 
 Nor thou be rageful, like a handled bee, 
 
 And lose thy life by usage of thy sting ; 
 
 Nor harm an adder through the lust for harm, 
 
 Nor make a snail's horn shrink for wantonness ; 
 
 And more — think well ! Do well will follow thought, 
 
 And in the fatal sequence of this world. 
 
 An evil thought may soil thy children's blood ; 
 
 But, curb the beast would cast thee in the mire, 
 
 And leave the hot swamp of voluptuousness 
 
 A cloud between the Nameless and thyself. 
 
 And lay thine uphill shoulder to the wheel. 
 
 And climb the Mount of Blessing whence, if thou 
 
 Look higher, then— perchance — thou mayest — beyond 
 
 A hundred ever-rising mountain Hnes, 
 
 And past the range of light and shadow — see 
 
 The high-heaven dawn of more than mortal day 
 
 Strike on the Mount of Vision ! 
 
 So, farewell I " 
 
 The words occur as an interruption by the Ancient Sage 
 of verses read by youthful disciple who has spoken of death 
 as that time when 
 
 " the senses break away 
 
 To mix with ancient Night." 
 
 '&' 
 
 The immediate context gives to the words a sense of 
 contradiction by the sage to the thought of extinction at death. 
 
 The whole poem, however, gives the words a deeper 
 meaning. Let us discover what that meaning is. 
 
 A party of riders. Barren scene. Across low, sandy 
 hills, a band of green. One rider pre-occupied. Strong 
 face, earnest eyes. Let us guess that rider's thoughts. 
 Thinking of past history. A long struggle — fruitless — after 
 righteousness. 
 
 He had sought righteousness in the formalities of the 
 Pharisaic law, but he had discovered that real goodness was 
 independent of such external observance — even while sincere. 
 He had been alive apart from the law once, but when he 
 discovered the significance of the command, " Thou shalt 
 not covet," then his hope died in him, for he saw that the 
 law might be faithfully observed, and yet covetousness
 
 96 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 prevail within. Yet he had advanced in the Jew's rehgion, 
 beyond many of his own age. Among his countr5nTien, he 
 was accounted exceedingly zealous for the tradition of the 
 fathers. Yes, his faith in religion was not yet dead. Brought 
 up a virtuoso in Pharisaism, a man of strong will and intense 
 nature, he was not going to abandon the faith lightly. Nay, 
 his anger rose, the more because of his doubts, against the 
 people who troubled the land, the followers of a Nazarene 
 pretender. Beyond measure, he had persecuted them, and 
 as he caught a glimpse of the white houses of Damascus — 
 mere white dots in the distant green — a fierce look comes 
 into his face ; he breathes threatening and slaughter, flashing 
 eyes and clenched hands speak of his passion. 
 
 The orthodox Mohammedan of to-day, intent with the 
 fanatic fury of his race upon the slaughter of Armenian 
 Christians, was not more terrible than Paul at that moment. 
 
 '■Who lights the faggot ? 
 
 Not the full faith ; no, but the lurking doubt." 
 
 Such teaching as that of these followers of Jesus meant 
 the death of the law ; there was no room for Pharisaism if 
 it should prevail. And yet — and yet — had the law given 
 him what he sought ? Was there not even then the dull 
 heartache of unsatisfied longing, for what ? 
 
 Suddenly, there is a light from heaven — it is above the 
 brightness of the midday sun, pouring its relentless rays 
 upon the little party — dazzling the eyes as they looked over 
 the barren, quivering landscape. " Saul, Saul, why perse- 
 cutest thou Me ? It is hard for thee to kick against the 
 goad. It is hard to struggle against thy thoughts." 
 
 The moment for which Saul had been unconsciously 
 preparing had come. Christ, so long an object of earnest 
 thought, was now revealed in him as an object of faith. The 
 fruit had ripened. Men of heroic will and resolute purpose 
 do not easily abandon cherished ideals ; they never seem 
 less like surrendering than just before surrender comes.
 
 PAUL'S CONVERSION. 97 
 
 The surrender had come. The riddle was solved. The 
 Kingdom was within. Not the external law, but the inward 
 Christ. Jesus was the Messiah, — He lived, and Pharisaism 
 was dead. The shell was broken, and the wings stretched 
 for flight. 
 
 But this, you say, is a Bible illustration, it belongs to 
 Bible times — to the days of miracles and wonder-working. 
 It is like a Greek telling of Apollo and Venus and Pallas — 
 mortal men cannot enter into the experience of the Gods. 
 
 Then let us turn to English history. Picture to yourselves 
 a young man, whose face bears the marks of sadness and 
 struggle, for like Paul, tliis young man has known the terror 
 of the Lord. Like Paul, he seeks righteousness, not from 
 the Jewish but from English Pharisees, and he does not find it. 
 He wanders from town to town, is moody and often recluse ; 
 he questions the ministers of religion and he questions in 
 vain. He seeks light among the Dissenters, but at last he 
 abandons the separate preachers, and those called the most 
 experienced people, for there was none among them who could 
 speak to his condition. When all his hope had gone, then, 
 oh then, he heard a voice which said, " There is one, even 
 Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition," and, " when 
 I heard it my heart did leap for joy." 
 
 George Fox, in the wilderness of despair, encounters 
 a bright light, which shines into his soul, and reveals to him 
 in a flash the truth which his spiritual agony had prepared 
 him to receive. 
 
 The shell was broken, and the wings were outstretched 
 for flight. 
 
 First Thought. — Both Fox and Paul seeking righteousness. 
 In neither case did the revelation of Christ come as something 
 independent of their attitude of soul. The revelation was 
 prepared for in both cases by the spiritual struggles of Paul 
 and Fox. In both cases the revelation of Christ in the soul 
 had visible results. Saul, the persecutor, became Paul the 
 Apostle to the Gentiles. Fox, the brooding inquirer, became
 
 98 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 the strenuous evangelist, who cheerfully suffered imprison- 
 ment and persecution. 
 
 The fact that the light that lit up their souls seemed to 
 come suddenly as from outside, and the change which followed, 
 has led us sometimes to forget this preparation, which placed 
 Fox and Paul in such an attitude of soul that the revelation 
 was possible. Are any living in expectation that the light 
 will come suddenly to them, that a new power will come with 
 it, and forgetting meantime the spiritual preparation which 
 is first needful ? 
 
 I think the spiritual and mental indolence which seeks 
 to evade effort, while desiring the fruits of effort, is one of 
 the gravest symptons of this age of pleasure. We need to 
 remember that, without spiritual exercise, there can be no 
 spiritual life. This applies to our worship in meeting, and 
 it applies to our whole individual life. 
 
 Dr. Hort: — "Belief worth calling belief must be pur- 
 chased with the sweat of the brow." The easy conclusions 
 which are accepted on borrowed grounds, in evasion of labour 
 and responsibility, may or may not be coincident with truth, 
 in either case they have little share in its power. Such 
 people are Christians, if Christians at all, in the sheU. Sheer 
 laziness and indifference are the chief difficulty, but there 
 are other difficulties as well. 
 
 (i) The first difficulty is doubt as to the reality, or at 
 least the possibility, for oneself, of such an experience of 
 Christ as was the privilege of Fox and Paul. 
 
 (2) Due to limited conception of what is meant by 
 conversion. To doubt the reality of spiritual revelation of 
 Christ is to believe that Fox and Paul owed their power and 
 inspiration to an hallucination. And to deny the possibility 
 of such experience for yourself is to deny the solidarity of 
 the human race. 
 
 But did Paul and Fox owe their inspiration to an hallu- 
 cination — does Christian civilisation rest its hope and faith 
 in a dream that has no substance ?
 
 PAUL'S CONVERSION. 99 
 
 Fiske : — " To suppose that the physical evolution of 
 man progressed through adjustment to external realities, and 
 that the spiritual evolution progressed through adjustment 
 to external non-realities, is to do sheer violence to logic and 
 commonsense." 
 
 Again, what ground have we for believing that the 
 experience of Paul and Fox marked them off as separate from 
 the rest of the human species ? Why not interpret their 
 experience as proof that humanity as a whole is capable, under 
 certain conditions, of which these two give illustration — of the 
 same experience ? 
 
 I come now to the difficulty of conversion. It has been 
 too narrowly defined as a sudden change — it may be sudden, 
 but it is not always so. Moreover, it is no more an external 
 something which suddenly visits us, independent of our own 
 attitude, than the millennium, which some people confidently 
 expect will appear suddenly, independent of the condition 
 of the world. 
 
 The world will not learn peace, or come under the rule 
 of the millennial kingdom, until with much labour and travail, 
 it has placed itself in the right attitude. 
 
 Finally, indifference. 
 
 Momentousness of conversion, if we rightly interpret it. 
 Shell must break. Passage from the animal to the spiritual. 
 From the finite to the infinite, the temporal to the eternal. 
 Wages of sin is death. Animalism has no future. Con- 
 ventional morality is not righteousness. 
 
 Let us seek the experience of Paul and Fox. Is it 
 difficult to know an invisible God ? 
 
 Marion Crawford in " A Rose of Yesterday." — " We are 
 a cowardly generation, and men shrink from suffering now, 
 as their fathers shrank from dishonour in rougher times. 
 The Lotus hangs within the reach of all, and in the lives of 
 many ' it is always afternoon,' as for the Lotus Eaters. The 
 fruit takes many shapes and names ; it is called morphia, 
 it is called compromise, it is designated in a thousand ways
 
 100 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 and justified by ten thousand specious arguments, but it 
 
 means only one thing — escape from Pain." 
 
 Heaven and Hell, now and here. Hell real — hell of 
 
 selfishness. 
 
 " Oh, doom beyond the saddest guess,- 
 As the long years of God unroll. 
 To make our dreary selfishness 
 The prison of a soul." 
 
 Conversion from our selfishness still called for. i
 
 WINGS LIKE A DOVE. 
 
 " I am restless in my complaint and make a noise, 
 
 Because of the voice of the enemy, because of the oppression of the 
 
 wicked ; 
 And the terrors of death are fallen upon me. 
 Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me. 
 And horror hath overwhelmed me. 
 
 And I said, Oh, that I had wings like a dove, for then would I 
 fly away and be at rest." — Psalm Iv. 4, 5, 6. 
 
 Generally supposed to be David, and treachery of Ahito- 
 phel. Improbable. " Unknown writer, living among foes 
 in a city ; whose walls they occupy with their patrols ; from 
 the violence which they exercise within, he would gladly escape 
 to the desert ; one who had been his associate had treacher- 
 ously abandoned him, for which he is bitterly reproached 
 by the poet." (Driver.) 
 
 I mourn — I am restless. A word used of a roving life, 
 and Jer ii. 30, of impatience of restraint. 
 
 " Weary of life in the cruel city, he wishes he could be 
 like the dove which he watches winging its flight swiftly 
 to its nest in the clefts of some inaccessible precipice, far 
 from the haunts of men." (Kirkpatrick.) Cant. ii. 14. — 
 " Oh my dove, thou art in the clefts of the rocks ; in the 
 covert of the steep place." 
 
 Idea that time will bring relief. But time is no agent, 
 no living power. Must not leave to time, to outward change 
 and providence, simply to convey us to what our own energies 
 should produce. God will not be mocked. Holy Spirit 
 not a minister of weakness. God a partner in our spiritual 
 endeavours, but not in our luxurious dreams.
 
 102 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Happiness does not belong to the future, if it does not 
 belong to the present. Heaven too often a matter of indolent 
 anticipation. We think of it as a happy place, to which we 
 are to go, rather than as a blessed frame of spirit. 
 
 No external arrangements can make blessedness. 
 
 Function of heaven is not to take the spiritually un- 
 qualified into the enjoyment of God, but to open to the 
 spiritually qualified their real life. 
 
 We may make the future as blessed as our dreams, 
 each day an instalment of the future, as the fruit of daily 
 spiritual faithfulness and care. 
 
 Goethe. That which we are not doing to-day is not 
 done to-morrow. The hymn is false that says : — 
 
 " This world is all a fleeting show 
 For man's illusion given." 
 
 A libel uttered against the world, by men whose simple 
 defect is that they have too little of conscience, and too little 
 of spiritual will. Men who live all their days under the 
 rebuke of conscience, who are kept in a state of perpetual 
 punishment, who seek peace in externals, and finding it not, 
 blame these externals for refusing what they cannot give. 
 
 Escape from effort. Oh, that I had the wings of a dove. 
 I cannot conquer my enemies. Shut up in the citadel of 
 my selfish sins, guarded by the sleepless sentinels of my 
 selfish will, I see without, the haven of God's peace, the 
 refuge in the covert of the steep place where the purified souls, 
 strong in self-oblation, come to nestle like homing doves, 
 and without effort I would escape and join them. 
 
 And, accepting the bad teaching of Grimm's story of 
 Rumpelstiltskin, and desiring, like his miller's daughter, 
 to be queen, I expect my straw to be spun into gold for me 
 during the night while I sleep. 
 
 Or, like the wanderer, I follow the Jack o' Lantern of 
 my dreams, imagining that the light I see shines upon the 
 gate of paradise, and blind in the darkness to the terrible
 
 WINGS LIKE A DOVE. 103 
 
 truth, that my feet are straying ever further into the wil- 
 derness of sin. 
 
 I would escape from my memory, and have it, in spite 
 of my conscience, that all is peace. It may not be so ! 
 
 The Kingdom is within. But there is a hunger and 
 thirst that is legitimate, there is a dream of the future that 
 is true. They that hunger and thirst after righteousness 
 shall be filled. 
 
 They who accept as their own the high calling of the 
 spiritual athlete, the strong runner trained in self-sacrifice, 
 shall press toward the mark without stumbling, and shall 
 win the prize. 
 
 That prize is the victory over circumstance, the triumph 
 of the soul weaned from dependence upon the external, of 
 the man who has turned inward with William Penn, and there 
 in his heart has met the Christ, and heard the healing music 
 of the words : " Come unto me, all ye that labour, and I will 
 give you rest." 
 
 Not as the world gives, not as the President of the Steel 
 Trust building his two million dollar house seeks it, but as He 
 gives, and as His true disciple seeks. 
 
 Then, indeed, may we soar with the wings of the dove, 
 the uplifting power of His holy peace, and with the royalty 
 of inward happiness, share His kingship with Him in His 
 own chappy paradise of love.
 
 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN MODERN 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 " I know how to be abased and I know also how to abound ; 
 in everything and in all things I have learned the secret, both to be 
 filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want. 
 
 " I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me." 
 
 — Phil. iv. 12-13. 
 
 Last time we dealt with the social aspect of the question. 
 Men like Canon Moor Ede, Dr. Fairbairn, Dr. Hort, the 
 Bishop of Durham ; all lay stress on social functions of the 
 church, and emphasise the fact that these have been neglected. 
 
 Instance : quote Sherwell's " West London." 
 
 Tailors : — Overcrowding, pp. 88-89 5 PP- 93-94- Wages, 
 p. 98 ; and overwork, pp. loi, 101-103. 
 
 If the West-End Churches would rouse their congregations, 
 the work would be done. 
 
 N at Westminster Meeting House, drawing 
 
 classes, bent-iron work, modelling in clay, girls' classes, 
 Sunday class. Not true that Church has nothing to do with 
 social work. Christianity belies its name if it isn't practical. 
 Church service, creeds, etc., means only, to an end. 
 
 Dr. Moffat's nephew and fellow officers on a survey in 
 Uganda. Anecdote, village, wheat, the " Natural Law in the 
 Spiritual World," buried in the wheat. It was their religion. 
 
 But another side to the question. Bunyan wouldn't 
 have described religion in this way. Many people lay stress 
 on what you believe, rather than what you do. 
 
 Bunyan's " Progress" has almost a note of selfishness in 
 it. The escape of a man from City of Destruction, with his 
 eyes set on the reward in heaven. 
 
 104
 
 THE PLACE OF RELIGION. 105 
 
 Story of Jim and his Pal. 
 
 One age views one aspect, and one another, of truth. 
 
 In an age of superstition and ignorance, there was more 
 fear of God and less love of Him. Hell loomed large to men 
 like Bunyan, and escape from its terrors at all costs seemed 
 the main business of life. 
 
 We are now in the transition stage, and religion as repre- 
 sented in the churches is re-adjusting herself to the new view 
 of truth, which presents most strongly to the present age. 
 Stewardship. Which carries with it war on all selfishness. 
 Ardency of sympathy and of interests. 
 
 But what is the bearing of all this on that which was 
 so strong an element in Early Christianity, John Bunyan's 
 life, early Wesleyanism — i.e., the personsil devotion to Jesus 
 Christ. We do not now so often hear the phrases, " A saving 
 knowledge of Jesus Christ," " Believe on Him and thou shalt 
 be saved." 
 
 Jesus Christ is not real to ninety-nine men in a hundred. 
 
 Christianity — old maids distributing tracts. 
 
 Seldom meet a man like James Montgomery of Sheffield, 
 to whom his lines " Forever with the Lord," were true. 
 
 Is it all wrong ? 
 
 Is rehgion summed up in practical social work ? 
 
 As well talk of a factory as complete which has no boilers. 
 
 Was Bunyan wrong ? Was John Wesley wrong ? We 
 mayn't agree with the theology — I hope we don't — but the 
 root principle of their lives is just as vital for us as it was for 
 them. 
 
 The personal element is a real part of religion, and I 
 go further, an essential part. Subtract Christ from Chris- 
 tianity, subtract Luther from the Reformation, subtract 
 Hamlet from the play, and where are you ? 
 
 Paul and his exclamation. Intense personality. Latimer 
 and his sermon on Christ. 
 
 But still what does it mean ? Believe in Lord Jesus 
 Christ and thou shalt be saved.
 
 io6 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Believe that He represents the character of God, that in 
 Christ you see God ; that God is such an one whom you have 
 to deal with. Loving purity, hating sin, not the sinner. 
 
 To be unselfish, and free from pride. That to be Christ- 
 Uke is to be Godlike. Then, further, that the spirit of Christ 
 — i.e. of God — is working in the world to-day ; working for 
 social progress, equality of opportunity, removing the slums, 
 eliminating the sweater, combating disease, and put yourself 
 in line with that force which is working in humanity. 
 
 Remember Christ has now no human body upon earth 
 but yours ; no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours 
 are the eyes through which His compassion is to look upon 
 the world, yours are the lips through which His love is to 
 speak, yours are the hands with which He is to bless, and 
 yours the feet with which He is to go about doing good — 
 through the church which is His body.
 
 WHAT AN ADULT SCHOOL SHOULD BE. 
 
 [Given at Layerthorpe, one of the new extension Adult 
 Schools, York, October 30, 1904.] 
 
 Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost 
 
 which is in you, which ye have from God ? — i Cor. vi. 19, 
 My body a Temple. What on earth does this mean ? 
 You might as well call a fishing trawler a torpedo boat. 
 Must not judge by appearance. 
 Lady visitor at asylum. 
 A man can be a street sweeper, no collar, or even a duke, and yet 
 
 a temple. 
 Question asked by the first Adult School President (Paul). 
 " Know ye not " ; and it is addressed to us — no matter who 
 
 we are. 
 A temple of the Holy Ghost. 
 Now what does that mean ? 
 Ghosts drag cannon balls through country houses and scratch 
 
 behind panellings — and in the daytime they are rats. 
 Most sensible men when sober, refuse to believe in ghosts. 
 
 Morbid fears to be discouraged. Morbid dwelling on 
 
 unseen world or future life. 
 Chalmers and the man who believed he was damned. 
 Holy Ghost — Holy Spirit. 
 But what is that ? 
 My wife been in all day. Asks me to take the baby so that she 
 
 can get an airing. / don't want to. Something tells me 
 
 / ought to. That is Holy Spirit. 
 Some one angers me. I want to answer back. I don't — Holy 
 
 Spirit. 
 James Parnell in a dungeon at Colchester had the Holy Spirit. 
 
 107
 
 io8 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 William Dewsbury, g^ years in gaol, reared his temple. 
 
 Its bolts were jewels, prisons to him were palaces for 
 
 the Holy Spirit. 
 A temple of the Holy Ghost. 
 Layerthorpe Adult School ought to be this. 
 St. Philips Marsh — Bristol — carpenter's shop — yet a temple. 
 Holy Spirit — spirit of the carpenter. 
 Now, how are we going to get at this, because it is a matter 
 
 of moment. 
 A fine building won't do it. 
 All through the life of Jesus the temple was building, 20 b.c- 
 
 60 A.D. 
 A great business. 
 1,000 waggons for stone. 
 10,000 expert master builders. 
 1,000 priests as masons and carpenters. 
 18,000 workmen. 
 WaUs 73ft. high. 
 
 Eight lofty gates, folding, gilded and silvered. 
 Massive gold plates on walls inside. 
 Yet Jesus called the people who did this a "generation of 
 
 vipers," and they crucified Him. 
 The Temple didn't save the Jews, and the New School buildings 
 
 won't save Layerthorpe. 
 What will save Layerthorpe ? 
 What in fact will save York — England — humanity ? 
 Oh, but perhaps you say they don't need saving. 
 Don't they ? 
 Wapping. " Whopping sinners " true of all, and especially 
 
 in this sense that the great curse of social life is 
 
 SELFISHNESS. 
 
 It is the curse of the rich and of the poor, of the Mount and of 
 
 Hungate. 
 Empty lives of fashionable people — bridge — any excitement to 
 
 pass the time. Don't care about the slums. £1,000 for 
 
 a snuff box.
 
 WHAT AN ADULT SCHOOL SHOULD BE. 109 
 
 Quarterly magazine at £20 a number. 
 
 Misery of it all. Lord Anglesey's sales. 
 
 Empty Lives of the Layerthorpers : — pigeon shooting, rabbit 
 
 coursing, drinking, gambling, the last wonder in ^d. 
 
 evening, in and out of work, good health and bad, up 
 
 and down, and so on through life. Nothing in it that 
 
 won't get stale. 
 In both : how can I please myself ? 
 No brotherhood in it. 
 
 Petropavlovsk — Slaughter of 700 Thibetans, fine copy. 
 Football, final at Crystal Palace, also fine copy. Crowd bigger 
 
 than population of York. Spirit of Roman arena. 
 Bringing home the Umpire in a sack. 
 Leads to waste and suffering. 
 Gambling, fifty millions a year. 
 
 Drink, £180,000,000. Say £300,000 per annum in York. 
 If York would go teetotal, put drink money by ; should have 
 
 a million in three years. 
 Parks, playgrounds, slums rebuilt, trams, public amusements, 
 
 what not ? 
 Militarism — £2 los. a year, £12 los. per family. 
 £200,000 for York per annum. 
 Drink and Army — £500,000 per annum. 
 What it costs us to forget that we are temples of the Holy Ghost. 
 What it costs us to maintain a sham religion and deny the 
 
 Sermon on the Mount. 
 Churches to blame. 
 Locomotive — Steam up. 
 Layerthorpe to bring this locomotive out of its shed, and lead 
 
 the way to a cleaner, better life, brighter homes, etc. 
 "Know you not that you are temples of the Holy Ghost?" 
 Don't get like temple folk, Pharisees. 
 Let in the Gentiles, with or without collars. 
 Back 'em in. 
 Let each seek that spirit "which ye have from God."
 
 ON LAY MINISTRY. 
 
 First, I would place Vision. 
 
 We must ride with Paul to Damascus. We must see 
 and know God in Christ, and life as He interprets it for us. 
 We may have been of the strictest sect of the Pharisees and 
 yet have kicked for years against the goad. The vision will 
 reveal this secret of heart, and teach us our need of a renewal, 
 that all creation must have a new smell, and the harmony of 
 love overcome the dissonance of self-hood. 
 
 Second, Consecration. 
 
 The heavenly vision calls for obedience. We have en- 
 countered a great light which has interpreted to us at once 
 our true self, and the love and passion of the Cross. This is 
 our summons, and our answer must be service. But many 
 mistake the meaning of consecration. They think that as 
 consecration is the offering of our faculties to God, so all the 
 responsibility for using them is His. This is the fallacy which 
 has so often lurked in the teaching of the Inner Light. Con- 
 secration means the concentration of the energies of the mind 
 and soul upon their improvement for service. It is a frank 
 recognition that God's work of redemption is a co-operative 
 work, demanding the agency of man for its completion. To 
 be spiritual is not to be slipshod. 
 
 Consecration therefore includes the disciplined teaching 
 of the mind, the right apportionment of time, the careful 
 selection of our reading towards a definite end. It means 
 the combined potency of prayer and thought. 
 
 IJO
 
 ON LAY MINISTRY. iii 
 
 Third, Sympathy. 
 
 We must " sit where the people sit." Here I am afraid 
 we often fail. We are most of us bundles of prejudice, 
 theological, social and political. And yet sympathy, spiritual 
 and intellectual, is all important. We must try fairly to 
 understand the social conditions and the intellectual atmos- 
 phere of the person we would help. We must know something 
 of the current thoughts of the day, not polemically but 
 sympathetically. The man who tilts his theological lance 
 tipped with the venom of controversy, at modern thought 
 or the higher critic or the revival preacher, is not helping 
 but retarding the coming of God's Kingdom. And perhaps 
 the best training school in which sympathy may be learned as 
 a lesson is the pastoral. One great weakness of Quaker 
 ministry is its frequent dissociation from pastoral work and 
 care. 
 
 Remember that the magnetism of a messenger lies in 
 his sympathy, and sympathy is born of knowledge. 
 
 Fourth, Humility. 
 
 Pride in a gift is its destruction. The office of minister 
 is one, not of supremacy, but of service. No thought of 
 self should deflect the inward eye from the end and purpose 
 of God — the redemption of man. 
 
 " Did I speak well ? " " What did the people say of 
 me ? " " Were people pleased ? " These may be the 
 thoughts of personal vanity, and go not seldom with that 
 resentment of criticism which is the testimony to spiritual 
 unfitness. The most victorious quality of the minister of 
 God is his humility. 
 
 Fifth, Coiirage. 
 
 These days of invertebrate thinking and luxurious 
 pleasures demand courageous speaking. It is a long time 
 since Sydney Smith startled his congregation of judges and 
 lawyers in York Minster, by declaiming, " Woe unto you 
 lawyers."
 
 112 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 The frank condemnation of social sins and intellectual 
 errors, uttered in scorn of opinion but in the spirit of love, is 
 too rare in the Christian ministry. 
 
 There is no more frequent taunt flung at the preacher 
 than the taunt of cowardice and evasion, and in measure, I 
 fear it is just. We are too frightened of uttering our true 
 thoughts. 
 
 In chapel and meeting-house a mischievous tradition 
 of religious phraseology has grown up, which destroys the 
 freshness and directness of the preaching, and which it re- 
 quires some courage to disregard. As Sir Edward Fry, 
 in his essay on Sermons has remarked, " the ordinary preacher 
 is afraid to call a spade a spade, he would rather describe it as 
 ' that instrument of agriculture with which our first father 
 laboured when, by the providence of God, he was called on 
 to till the garden of Eden.' " 
 
 We need, I think, to imitate John Woolman, who com- 
 bined the sweetness of true humility with an unconquerable 
 courage. 
 
 Sixth, Variety. 
 
 It is a bad symptom when, after the first few words of 
 a sermon, the congregation remarks to itself, mentally, 
 " Oh, I know what's coming now." And yet how often is 
 this true. The prepared or unprepared sermon falls alike 
 under this condemnation. Indeed, the prepared sermon, 
 when it is machine-made, is often the most at fault. 
 
 We want the imagination which springs from sympathy, 
 and the freshness which springs from thought. We must 
 bring all things into the treasury. It is often said, " Oh, the 
 simple Gospel is all we need," but that depends upon what 
 is meant. To deal in the obvious because thinking is too 
 much trouble is to offer unconsecrated ministry. We want 
 rather that variety of presentation which does not obscure or 
 replace the Gospel, but which saves us from the dead monotony 
 of repetition.
 
 ON LAY MINISTRY. 113 
 
 I know a minister who keeps a pocket-book. If a thought 
 strikes him, whether reading or in reverie, if he notices a 
 telhng sentence, passage or illustration, he makes a note or 
 copy of it. When the pocket-book is fuU, the contents are 
 transferred to a commonplace book, properly indexed ac- 
 cording to subjects, and is constantly available for reference. 
 This is surely an excellent example of that proper discipline 
 which should govern the life of the preacher, and a wise recog- 
 nition of the efficacy of human forethought which nowise 
 destroys the liberty of the Spirit. 
 
 Seventh, Patience. 
 
 Patience, in the face of apparent unresponsiveness, 
 and in labour that seems fruitless ; patience that means 
 sustained interest, even if utterance be infrequent. 
 
 We cannot serve any cause haphazard. It is apparently 
 the belief of some that because the Spirit bloweth where it 
 listeth, a succession of evanescent " concerns " for a meeting 
 or a Society must be more spiritual than a continuous exercise 
 of heart and mind. But God does not work spasmodically, 
 He works continuously. There are indeed times when the 
 Divine Power is more richly manifest than at others ; but 
 there is no real pause in the work of God. We need more 
 consecrated, sustained and penetrating thought, directed not 
 only to the vocal ministry, but to all Christian service, and 
 it will be out of such patience that the most enduring work 
 will grow. 
 
 Lastly, Sacrifice. 
 
 Our considerations, — and there are many we have not time 
 to consider, — must receive the endorsement of sacrifice. With- 
 out this none are valid. No scheme can evade the necessity, 
 none offer a substitute for this vital quality of all true labour. 
 
 Let us make clear the purport of this discussion. In 
 the past Quakerism has leaned upon an inadequate concep- 
 tion of the Inner Light. It has unduly depressed the exercise 
 
 10
 
 114 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 and diminished the place of the reasoning faculties. It has 
 forgotten that the direct revelation of God's will is not apart 
 from the fitness of the instrument to receive or act upon it ; 
 or, rather it has regarded such fitness in too narrow a sense, and 
 shunned, whether from mistaken interpretation or fleshly 
 weakness, that needful discipline of the mind which supports, 
 directs and renders more efficacious the no less needful labour 
 of the soul. 
 
 All is not well with the world. The belief in force, the 
 love of ease, the lust for sensations, the superficiality of 
 emotional or formal religion, the parasitism even of the re- 
 ligious, these are with us in their modern dress even as they 
 were with Fox in the garb of the seventeenth century thought 
 and practice. 
 
 The question of the ministry is in part a question of 
 equipment, but it is still more a question of spiritual temper. 
 What is our attitude towards life ? Do we see things as they 
 really are, or as our contemporaries would have us believe ? 
 Do we pierce to the inward motive, the inward fact ? Do 
 we refuse to be swayed by prejudice, by the social environ- 
 ment in which we have been reared ; do we dare to cut 
 ourselves loose from convention and tell the unpalatable 
 truth ? 
 
 Without vision we shall perish ; without sacrifice the 
 vision will glow and fade, an unavailing dream. 
 
 There is indeed one aspect of the question before us 
 upon which I have not touched. 
 
 It has been asked. Can laymen, especially those faithful 
 to the manifold duties of citizenship, and under the necessity 
 of working for their living, meet in any adequate measure 
 the exacting demands of the ministry of the Word ? 
 
 Let it be acknowledged that the problem of the Free 
 Ministry is not only a spiritual, but also a practical problem. 
 We have it yet to solve. There are needs of the human heart 
 which are not met by prophecy and exhortation, but by teaching, 
 and the ministry of teaching demands a trained and ordered
 
 ON LAY MINISTRY. 115 
 
 mind. We must tackle this difficulty, honestly and bravely, 
 and so long as we compromise nothing of our message and 
 testimony, we must not shrink from properly safe-guarded 
 measures, which will grant to those who feel the call the means 
 of fulfilling their service. Nor must we in any case hesitate 
 to recognise the diversity of gifts and the place and functions 
 of the vocal ministry in the economy of the Church. 
 
 But again, nothing can avail without sacrifice, neither 
 silence nor ministry, organisation nor equipment. 
 
 [From a paper entitled " The Vocal Ministry in the Society 
 of Friends,'' 1904.]
 
 THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT. 
 
 " Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law ? " 
 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
 
 all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great 
 
 commandment." — Matthew xxii. 27- 
 
 Jesus was evidently referring to the famous passage in 
 Deut. vi. 1-5, which the Jews, with a true instinct, selected 
 under the name of the " Shema," to be recited twice a day. 
 
 Notice the prominence given to those words in Deutero- 
 nomy : "Thou shalt bind them upon thy hand and as frontlets, 
 between thy eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the 
 door posts of thy house and upon thy gates." This last 
 probably to accommodate an Egyptian custom, which, no 
 doubt, the Hebrews had borrowed. Egyptians used to carve 
 the cartouches of their kings on the door-posts of their private 
 houses, and often a " lucky " sentence. Just as now you see 
 passages of the Koran inscribed in the same way. 
 
 Perhaps there was something of the feeling of patriotic 
 loyalty to their own tribal God, as opposed to the tribal gods 
 of the Semites, about them, but still — with a conception of 
 God wider and higher than was possible to the men of the 
 twilight days of revelation, we can take the words just as they 
 stand. We can love the Lord our God — not the tribal Je- 
 hovah, God of Battles, but the God whose eternal heart of 
 love we have seen tabernacled in the flesh, — with all our heart 
 and all our soul and all our mind. 
 
 And Jesus, turning to the lawyer, was quoting a well- 
 known passage. " Why do you ask me which is the great 
 commandment ? Do you not repeat this twice a day, is 
 it not inscribed on your lintels ? You seek some new idea 
 
 116
 
 THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT. 117 
 
 from me, and yet I must spend my strength and life against 
 a formalism which is throttling all religious life and all love 
 in the land, just because you will not open your eyes and see 
 the full significance of these hackneyed verses of yours." 
 
 Turn from the letter to the spirit. Those lines were 
 familiar ; and unreal too, perhaps, just because they were 
 familiar, to the lawyer of old, and yet when we glibly recite the 
 words do we realise how exacting, how comprehensive, and 
 how urgent is the command ? " Thou shalt love the Lord 
 thy God " — not with the fag-ends of thy heart — with that 
 part which thou hast to spare from business and other con- 
 cerns, but with all. Not with a morbid intensity that 
 leads to mysticism and the life of a recluse. Christ, as by 
 anticipation, checks that thought by his rapid addition, "and 
 the second is like, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." 
 It is rather with that practical and natural application of all 
 the powers we have had given us, to the highest ends for 
 which they were meant. 
 
 And yet, hackneyed as the text is, how very, very far 
 we are from acting up to its standard. 
 
 No sin is to-day so much to be guarded against as that of 
 being too easily satisfied with ourselves. 
 
 After all, we need what, to use an old phrase, is called 
 conviction of sin. We are horrified if any assume that we 
 are capable of deliberate untruthfulness or dishonesty, we 
 are thankful that the criminal code does not concern us. We 
 never steal or lie, we commit no sins of the flesh, we live the 
 life of respectable Christians. 
 
 Yes, but just here is a great and real risk of self-deception. 
 How far, for instance, is our fancied virtue the result of public 
 opinion ? There is a temptation in the fact that to be con- 
 nected with a religious body is to have the favour and respect 
 of society ; indeed, more than this, it is business capital. 
 If we seek a business situation, and quite rightly, we mention 
 that we attend such and such a place of worship. How far 
 is our love of God merely the love with all our heart and mind
 
 ii8 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 and soul of our own social comfort, of our position in society, 
 our reputation and our character ? 
 
 Complacently to consider all that we have not done — 
 all the crimes we have never committed, is a very passive 
 virtue indeed. We shall hardly grow, spiritually speaking, 
 until we learn to look upon ourselves and our past in the light 
 of what we might have been and done. The sins of omission 
 are invisible, but very large. 
 
 How many men and women are there who are going 
 through life with their spiritual faculties atrophied by per- 
 sistent self-satisfaction ? How often does it occur to us 
 whether, with all our passive virtue, we have really developed 
 the latent power of service and stewardship which God has 
 planted in us. How much power of loving, of sympathy, 
 of thoughtfulness for others, is lying unused at this moment 
 in the chambers of our heart. 
 
 Can we really truthfully say that we love our neighbour 
 as ourself ? I for one have not attained unto it. But it 
 is one thing to confess that we have not attained, but it would 
 be a want of faith in God's power to help us, to say, it is too 
 high, I cannot attain. 
 
 Whether from despair of being what we know in our best 
 moments we ought to be, or whether from sheer blindness of 
 self-satisfaction, there is far too much in the world of satis- 
 faction in a kind of medium goodness, which is without charac- 
 ter, without force, and which can do little or nothing to make 
 or mould the world. There is a little animal with a long 
 name, found, I believe, in the Mediterranean, the Balana- 
 glossus, which may be classed either as the lowest of the 
 vertebrates or the highest of the invertebrates. It neither 
 possesses a backbone, nor is it entirely without. It has what 
 is called a notochord — a backbone so to speak of gristle, 
 and on this account it is popularly classed as a " missing link." 
 
 We are told in the Bible that those who are not for 
 Christ are against him, and in the sense that was intended, 
 those words are true, but there is a sadly large proportion
 
 THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT. 119 
 
 of Christian Balanaglossi who are really links between the 
 two extremes, and in the sense of the text, the Balanaglossi 
 must go into the scale with those who are against, for, in 
 weighing forces, there are only two alternatives. 
 
 On the Balanaglossi lies the burden of responsibility 
 for hindrance in spiritual progress. What we want is verte- 
 brate Christianity. 
 
 Badbie, the tailor, is an illustration of backbone. Some 
 of us need the spirit of Badbie the tailor to be breathed into us. 
 
 There is need of conviction, whole-heartedness, whole- 
 souledness, whole-mindedness. The latter is to be borne in 
 mind as well as the first two. 
 
 " The easy belief, the easy disbelief, the easy acquiescence 
 in suspense between belief and disbelief, ought to cause 
 Christians more disquiet than the growing force of well- 
 weighed hostiUty." (Dr. Hort.) 
 
 The surest way to wake the power of truth is to encourage 
 the strenuous confronting of it with personal life and know- 
 ledge.
 
 NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD. 
 
 Matthew x. 32-39. 
 
 A CHRISTMAS ADDRESS, 1903. 
 
 It was my misfortune upon one occasion to hear a country 
 clergjmian argue upon the basis of the text " Think not that 
 I came to send peace on the earth ; I came not to send peace 
 but a sword," that the crushing mihtary armament of modern 
 Europe was in accord with the teaching of the Gospel. 
 
 George Fox's " pure opening," as he calls it, in the memor- 
 able year of 1649 when he saw " in the Light and Spirit 
 which was before the Scriptures were given forth, that all 
 must come to that Spirit if they would know God, or Christ 
 or the Scriptures aright ; which they that gave them forth 
 were led by," has surely a pointed application in this instance. 
 
 It is all the answer necessary to such an obvious travesty 
 of the meaning of Christ. Not only the sense of the whole 
 passage from which the text is extracted, but the whole 
 weight of New Testament teaching are as much against our 
 worthy clergyman, as the last was against the eighteenth 
 century slave-holders, who drew their defensive texts from 
 the armoury of Scripture. 
 
 This week is Christmas week, when a Child was born, 
 hailed with the angel song of " Peace on earth," and all 
 who preach in church or chapel are invited to make " Peace," 
 the subject of sermons or addresses. 
 
 We therefore make " Peace " our subject to-night, 
 but with a distinction. 
 
 120
 
 NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD. 121 
 
 I need not repeat that our quoted text does not justify 
 the military spirit, or that we cannot build upon it a con- 
 script Europe. 
 
 Nor is it necessary in this company to assert that the 
 teaching of the New Testament, accepted faithfully, makes 
 war impossible, and that, as popularly understood, war has 
 no place in the kingdom of God. 
 
 There is an interesting passage in a letter by John Bright, 
 written in 1883, the cautious conclusion of which, were we 
 even to judge war by the average contemporary standard, 
 would I imagine claim our unanimous assent. It runs as 
 follows : — 
 
 " I have not done much to promote arbitration rather 
 than war ; it is advisable, but many cases do not admit 
 of arbitration ; they arise from delusion on the part of a 
 people, or ambition of rulers ; what we want is more of a 
 moral sense, and of a knowledge that war is rarely, perhaps 
 never, worth what it costs." 
 
 To this we may add the following extract from the same 
 letter :— 
 
 " Arbitration could do nothing in the American war 
 or in the French and German war, or in our wicked Crimean 
 war. What we want is more knowledge among the people, 
 a higher morality, and a just sense of the enormous guilt of 
 the slaughter of men." 
 
 I might, this evening, devote myself to expounding the 
 advantages of arbitration. I refrain, not because I doubt 
 the advantages, or the great future that lies before the Hague 
 tribunal, but because the weakness of this advocacy lies just 
 in this, that it too often ignores the spiritual states of the 
 people concerned. 
 
 This is evidently John Bright's view. We should make 
 a great mistake in supposing that he did not support arbitra- 
 tion, but he evidently feels in the letter I have quoted that 
 as George Fox saw 250 years ago, the root of the problem 
 goes deep. It is this : How to live as individuals and there-
 
 122 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 fore as nations " in the virtue of that Life and Power that 
 took away the occasion of all wars." 
 
 Arbitration, in short, must be the fruit of national 
 morality — it cannot be its substitute. 
 
 If, as I believe, we are agreed as to the wasteful inutility, 
 and the moral evil, not only of war, but of militarism, we 
 may feel free to regard the question of Peace in this light, 
 and if so, we shall find that it is at once widened in scope. 
 
 More than this, it becomes at once a personal and a 
 religions question. 
 
 Let us treat it as such, and return to our text. " Think 
 not that I came to send peace on the earth : I came not to 
 send peace but a sword." 
 
 Here is an initial difficulty. Surely Christ came to 
 find a larger home for the Divine love in the hearts of men. 
 What then does this mean ? We talk of peace, but our 
 extract is from a sermon of the sword, and it is followed by a 
 sermon of the cross. Strife and suffering, bitterness and 
 shame, are these peace ? But the explanation of the passage 
 is simple enough. 
 
 It occurs in the commission to the twelve. " Behold," 
 says Jesus, " I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves." 
 He is speaking to men of Eastern thought and habit, men of 
 the climate and akin to those for whom Mohammed drew in vivid 
 colours the allurements of a sensuous paradise, men for whom 
 peace meant a long siesta under the shade of a fig-tree or on 
 the cool divan ; the sparkling sherbet and the seductive 
 movements of the dancing girls. He is nerving them for a 
 stern enterprise, an enterprise that will lead some to torture 
 and to violent death. 
 
 And in sounding the sterner note, Jesus is passing on a 
 genuine Jewish watchword. Through death to life, through 
 sacrifice to glory. The condemners of Herod's Golden Eagle, 
 the Zealot of the last war, the martyrs of the Book of Maccabees 
 — these knew the meaning of the words, they had died with
 
 NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD. 123 
 
 the same heroism and the same faith as the poor Dervishes 
 who perished in heaps at Omdurman. 
 
 But this was a different battle, fought with different 
 weapons. 
 
 " Get you no silver, nor gold, nor brass in your purses, 
 nor wallet for your journey. It was said, ' An eye for an 
 eye, a tooth for a tooth,' but I say unto you, resist not him 
 that is evil, but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, 
 turn to him the other also. Love your enemies, pray for 
 them that persecute you. 
 
 " They will deliver you up to the councils and in their 
 synagogues they will scourge you, yea and before governors 
 and kings shall ye be brought for my sake for a testimony 
 to them and to the Gentiles. 
 
 " And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake, 
 but he that endureth to the end the same shall be saved. 
 
 " Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteous- 
 ness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 No, Jesus came bringing not peace but a sword, but he 
 does not deny peace as the ultimate issue of the strife. Only 
 there must be no illusion, and so we have this strong, emphatic 
 speech. The journey he is taking his followers cannot be 
 easy, for the road to travel is the road to Calvary. 
 
 Jesus does not speak much to his disciples of his death, 
 but with unwearying patience he prepares them for the truth, 
 and seeks by building their faith upon the deepest foundation 
 to strengthen them against the shock of the crucifixion, and 
 against the scorn of a triumphant world. 
 
 But why must it be so, why not from the beginning a 
 reign of peace ? 
 
 " Every fruitful thing," says Renan, enigmatically, " is 
 rich in wars." 
 
 The love of Jesus was pure, it was true, it was gentle. 
 There rises against it the whole force of the world's impurity 
 and deceit, violent hatred and stubborn selfishness. These 
 struggle fiercely as against an alien invasion. They nail
 
 124 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Jesus upon the cross. In the strictest sense it is not Jesus 
 that brings the sword — rather it is the sword that is turned 
 against him. He is the occasion. Purity must expel im- 
 purity, love must drive out selfishness and hate, the heaven- 
 spirit must slay the world-spirit. 
 
 And so as with a sword, Jesus must divide households. 
 " He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy 
 of me." Nothing goes so deep into the human heart as the 
 love or hate of Christ and God. The Divine love must pierce 
 to the centre. It may radiate through human love, the love 
 of man for wife, of mother for child, but it cannot give way 
 to them. It must dominate and purify all the loves of 
 earth, and make them one in itself, or there is no Kingdom 
 of God. 
 
 But as we saw, there is not only a sword-sermon, but a 
 cross-sermon. 
 
 " And he that doth not take his cross and follow after 
 me is not worthy of me." 
 
 " Christ's Cross," says William Penn, " is Christ's way 
 to Christ's crown." 
 
 Think what that means. To be one with Christ is to 
 be one in spirit with him, to see sin as he sees it, to feel love 
 and pain as he feels them for the same objects. 
 
 It is this thought that leads us into the secret of the Cross. 
 Jesus, it is said, has by one sacrifice perfected for ever them 
 that are being sanctified — and perfection is peace. Nor is 
 this an external process, a single event in history, accomplished 
 outside our own volition once and for all time. It is no 
 magic cloak of imputed righteousness flung over us to hide 
 our sins. It is a continual process, an inward and psycho- 
 logical process, something to which we consent by self-sur- 
 render, something we feel in the growth of a will and character 
 freed and purified from the bondage and taint of self-love. 
 The sacrifice of Christ has this efficacy, that if we make it 
 ours in spirit, if we take up the Cross and follow him through 
 the street thronged with scorners, to the place of the skull
 
 NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD. 125 
 
 where stand the enemies of our soul, we shall know what it 
 is to be with him in Paradise, we shall learn that the power 
 of the cross is a power that redeems us from all the great or 
 petty thraldoms of life, and brings us into the possession of 
 all spiritual truth and the enjoyment of an enduring peace. 
 
 Have you not observed how again and again Jesus de- 
 mands allegiance to himself, how he identifies himself with 
 the Father. He is teaching throughout in parable and 
 direct exhortation, the doctrine of the Kingdom. But it 
 is a Kingdom of spiritual identity, of the soul's affinity with 
 God. " And the glory which thou hast given me I have 
 given unto them, that they may be one, even as we are one ; 
 I in them and thou in me, that they may be perfected into 
 one." 
 
 " For ye died," says Paul, " and your life is hid with 
 Christ in God." 
 
 That is the meaning of the Gospel, that is the death of 
 the Cross ; that is the Way, that is the Truth, that is the Life, 
 that is the place and the purpose of Jesus Christ in the world's 
 history and in man's experience, that is the teaching which 
 destroys war and exalts brotherhood, which puts to shame the 
 puny strutting of racial pride, and the vain glory of broad 
 acres or much gold. 
 
 And that is the teaching which Christianity has yet failed 
 to accept, for faith is still half-hearted, the world is too real 
 and its transient glories too precious to the earth-tainted soul. 
 
 Sin, hate, impurity, ugliness in the characters of men 
 and in the conditions of their life, the inward poverty of the 
 wealthy and the outward brutishness of the poor, — do we 
 see these things as Christ sees them ? Do we feel the pain 
 that his love endures for them ? 
 
 No ; and yet that is the suffering of the Cross. It is 
 the sharp sword of the world in the heart of him Who so loved 
 it that he gave his life for it. 
 
 " And he that doth not take up his cross and follow after 
 me is not worthy of me." He shall never know God's peace
 
 126 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 because he will not learn God's way of peace. " My peace I 
 give unto you : not as the world giveth give I unto you." 
 No, not as the world giveth. Not the peace of riches, worldly 
 honour, fame, not the peace of sloth, that of Belial who 
 
 "with words clothed in Reason's garb 
 Counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth. 
 Not peace," 
 
 but, — strange paradox ! — the peace of the sword and of the 
 cross, the peace of strenuous service, and of suffering. 
 
 Is there indeed ever such peace ? 
 
 Let history tell us. Let us take out of a multitude 
 the single witness of James Parnell. 
 
 He was born at Retford in 1636 or 1 637. In 1653 he visited 
 George Fox in Carlisle Jail, and Fox records in his Journal 
 that "J. Parnell, a little lad of about sixteen years of age, 
 came to see me and was convinced. The Lord quickly 
 made him a powerful minister of the word of life and many 
 were turned to Christ by him." 
 
 He was early drawn to Cambridge, and being deeply 
 impressed with the corruption of justice and the hypocrisy 
 and emptiness of the pulpit, he published two papers, one 
 to ministers and one to magistrates. He was a lad of sweet, 
 loving spirit, but faithful in dealing with hypocrisy and cant. 
 Unreal profession " struck at his life " to use Fox's eloquent 
 phrase, and while his papers abound in expressions of Chris- 
 tian love, there is no evasion or indirectness in dealing with 
 the matter in hand. 
 
 " And all you self-righteous professors who live in the 
 fashions and customs of the world, delighting in the pleasures 
 and vanities of the world, and having fellowship with it, 
 whose conversation is with the children of the world ; all 
 in one generation, cleansing only the outside of the cup, 
 whilst the inside is full of lust and filthiness, pride, covetousness 
 and all uncleanliness, whited walls and painted sepulchres 
 are ye who deceive the carnal eye and ears — but the Lord 
 searcheth the heart."
 
 NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD. 127 
 
 This utterance, which I quote as an example of Parnell's 
 fearless denunciation, is almost reminiscent of the Hebrew 
 prophets. Did not the occasion warrant strong speech, and 
 were it not for the warm love behind the words we could not 
 justify them, but we cannot in any case wonder that the 
 "self-righteous professors" raged exceedingly. Parnell was 
 haled before a jury, but the jury would not condemn, and 
 disappointed malice sent Parnell out of Cambridge under an 
 armed escort, and with a " pass under the name of a rogue." 
 
 The spirit of this young prophet was, however, far from 
 vindictive. On one occasion, coming out of what the Friends 
 then called " a steeple house," a man struck him on the head 
 with a bludgeon, exclaiming, " There, take that for Jesus 
 Christ's sake." The little lad, for Parnell was small of stature, 
 as he staggered in pain under the cruel blow, returned this 
 answer : " Friend, I do receive it for Jesus Christ's sake." 
 
 At last his enemies were able to seize him. Parnell 
 was taken to Chelmsford, twenty-two miles from Colchester, 
 on foot, hooked with six felons to a chain. His trial was 
 marked by gross injustice to the prisoner, and the mittimus 
 being false, Parnell wrote a paper pointing out its errors. 
 The Jury were loath to convict, but the Judge extracted a 
 verdict, and imposed a fine of £40 for this criticism, which he 
 styled " contempt of the magistracy." Being innocent, the 
 lad refused to pay, and he was flung into Colchester gaol, 
 from which he writes, " So then they brought me back to 
 prison again, where I still remain in the peace and freedom of 
 my spirit, which none can take away, though my body be 
 in the hands of my enemies." 
 
 " The peace and freedom of my spirit which none can 
 take away." They did not take it away, but this they did. 
 They subjected him, meek and unresisting, to all the torture 
 that a bitter spirit under the restraint of the law could invent. 
 The jailer's wife often swore " she would have his blood, 
 or he should have hers." " Woman, I will have not thine," 
 replied Parnell. He was placed in a vaulted hole, in the wall,
 
 128 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 twelve feet from the ground, so small that he could hardly 
 lie down in it. The ladder by which he had to get up was 
 six feet short of the needful height, and he had to climb 
 into his cell by a knotted rope. He had to ascend and descend 
 for everything he wanted. The gaoler refused him a basket 
 by which to haul up his food. The exposed cell had no fire, 
 it was wet and cold. Through a long, severe winter, Parnell 
 had no protection, and became so stiff that he could scarcely 
 crawl. One day, missing his hold, he fell twelve feet from 
 the rope and lay as dead. He was dragged into a lower and 
 smaller hole, forbidden exercise and fresh air, except on one 
 cold night, when the gaoler compelled him to sleep in an open 
 courtyard. This proved too much for the wasted body. 
 At barely nineteen years of age, Parnell died, peaceful and 
 loving to the last. 
 
 While thus enduring hardship as a good soldier of Jesus 
 Christ, he wrote to those to whom he had ministered : — 
 " I charge you all, in the name ot the God of truth, be faithful, 
 valiant and bold for the Truth received, and as you have 
 received it so walk in it, that you may profess no more in word 
 than in life your zeal. . . and be willing that self 
 shall suffer for the Truth and not the Truth for self (for the 
 Truth was ever sealed with persecution since Cain's genera- 
 tion had a being upon earth) and so own the cross and despise 
 the shame ... all you who would follow the Lamb to 
 the land of rest ... for God is not known what a God 
 He is till the time of trial." 
 
 " And so in the unchangeable Truth I rest, in unity with 
 all the faithful, in the glorious liberty of the sons of God, 
 though in outward bonds for your sake." 
 
 This brief sketch effectively illustrates the two sermons 
 I have quoted from Matthew. 
 
 Love in its conflict brings out hate, the way of peace is 
 the way of the Cross. 
 
 What was new in the teaching of the Quakers among whom 
 Parnell is numbered, is not so much its doctrine as the fidelity
 
 NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD. 
 
 129 
 
 of its application, and it was more than anything else the 
 appeal, variously expressed, for sincerity in religion and in 
 life, that provoked the fiercest persecution. 
 
 Here is the individual question that lies at the root of 
 the national. Peace between nations means peace between 
 individuals, peace at home, peace in the heart ; it means the 
 testimony to the Divine love, " not in words," but in the life 
 by which you " seal them." 
 
 Of course, it would be absurd to slacken public effort 
 on behalf of arbitration, on behalf, that is, of an appeal to 
 reason rather than to blind force. Just in so far as we 
 apprehend the true nature of the kingdom of God we are 
 bound to make such effort, and I beheve that civilisation is 
 ripe for a much nearer approach to disarmament than is 
 generally imagined. But the foundation of all international 
 peace, it must be repeated, is in character. 
 
 How far are we, as individuals, really living " in the 
 virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of 
 all wars " ? 
 
 Take up a book like William Law's " Serious Call to a 
 Devout and Holy Life," and if there be in us any overweening 
 self-satisfaction, we shall there learn what hidden imperfection 
 lurks behind our fair outward showing. I cannot quote as I 
 would from this book, which deserves to be much more widely 
 read than it is. It is full of searching criticism and covers a 
 variety of experience. I extract two passages before drawing 
 to a conclusion. 
 
 He is satirising a type only too common in our day, 
 " Negotius is a temperate, honest man. He served his time 
 under a master of great trade, but has, by his own manage- 
 ment, made it a more considerable business than ever it was 
 before. For thirty years past he has wrote fifty or sixty 
 letters in a week and is busy in corresponding with all parts 
 of Europe. The general good of trade seems to Negotius to 
 be the general good of life ; whomsoever he admires, whatever 
 he commends or condemns, either in church or state, is 
 
 II
 
 130 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE 
 
 admired, commended or condemned with some regard to 
 trade. As money is continually pouring in upon him, so 
 he often lets it go in various kinds of expense and generosity, 
 and sometimes in ways of charity. Negotius is always ready 
 to join in any public contribution. If a purse is making at 
 any place where he happens to be, whether it be to buy a plate 
 for a horse-race, or to redeem a prisoner out of gaol, you are 
 always sure of having something from him. 
 
 " He has given a fine ring of bells to a church in the coun- 
 try ; and there is much expectation that he will sometime 
 or other make a more beautiful front to the market house than 
 has yet been seen in any place. 
 
 " If you ask what it is that has secured Negotius from all 
 scandalous vices, it is the same thing that has kept him from 
 all strictness of devotion, his great business. He has always 
 had too many important things in his head to suffer him to 
 fall, either into any courses of rakery, orto feel the necessity of 
 an inward, solid piety. If Negotius was asked. What is it 
 which he drives at in life ? he would be as much at a loss for an 
 answer as if he were asked what any other person is thinking 
 of. For though he always seems to himself to know what he 
 is doing and has many things in his head which are the 
 motives of his actions, yet he cannot tell you of any one general 
 end of life that he has chosen with deliberation as being truly 
 worthy of all his labour and pains. He has several confused 
 notions in his head, such as this : That it is something great 
 to have more business than other people. A thing that seems 
 to give Negotius the greatest life and spirit is an expectation 
 that he shall die richer than any of his business ever did. The 
 generality of people when they think of happiness think upon 
 Negotius, in whose life every instance of happiness is supposed 
 to meet ; sober, prudent, rich, prosperous, generous and 
 charitable." 
 
 Here we have him, the patron of church or chapel, the 
 ideal Parliamentary candidate, the honoured public man. 
 How quietly William Law disrobes him ! But how terrible
 
 NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD. 131 
 
 is his nakedness. Yet we feel, as we read, an uneasy con- 
 sciousness that it is not some one else we may be thinking of, 
 but our very self that Law is seeking to uncover. Has the 
 spirit of Negotius a lodgment, even ever so little, in our own 
 heart ? Perhaps not, but be sure that international brotherhood 
 will be no fruit of his labour, and that to meet him we have 
 travelled far in spirit from the prisoner of Colchester Castle. 
 
 In another chapter Law emphasises the inevitable con- 
 flict between the spirit of Christianity and of the world, 
 and he adds, " Christians had nothing to fear from the heathen 
 world but the loss of their lives ; but the world become a 
 friend makes it difficult for them to save their religion." 
 
 This is really the peculiar peril of our modern life. It is 
 so easy to pose as religious in the garb and attitude of Ne- 
 gotius. But the cross of Negotius is not the cross of Christ. 
 It has no weight, it is hollow, if you tap it it gives out an empty 
 sound like a cask. It is meant for show, not for salvation. 
 
 Taine, in his history of English Literature, says of the 
 religious disputants of the seventeenth century : — 
 
 " They differed because they believed." Though much 
 of their jargon was barren this is true. To-day we agree be- 
 cause we have not faith sufficient to differ. 
 
 But " I came not to bring peace but a sword." The 
 way of the cross is the way of separation. There will be no 
 international peace without individual faithfulness ; no 
 progress without suffering bravely borne. We love to be 
 thought broad, because we have no courage to be narrow, 
 and we call sloth peace because w^e are afraid of conflict. 
 If this be true, then we have this lesson to learn, namely, 
 that the deepest love is the most faithful, and the challenge 
 that springs not from a vindictive temper or a spirit of bickering 
 and discord, but from a heart charged with the Passion of 
 God, this and this only, can shake the world. It is for 
 want of this challenge that the churches sleep, for want of 
 this faithfulness that the world grows old in sin. " And he 
 that does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me."
 
 GAMBLING. 
 
 Isaiah Ixv. 11-15 ; Mark viii. 34-38. 
 
 THE PLACE OF ENGLAND AMONG THE NATIONS. 
 
 Isaiah Ixv. 11. " Ye that forsake the Lord, that 
 forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for fortune and 
 fill up mingled wine unto destiny, I will destine you to the 
 sword." 
 
 It is necessary to get the right meaning to a word. 
 (The Bishop and the Cords.) This is an obscure verse, which 
 has puzzled the ablest expositors. Most of them have agreed 
 in general principle. The prominent words are " Fortune " 
 and " Destiny." The Hebrew terms for these were Gad and 
 Meni, two heathen deities. " Those who forsake Jehovah 
 and prepare a table for Gad and mingled wine for Meni are 
 destined to the sword." 
 
 Jerome says that in all cities (4th century), especially in 
 Alexandria and Egypt generally, it was the custom to set 
 tables and prepare mingled wine for the gods on the last day of 
 the month. 
 
 These gods were Fortune and Fate, and Isaiah makes 
 Jehovah speak to the Jews reproving them for following this 
 heathen practice. Gambling was nothing but worship of 
 Good and Bad Luck. 
 
 Hogmanay (a feast still kept up in Scotland on the last 
 day of the year) can be traced to a Chaldean word meaning 
 " destiny." Good fare and strong drink are provided, and 
 the guests are wished " good luck for the coming year." This 
 
 132
 
 GAMBLING. 133 
 
 is applicable to-day. There are plenty who desert Jehovah 
 and spread tables to the gods of Good and Bad Luck — Gad 
 and Meni. 
 
 Once a certain working-man, a joiner by trade, was being 
 put to death for being too original a thinker and for " agi- 
 tating," and while he was in his death-agonies, the military 
 present tore off his clothes and tossed up for them. 
 
 A good many years ago, not so many as the joiner's 
 death, — the Prince of Wales lay dangerously ill at Sandring- 
 ham, — heavy stakes were laid on the issue. When President 
 Garfield was given up by doctors large sums were betted, even 
 pools being sold in Chicago on the event. 
 
 It is wonderfully persistent, this worship of Gad and 
 Meni. The Chinese gambled before Europe was civilised. 
 Ancient Hindoo laws denounce the practice. Aristotle the 
 Greek, classes the gambler with the thief. The Emperor 
 Justinian forbade it. 
 
 But now the foremost country of civilisation is covered 
 with worshippers of God and Meni — they have larger and 
 more devoted congregations than Christ. 
 
 To put it mildly, more than half the Stock Exchange 
 business is pure gambling. Burmah Ruby, Baring, Hansard 
 Union, Murietta failure, Liberator Building are a few graphic 
 results and instances. 
 
 Gambling shows itself in many forms, but in none so 
 plainly as horse-racing. Newspapers of all kinds, not only 
 the fifty odd sporting papers ; many tobacconists' and bar- 
 bers' shops, etc., are all agencies for the propagation of the 
 dogma of Gad and Meni worship. Belgravia, Whitechapel, the 
 mining village and the agricultural farm, all alike. 
 
 Where shall we seek results : York Castle. Leeds 
 Police Superintendent says that gambling is the chief cause of 
 crime in Leeds. He knew women who kept books for children 
 (id. bets) and made a living out of them. 
 
 The Chaplain of Stafford Gaol says : " We are able to fill 
 one of the spacious corridors in Stafford Prison with young
 
 134 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 men of the clerk and accountant class, sixteen to twenty-three 
 years of age, with salaries from £40 to £70, and who, according 
 to their own statements are victims of betting and gambling. 
 Here is a list of a few cases in one jail alone : — 
 
 1. Age 32, commercial clerk ; forgery through betting 
 
 debts. 
 
 2. Age 25, railway clerk, robbed the Company through 
 a money difficulty brought on by meeting book- 
 maker in pub. 
 
 3. Educated business man ; fraud ; penal servitude ; 
 betting the cause. 
 
 4. Butcher, age 28, embezzlement, betting. 
 
 5. Civil engineer, first class education, age 24, having 
 lost employment through betting, took to street 
 thieving. 
 
 6. Age 25, debts (betting) and attempted suicide. 
 
 7. Age 18, stole money from companion's pocket in 
 
 public bath to pay betting debts. (Latter papers 
 discovered in bedroom by his father.) 
 
 8. Age 17, clerk, stole £1 los. to pay betting debts. 
 
 9. Age 24, embezzlement, betting debts. 
 
 10. Age 28, embezzlement of £500. 
 
 11. Age 28, baker, embezzlement, master's customers. 
 
 12. Age 27, clerk in furniture warehouse, stole carpets 
 and practised fraud, — betting debts. 
 
 13. Butler 38, good position and wage ; embezzlement 
 again ; debt. 
 
 14. Age 20, pupil teacher, Board School, ditto (to debts 
 added by degrees from little bets). 
 
 15. Mason, theft for betting-debt payment, five children 
 
 found nude ; clothes pawned to pay. 
 
 Colonel Howard Vincent says : " Betting, after drink, is 
 the most prolific source of crime, and the inspirer of countless 
 embezzlements." 
 
 The Times says : " Horse-racing is an amusement to 
 which is directly traceable more misery, more ruin, more
 
 GAMBLING. 135 
 
 demoralisation than to any other pastime. It is unnecessary 
 to insist on the manifold evils, the ruined homes, the broken 
 hearts, the blackened characters, for which it is responsible. 
 The curse of gambling, as Burns has said, is ' that it 
 hardens all within and petrifies the feelings.' It is absolutely 
 certain there has been an appalling increase in the facihties 
 for betting and similar forms of speculation among the middle 
 classes and working classes. A cheap press has brought the 
 knowledge of sporting events to the homes of the humblest. 
 Betting is no longer the exclusive appanage of aristocratic 
 dissipation, it is the delight of shopmen and servants, it roars 
 daily along Fleet Street with its unsavoury following of 
 touts and roughs. It forms the favourite reading, morning 
 and evening, of the clerks, on their way to and from the 
 banks and counting houses of London and other great cities. 
 It lies in wait for the schoolboy, almost as soon as he begins to 
 feel an interest in athletic competitions ; it entraps, we are 
 assured, even women and children. It is a main element 
 in the miserable stories of an immense number of embezzle- 
 ments and frauds." 
 
 Here is a picture of modern England from its leading 
 newspaper ! How does all this affect the place of England 
 among the nations ? Let us see. A book much talked about 
 is " Made in Germany." Its purport, broadly speaking, is 
 twofold. After alleging the waning of British commerce 
 the writer preaches two morals : — 
 
 (i) The necessity for practically recognising the 
 superiority of the average German over the average 
 Englishman. 
 
 {2) The necessity for protection. The second point is 
 a stupid fallacy illustrated by the case of sugar. Describe 
 the working of this. 9s. bounty ; Sugar at lis. 4d. Collapse 
 of English colonies and most of English refineries. Apparently 
 detrimental to England. In reahty the reverse. Only 
 Germans who benefit, the manufacturers. People pay 5d., 
 6d. and yd. per lb. for sugar. We pay id., i^d. and 2d.
 
 136 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 But we are not concerned to discuss Protection on this 
 occasion, the point I wish to give a moment's consideration 
 to is Enghsh commerce — one aspect of her position among the 
 nations. We frequently hear of England being driven out 
 by German competition. Take a few instances. Needles 
 to China in white and yellow packets : Hatchets for Peru 
 with special hafts. Cotton goods and locomotives for 
 Egypt. Baking apparatus for Argentine, etc. Cotton goods on 
 East African Coast. Technical Education. Huddersfield Dye 
 Works, and the forty chemists on research work at Elberfeld. 
 Wolverhampton Iron-masters and men in Germany. 
 
 Not lower wages and cheaper railways, but better ma- 
 chinery and more intelligent work. Chemists employed, etc. 
 German method of teaching cotton spinning. Five years in 
 a model up-to-date factory with proper degrees and exams. 
 Factory subsidised by Government. All this in spite of heavy 
 military burden and forced conscription. 
 
 Reasons : — 
 
 (i) Drink in Germany unknown as we know it. Am a 
 teetotaller here, but no need in Germany. 
 
 (2) Horse-racing, etc., unknown on the scale that we 
 know it. People more sober, industrious. 
 
 (3) Better education, both primary, secondary and 
 mechanical. Young Germans, instead of giving themselves 
 up to the study of Turf and Sunday Chronicle, master two or 
 three foreign languages and foreign methods of business. 
 
 (4) Deficiencies of recent Education Bill. 
 
 Now, in what way is horse-racing connected with the 
 place of England among the nations ? 
 
 Have endeavoured to show that it is enormously in- 
 creasing in its influence through means of press, telegraph, 
 tape, post office, and betting conveniences too numerous to 
 name. 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield called the Turf a vast engine of de- 
 moralisation, and this shows itself physically, mentally, and 
 morally.
 
 GAMBLING. 137 
 
 (i) The ignorance of betting men, their one idea is the 
 turf — all else is of no interest. Men of one idea. The Bishop, 
 the Sporting man, and Nebuchadnezzar. 
 
 (2) The selfishness of betting men, due to root of passion 
 being the craving to get money without working for it, and 
 the fact that it can only be got at the expense of another who 
 gets nothing in return ; a home for the passions. Anything 
 for a gamble. The story of the Huddersfield gambling gang, 
 and the id. down the grate. Religion may go to the devil, 
 and it has been said of Paris, " If God died to-morrow he 
 wouldn't be missed there." This is true of the betting world. 
 
 (3) Self-indulgence in one thing leads to self-indulgence 
 all round. Drink and vice and wretched conditions go hand 
 in hand \vith this vice of gambling. How are we going to 
 compete with the world if our men are reared in such a school ? 
 
 Decadence of Rome. — ^The same passions roused to-day. 
 Danger, unless we take care of a terrible debacle. Great na- 
 tions have fallen before, and the facts are inexorably against 
 gambling. " Ye that forsake the Lord, etc., I will destine you 
 to the sword." 
 
 Our callousness re Armenia, our selfishness in South 
 Africa, are not disconnected with this evil. Is gold to be our 
 ideal ? " For what shall it profit a man to gain the whole 
 world and forfeit his life ? " 
 
 "And all the gold that is beneath the moon; 
 Or ever was, of all these wearied souls 
 For even one could never buy repose." — Dante. 
 
 What we want is not a betting England, but a better 
 England. Oliver Cromwell's England and the Piedmontese. 
 The terror of England's name, standing for righteousness. 
 
 Again : We look to a rising democracy — a Merrie England 
 of real social equality — ^where the only title to respect will 
 be not the possession of wealth for which no toil has to be 
 given, or a name which is the mere accident of birth, but the 
 intrinsic merit of the man himself.
 
 138 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Is it to the democracy that meet in the betting ring of 
 Knavesmire next week — that ignoble, selfish crew, whose only 
 worship is the worship of gold, Meni and Gad, that we are to 
 hand the reins of power ? 
 
 England is made up of individuals. Individual faithful- 
 ness must be the root of all reform. 
 
 The weeds of the coal measures. 
 
 [Note. — The Huddersfield story (p. 137) was as follows. 
 A member of the Adult School in his "wild days" was out 
 of work. He set off on tramp, and eventually reached 
 Wakefield with only id. in his pocket. 
 
 He was very hungry, and very thirsty, and could not 
 decide whether to buy a teacake or a half pint of beer. He 
 concluded to toss up, — heads for the bread, tails for the beer. 
 The penny came down heads, and he was greatly disappointed. 
 He then decided he would be guided by the result of two 
 tosses out of three. 
 
 Result of toss 2 ^=^ tails for the beer. 
 
 Result of toss 3 = the penny rolled down a grate in 
 the street. So " he'd now't."]
 
 LOSING AND FINDING. 
 
 I John ii. 14 (second half) to 17 ; Joel ii, 28 ; Isaiah ix, 17 ; 
 Matthew x. 36-39. 
 
 Wicksteed. Characteristic of age — materialism. Two- 
 thirds private telegrams gambling. Due, first, to growth of 
 wealth and means of pleasure. Secondly, to a temporary 
 absence of sound and adequate social and political ideals. 
 Thirdly, and most important, for it embraces the second, 
 the temporary failure of the Christian Church to make an 
 effective appeal, especially to young men. 
 
 I. Growth of wealth and means of pleasure. — Unique, 
 no century like it. Do not yet see the end of the movement. 
 Dangers of empire. Wealth without idealism a terrible 
 curse. Does not fall only on rich. Pressure of great wealth, 
 especially of irresponsible wealth, affects the whole social 
 atmosphere, and taints the lives of those even with limited 
 means. The bald fact is, that the Christian Church makes 
 but the feeblest impress on our national life, and our youth 
 are exposed to the temptations of a materialism, never more 
 seductive, never more universal, than they are to-day. 
 
 Doubtless, apart from the direct counter-influence of 
 religion, materialism must in the end breed its own reaction. 
 Matthew Arnold has finely suggested the depth of that reaction 
 in ancient Rome : — 
 
 " On that hard Pagan world, disgust 
 And secret loathing fell, 
 Deep weariness and sated lust 
 Made human life a hell. 
 
 139
 
 140 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,- 
 
 The Roman noble lay ; 
 He drove abroad in furious guise 
 
 Along the Appian way. 
 
 He made a feast, drank fierce and fast. 
 And crowned his hair with flowers ; 
 
 No easier, nor no quicker, passed 
 The impracticable hours." 
 
 In that fact, if not in the present attitude of the Christian 
 churches, Hes hope, and in that fact Hes our opportunity. 
 
 If we have been swept off our feet, it may be that the 
 water is already shallowing, and when we find bottom we 
 must rescue others from the flood. 
 
 But who are they who in the 1900's are called to bring 
 men to a soberer view of life, a sense of its solemn responsibili- 
 ties, and the deeper meaning of things ? 
 
 To Israel, gone astray, Isaiah says, that the Lord shall 
 have no joy in their young men. There was to be no future 
 for her. 
 
 And so for us, if the Lord is to have no joy in our young 
 men, there can be no future for our people, for naturally it 
 is upon the young that the burden of future responsibility 
 must inevitably fall. 
 
 But if we have recognised the strength and seductiveness 
 of the temptations of modern life, we must also recognise 
 that without social and political ideals vividly conceived, 
 we shall lack the practical stimulus which is needed, if we are 
 to counteract the false and delusive teaching which so often 
 passes current for philosophy. Here at once we put our finger 
 upon a great weakness. Our young men do not think. They 
 borrow their thoughts from the newspapers, their life is lived 
 in such a hurry that there is no time for the precious art of 
 meditation. 
 
 The question the young man needs to stop and consider, 
 is not " How did I get here ? " but " What am I here for ? " 
 
 That was the question Tolstoi asked himself. It soon 
 led him deep into the practical problems of life, and though
 
 LOSING AND FINDING. 
 
 141 
 
 we may not agree with all his teaching, whether ethical or 
 economical, we all owe to him a debt, for he shook the hypo- 
 crisy of churches which lived on compromise. 
 
 We want men of the spirit of Tolstoi, for we want prophets, 
 young men who see visions, and who do not live merely for 
 the things of sense. 
 
 In this connection the importance of sound intelligent 
 reading ; history, literature, political economy, philosophy. 
 Neither great means nor great libraries necessary. " In 
 the best books great men talk to us, give us their most precious 
 thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. God be thanked 
 for books. They are the voices of the distant and the dead, 
 and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are 
 the true levellers. They give, to all who will faithfully use 
 them, the society, the spiritual presence of the best and 
 greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am. No matter 
 though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my 
 dwelling. If the sacred writers will enter, and take up their 
 abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my threshold to 
 sing to me of Paradise, and Shakespeare to open to me the 
 worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, 
 and Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall 
 not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may 
 become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called 
 the ' best society ' in the place where I live." (Channing). 
 
 But underlying this need, there is a greater — a need 
 which serves to mark the failure of the church, and should 
 stir it to greater effort — the need of spiritual life, of a spiritual 
 ideal, which shall embrace the social, and which shall answer 
 the question put to Tolstoi. It takes a soul to move a body. 
 It takes the ideal to blow an inch aside the dust of the 
 actual. 
 
 Th-ree great conditions face us : direct opposition to 
 rehgious life, sheer indifference, and the negation of doubt. 
 
 In all these facts we have come to the individual question 
 which needs to be dealt with individually. Whatever be the
 
 142 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 social conditions of modern life, here the individual is con- 
 cerned, and must decide. In both cases there is want of 
 vision. In the first two the question is that of the attitude 
 of the soul. In the third, it is primarily a question of defective 
 spiritual vision. 
 
 In the first two there is nothing exceptional to any age, 
 the third was specially prevalent during the latter decades of 
 the late century. 
 
 Take the third last. Two kinds of doubt : (i) Sincere 
 doubt. (2) " Fashionable " doubt. 
 
 Fashionable doubt is widely prevalent, and draws its 
 strength from two sources : — (i) Mental arrogance (" Chris- 
 tianity played out," etc). (2) Spiritual indolence. (Desire 
 to shirk responsibility). But sincere doubt, while it may be 
 taken as a hopeful symptom of budding faith, has its perils. 
 It is prevalent to-day because of transition— ideas are in the 
 melting pot, but we must not leave them there. 
 
 If there has been over- definition, there is on the contrary 
 no power in nebulous hypothesis. If there were, then the 
 New Testament need not have been written. 
 
 There is undoubtedly an antipathy to definition, sincere, 
 not indolent. It has in it a ground of excuse, but is generally 
 carried much too far. One thing the age needs is the living 
 consciousness of God through Jesus Christ. 
 
 The incarnation of God in Christ must again take shape 
 as a living idea, and must be experienced as a vital, indwelling 
 power. The reassertion and the renewed expression of the 
 incarnation must be the great work of the coming decades, 
 if we are to stem the tide of materialism. 
 
 Tennyson is often quoted where he says : — 
 
 " Cling ever to the sunnier side of doubt, 
 
 And cling to faith beyond the forms of faith ; 
 
 She sees the Best that glimmers through the Worst, 
 
 She spies the summer through the winter bud. 
 
 She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls. 
 
 She hears the lark within the songless egg, 
 
 She finds the fountain where they wailed ' mirage.' "
 
 LOSING AND FINDING. 143 
 
 But do not let us lay all the emphasis upon the first line, 
 for that surely is not the fulness of our message to the age. 
 
 We have I hope forever abandoned the belief that all 
 doubt is sin, but so much has been said in praise of doubt 
 that now it almost takes rank as a virtue. No, we need 
 faith " that finds the fountain where they wailed 'mirage.' " 
 Faith in God, faith in His power to reveal His character and 
 will, faith in His purpose for the human race, and faith in the 
 sons of men. 
 
 (Danger of thinking that broad thought is all that is 
 necessary). 
 
 We have still to deal with indifference and antagonism 
 to religious life. 
 
 Here is the old problem of life — the war between flesh 
 and spirit. No feature of this strife is new. Still men dread 
 the blame or seek the praise of their fellows. Still they indulge 
 their selfishness and their appetites, in petty meanness or in 
 secret sin. 
 
 Like Augustine, we need to yield to the divine will. We 
 know better than we do. (Young man with riches. The 
 application by no means only to wealth). 
 
 " He that loseth his hfe for my sake shall find it." 
 
 Self-sacrifice. Lammenais, Mazzini.
 
 SELFISHNESS. 
 
 I had thought that we might this morning have selected 
 our passages in the Bible with a special view to the con- 
 sideration of Selfishness. 
 
 If you will turn to the 22nd chapter of Numbers, 
 you will there find an illustration which may serve for the 
 keynote of our lesson. The story given here is the story of 
 Balaam and his ass — a story well known, I imagine, to 
 everyone. We will not read it through, but will confine 
 ourselves to the more important passages of the narrative. 
 
 The 22nd chapter opens with the account of the 
 Israelite encampment under Moses on the plains of Moab, 
 and tells us how Balak the Moabite king, taking fright at 
 this event, sends for Balaam the prophet, that he may curse 
 these enemies of his, who have come up in such numbers out 
 of Egypt. 
 
 Now, in reading this narrative, I want you to bear in 
 mind that the two besetting sins that afflicted Balaam were 
 ambition and avarice — ambition, making his gifts subservient 
 to admiration of himself, and avarice, transforming his gifts 
 into mere instruments for accumulating wealth. We shall see 
 how his conscience is gradually perverted by insincerity, 
 till his mind becomes the place of hideous contradictions, and 
 even God Himself becomes a lie to him, and with his heart 
 disordered, he finds himself so entangled in a false course that 
 to go back is impossible. 
 
 (Read Numbers xxii, 1-12). 
 
 It is in the second appeal to God that Balaam reveals his 
 hollowness of heart. He wanted to go to Balak, and yet not 
 
 144
 
 SELFISHNESS. 145 
 
 to offend God ; he wanted to get his duty altered, not to 
 learn what his duty was. To quote from F. W. Robertson : 
 
 " In worldly matters, ' think twice,' but in duty, it has 
 been well said, ' first thoughts are best ' ; they are more fresh, 
 more pure, have more of God in them. There is nothing 
 like the first glance we get at duty, before there has been any 
 special pleading of our affections or inclinations. Duty is 
 never uncertain at first. It is only after we have got involved 
 in the mazes and sophistries of wishing that things were 
 otherwise than they are, that it seems indistinct. Considering 
 a duty is often only explaining it away. Deliberation is often 
 only dishonesty. God's guidance is plain, when we are true." 
 
 (Read verses 22 and 23). 
 
 We all know the remainder of this story — how the ass 
 refused to move in the narrow way which was hemmed 
 in on both sides by walls, and how Balaam's anger rose against 
 the ass so that he struck it three times, and how the cause of 
 the ass's obstinacy was revealed to him in the end. 
 
 Whether we treat this story as a narrative of fact, or 
 whether we treat it as a parable or vision, matters nothing, — 
 the lesson is the same. The anger Balaam felt was but the 
 outward expression of the loss of equanimity within ; he 
 knew he was angry, and he did what men so entangled always 
 do. " The real fault is in themselves. They have committed 
 themselves to a false position, and when obstacles stand in 
 their way they lay the blame on circumstances. They smite 
 the dumb, innocent occasion of their perplexity, as if it were 
 the cause. And the passionateness, the ' madness ' of the 
 act is but an indication that all is going wrong within." 
 
 In the 22nd verse we read that God's anger was kindled 
 because he went, though in the 20th verse permission had been 
 given to go, and in the 34th and 35th verses we read as fol- 
 lows : — " And Balaam said unto the angel of the Lord, I 
 have sinned ; for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way 
 against me : now therefore, if it displease thee, I will get me 
 back again. 
 
 12
 
 146 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 " And the angel of the Lord said unto Balaam, Go with 
 the men ; but only the word that I shall speak unto thee, 
 that thou shalt speak. So Balaam went with the princes of 
 Balak." 
 
 These verses, though apparently contradictory, are not 
 difficult to understand. Balaam was struggling against what 
 he knew to be the will of God. He wanted to go to Balak 
 and permission is given — yet the acceptance of that permission 
 kindles God's anger. It was the selfishness of the act of 
 acceptance that is the explanation of this seeming want of 
 coherency. God said " Go," and then was angry. He was 
 sending Balaam to reap the fruit of his own wilfulness. 
 
 In the 34th and 35th verses Balaam offers to go back, 
 the angel says " Go on." It was too late. 
 
 " In the ardour of youth you have made perhaps a wrong 
 choice, or chosen an unfit profession, or suffered yourself 
 weakly and passively to be drifted into a false course of action, 
 and now, in spite of yourself, you feel there is no going back. 
 To many minds such a lot comes as with the mysterious force 
 of a destiny. They see themselves driven, and forget that 
 they put themselves in the way of the stream that drives 
 them. They excuse their own acts as if they were coerced. 
 They struggle now and then faintly, as Balaam did — try to 
 go back, cannot — and at last sink passively in the mighty 
 current that floats them on to wrong. 
 
 " And thenceforth to them all God's intimations will 
 come unnaturally. His voice will sound as that of an angel 
 against them in the way. Spectral lights will gleam, only 
 to show a quagmire from which there is no path of extrication. 
 The heavenliest things and the meanest will forbid the madness 
 of the prophet ; and yet, at the same time, seem to say to 
 the weak and vacillating self-seeker, ' You have done 
 wrong, and you must do more wrong.' Then deepens down a 
 hideous, unnatural, spectral state — the incubus as of a dream 
 of hell, mixed with bitter reminiscences of heaven." 
 
 (Read Numbers xxii., vv. 36-41 ; chap, xxiii. i-q).
 
 SELFISHNESS. 147 
 
 In the nth verse we have Balak's expostulation, and 
 then Balak makes the suggestion that Balaam should go to 
 another eminence from whence he should only see a part 
 of Israel, and asks him to curse them from thence, but the 
 result is the same. 
 
 On Balaam's return, we have the following reply (read 
 verses 18-24). Finally one more effort is made. In the 27th 
 verse we read that " Balak said unto Balaam, Come, I pray 
 thee, I will bring thee unto another place ; peradventure it 
 will please God that thou mayest curse me them from thence." 
 The altars are built once more, and once more the sacrifices 
 are made, but Balaam cannot bribe his God to consent to a 
 curse, and roused Balak's anger so, that he smote his hands 
 together, and in the loth verse of the 24th chapter we read 
 that Balak said unto Balaam, " I called thee to curse mine 
 enemies, and behold thou hast altogether blest them these 
 three times." 
 
 Balaam has tried his enchantments — his sacrifices — to 
 change the immutable will of God. He did not want to 
 deceive Balak by pretending to curse Israel, he wanted his 
 God to consent to his curse, but wherever he went he felt that 
 Israel was blessed. He goes, as we read in the 13th verse, to 
 a place where he shall not see all of Israel, and in the first 
 verse of the 24th chapter we read how that as in spite of that 
 it pleased God to bless Irsael, he went not as at other times to 
 seek for enchantments, but set his face towards the wilderness. 
 It was no good. He was trying to deceive himself that 
 he might honestly deceive Balak ; he will only speak the 
 thing he feels, but is not careful to feel all that is true, going 
 from hill to hill for the chance of getting to a place where the 
 truth may disappear. There stands the fact — Israel is blessed ; 
 and he will look at the fact in every way to see if he cannot 
 get in into a position where it shall be seen no longer. 
 
 " Such a character is not so uncommon as, perhaps, 
 we think. There is many a lucrative business which involves 
 misery and wrong to those who are employed in it. The
 
 148 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 man would be too benevolent to put the gold in his purse 
 if he knew of the misery. But he takes care not to know. 
 There is many a dishonourable thing done at an election, and 
 the principal takes care not to inquire. Many an oppression 
 is exercised on a tenantry, and the landlord receives his 
 rent, and asks no questions. Or there is some situation which 
 depends upon the holding of certain religious opinions, and 
 the candidate has a suspicion that if he were to examine, 
 he could not conscienciously profess these opinions, and 
 perchance he takes care not to examine." 
 
 Balaam cannot reverse God's will. He feels that God 
 has not beheld iniquity in Jacob nor perverseness in Israel, 
 and will not therefore curse. He tries one more move. 
 God will not curse the good, therefore he tries to make the 
 good wicked. That is the lowest depth that his selfishness 
 drags him to. In the 15th and i6th verses of the 31st of 
 Numbers, we find that he recommended Balak to use the 
 fascination of the Moabite women to entice the Israelites 
 into idolatry. Here was a man of delicate conscientiousness 
 and unconquerable scruples, straining at a gnat and swallowing 
 a camel. 
 
 " There are men who would not play false, and yet would 
 willingly win. There are men who would not lie, and yet 
 who would bribe a poor man to support a cause which he 
 believes in his soul to be false. There are men who would 
 resent at the sword's point the charge of dishonour, who 
 would yet for selfish gratification entice the weak into sin, 
 and damn body and soul in hell. There are men who would 
 be shocked at being called traitors, who, in time of war, will 
 yet make a fortune by selling arms to their country's foes. 
 There are men, respectable and respected, who give liberally 
 and support religious societies, and go to church, and would 
 not take God's name in vain, who have made wealth, in some 
 trade of opium or spirits, out of the wreck of innumerable 
 human lives." 
 
 What is the sequel to this career, blighted by selfish
 
 SELFISHNESS. 149 
 
 love of fame and wealth, may be read in the 6th, 7th and 8 th 
 verses of the 31st chapter. One thing to be noticed in the 
 conduct of Balaam are these repeated attempts to change the 
 Eternal Mind. Balaam has yet to learn — and every man who 
 allows selfishness to lead him into difficulties has also to learn — 
 that God cannot change. What Balaam thought was that 
 God would not change, but there is a difference between will 
 not and cannot. There are many who say this is right because 
 God wills it. But that is not the right way to put it. It is 
 because it is right that God wills it. Unless you say that, 
 you make it possible for God to reverse evil and good. If 
 right is right because God wills it, then if God chose to He 
 could make injustice and lying and cruelty to be right. 
 
 To quote from Robertson again : — 
 
 " It is a common thought that Might makes Right, but 
 for us there is no rest, no rock, no sure footing, so long as we 
 feel right and wrong are matters of will and decree. There 
 is no safety then, from these hankering feelings and wishes 
 to alter God's decree. You are unsafe until you feel, ' Heaven 
 and earth may pass away, but God's word cannot pass away.' " 
 
 Will you please read verses 1-5 of 2 Timothy, chap, iii., 
 and then Philippians ii. 4-21. 
 
 In the 2ist verse we have a very good definition of selfish- 
 ness. " For all seek their own, not the things which are 
 Jesus Christ's." 
 
 Selfishness is self-love, and to a large extent takes the 
 form of satisfying our natural appetites. 
 
 Baxter has said, and I think truly, " That though selfish- 
 ness hath defiled the whole man, yet sensual pleasure is 
 the chief part of its interest, and therefore, by the sense it 
 commonly works ; and these are the doors and the windows 
 by which iniquity entereth into the soul." 
 
 There are two natures in us — the one spiritual, the other 
 animal — and the satisfaction of our animal instincts, for the 
 mere sake of satisfaction, is selfishness — while the fostering 
 of our spiritual nature is the reverse.
 
 150 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Selfishness, therefore is a term synonymous with spiritual 
 death, — it is a disease the germs of which exist in every one 
 of us, and which, if allowed to grow, will choke out the life, 
 and leave us spiritually dead. It was no doubt with a dread 
 of this spiritual death that Paul wrote the 12th verse : — 
 ' ' Wherefore, my beloved, as he have always obeyed, not as in 
 my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out 
 your own salvation with fear and trembling." 
 
 There is a book by Henry Drummond, which no doubt 
 some of you have read, entitled " Natural Law in the Spiritual 
 World." It is a book written with a freshness that renders 
 it anything but heavy or dull reading, and not at all open to 
 the complaint so often made of theological works that they 
 are so cut and dried. 
 
 Drummond tries to show throughout his work that the 
 laws of nature axe the laws which govern also in the spiritual 
 world, and that as physical sins — sins of the flesh — meet with 
 unfailing punishment, so also moral sins meet with unfailing 
 punishment in the spiritual world. 
 
 He deals with sins of omission as well as commission, 
 and points out that those who have spiritual faculties given 
 them, and who neglect them through selfishness, lose these very 
 faculties in not using them, and degenerate, even as animals 
 with physical faculties lose them from long disuse, and 
 degenerate in the scale of physical life. 
 
 He points out how the world is divided into three king- 
 doms — the mineral, the vegetable and the animal, — the animal 
 being at the top of the scale. He shows that as you descend 
 in the scale you find the range of correspondence, as he calls 
 it (in other words the power of seeing, touching, moving, 
 among the things around you) contracts. In a mineral you 
 have for instance, no power of growth — no power of movement, 
 — no life. A step higher you have, in the vegetable kingdom, 
 life, growth, and in a very limited area, the power of movement. 
 In the animal kingdom again, you have fuller powers, and 
 the higher you ascend the scale in the animal kingdom
 
 SELFISHNESS. 151 
 
 the wider the range of correspondence, the greater the power 
 of corresponding with the environment and surroundings 
 becomes. Thus man can move at will from England to Aus- 
 tralia, whereas the pebble on the footpath must remain where 
 it is, and the creeping buttercup can at most crawl along its 
 particular patch of grass. 
 
 He goes on to point out how what is natural for a man 
 is supernatural for a plant, and what is natural for a plant 
 is supernatural for a mineral, but that there is nevertheless 
 a connection between the kingdoms. That plants draw their 
 life from the mineral world, sucking up mineral nourishment 
 in their stems and making the mineral form part of themselves, 
 and that the same connection exists between the animal and 
 plant world, — the higher life seizing upon the lower and 
 drawing it up into itself. Having brought you to this 
 point, Drummond shows you that a mineral must remain 
 a mineral unless it is drawn up into the vegetable kingdom 
 above it, — and that a plant must live and die a plant unless 
 it in turn is absorbed in the animal kingdom above it, — and a 
 man must live and die an animal unless he in his turn is 
 absorbed into the spiritual kingdom which is above him, — 
 that he must in short work out his own salvation with fear 
 and trembling. That is the whole question of the battle of 
 life. The plant can no more understand the environment of 
 the animal — can have no more knowledge of the world which 
 the animal sees with its own eyes or feels with his organs of 
 touch — or of the sounds that it hears — than if it never existed. 
 To the plant the music of the waves on the sea-shore is nothing 
 — the grandeur of Alpine snows is nothing. It can neither 
 see or hear. It has to be absorbed into the kingdom above 
 it, before it can share the wider correspondence of the animal 
 kingdom. So with man. He knows nothing of the spiritual 
 kingdom, unless he allows himself to be caught up by the 
 higher life and absorbed into itself. His natural kingdom 
 is the animal kingdom — his natural instincts cling to his 
 animal surroundings — he knows nothing of the higher kingdom
 
 152 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 with its eternal life, its wider range of correspondence, — 
 of correspondence with the kingdom of God, until God reaches 
 down to him and lifts him up. 
 
 But there is a great power vested in man. Unlike 
 the mineral, he has the choice as to whether he will remain 
 where he is or allow himself to be drawn into the higher life. 
 He has in short the power of the choice of good and evil. 
 It rests with him as to whether he will rise or no. There are 
 faculties given him by which he can cling to the divine in- 
 fluence and help himself up. He cannot do it alone. It is 
 the higher power that will draw him up— it will not be his own 
 strength, but that higher power wiU not draw him up unless 
 there is effort on his part — the effort of chnging to the hand 
 that is stretched out to him — the effort required to hold that 
 hand fast enough while it is tugging at the roots of his animal 
 nature that cling to the soil of earth. That effort is an essen- 
 tial factor in the process of evolution to a higher stage in the 
 great kingdom of God. That effort is called self-denial — 
 the roots which hold man down are called self-love. 
 
 If that effort is not made — if time is allowed to go by 
 and no effort put forth — the very power of ^making that effort 
 passes away, and the man becomes spiritually dead. He 
 has sought his own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's, 
 he has preferred the animal kingdom to the spiritual kingdom 
 of God. 
 
 If we neglect our spiritual faculties, the law of nature 
 is sure to apply with us in our spiritual life. I cannot do 
 better than quote Drummond here : — 
 
 " The true problem of the spiritual life may be said to 
 be, do the opposite of Neglect. Whatever this is, do it, 
 and you shall escape. It will just mean that you are so to 
 cultivate the soul, that all its powers will open out to God, 
 and in beholding God be drawn away from sin. The idea 
 really is to develop among the ruins of the old, a new ' crea- 
 ture ' — a new creature which, while the old is suffering 
 Degeneration from Neglect, is gradually to unfold, to escape
 
 SELFISHNESS. 153 
 
 away and develop on spiritual lines to spiritual beauty and 
 strength. And as our conception of spiritual being must be 
 taken simply from natural being, our ideas of the lines along 
 which the new religious nature is to run must be borrowed 
 from the known lines of the old. 
 
 " There is, for example, a Sense of Sight in the religious 
 nature. Neglect this, leave it undeveloped, and you never 
 miss it. You simply see nothing. But develop it and you 
 see God. And the line along which to develop it is known to 
 us. Become pure in heart. The pure in heart shall see God. 
 Here, then, is one opening for soul-culture — the avenue 
 through purity of heart, to the spiritual seeing of God. 
 
 " Then there is the Sense of Sound. Neglect this, leave 
 it undeveloped, and you never miss it. You simply hear 
 nothing. Develop it, and you hear God. And the line along 
 which to develop it is known to us. Obey Christ. Become 
 one of Christ's flock. ' The sheep hear His voice, and He 
 calleth them by name.' Here, then, is another opportunity 
 for the culture of the soul — a gateway through the Shepherd's 
 fold to hear the Shepherd's voice. 
 
 " And there is a Sense of Touch to be acquired — such a 
 sense as the woman had who touched the hem of Christ's 
 garment, that wonderful electric touch called faith, which 
 moves the very heart of God. 
 
 " And there is a Sense of Teiste — a spiritual hunger after 
 God ; a something within which tastes and sees that He is 
 good. And there is the Talent for Inspiration. Neglect 
 that, and all the scenery of the spiritual world is fiat and 
 frozen. But cultivate it, and it penetrates the whole soul 
 with sacred fire, and illuminates creation with God. And, 
 last of all, there is the great capacity for Love, even the love 
 of God — the expanding capacity for feeling more and more 
 its height and depth, its length and breadth. Till that is 
 felt no man can really understand that word, ' so great salva- 
 tion,' for what is its measure but the other ' so ' of Christ. 
 God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son ? 
 Verily, how shall we escape if we neglect that ? " 
 
 The great battle of our lives is to escape from self — 
 to conquer self-love — selfishness, — and it is a hard battle for 
 the best of us, be he high or low. It is a battle that has
 
 154 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 constantly to be fought — which requires watchfulness in 
 public as well as in private life. Many are the lives selfishness 
 has blighted and embittered. Hardly a more melancholy 
 example exists than the career that came to so tragical a 
 close with the death of Charles Stuart Parnell. Those of you 
 who have read that powerful memoir written by T. P. O'Connor 
 cannot have failed to be impressed with the change that came 
 over him in his latter years. It is not for me to enter into any 
 political discussion, but be our views what they may, it will 
 be granted by all that he was the leader of a popular movement, 
 and if he believed in this movement which he controlled, there 
 is no doubt that nothing but self-love could allow him to 
 withdraw himself night after night from the House of Commons 
 while his colleagues were in agonies of doubt and despair — 
 ignorant of his address, not daring to give expression to their 
 suspicions, — in order that he, their leader, might indulge in 
 his selfish passion. Self-love blighted what might have been 
 one of the greatest names in modern history and ruined a 
 brilliant career. The analogy with the story we have read in the 
 Old Testament will be plain to all, and it is only too true that 
 if you feed your selfishness, your selfishness will grow upon 
 you and warp your whole nature. And the more you feed 
 it the harder it will be to retrace your steps. The further you 
 go the further you will go — if you sin, the natural consequence 
 is that you will sin more. 
 
 I have mentioned one case in public life, but there are 
 countless instances on a lesser scale where, in one form or 
 other, selfishness has been a curse. Drink is an attribute 
 of selfishness. To drink your money away in a public-house, 
 is to indulge all that is low and animal in you, to encourage 
 what is furthest removed from the god-like in you, and that 
 is selfishness. To gamble away what should be brought home 
 to the wife is selfishness ; to be thoughtless of others' wants 
 and wishes is selfishness ; to do nothing for anyone because 
 that something has to be done at some personal inconvenience 
 is selfishness. Wherever duty is shirked that self may be
 
 SELFISHNESS. 155 
 
 gratified instead, we have made self stronger and driven God 
 further away. And it is a strange thing, that as selfishness 
 grows in a man, happiness decreases. He who lives for self, 
 even if he has all the wealth the world can give, is never satis- 
 fied — the peace that floweth as a river is never his. He 
 becomes weary and hlasc, all the world can offer him he has 
 tasted to satiety, and his heart grows sick within him. The 
 old age of such a man, looking back on a selfish, fruitless life 
 of pleasure must be bitterness and gall. I am reminded in 
 contrast to this, of a lady I know very well, who has for years 
 been so ill with consumption that her voice is too weak for 
 me to hear even the sound of it, and her limbs are so frail that 
 they will barely carry her across the room. Yet she is full 
 of S5mipathy for others ; enters into the affairs of those she 
 knows with kindly interest, and actually works for different 
 missions and societies with which she is connected. One 
 would have thought that she at least, would be justified 
 in being selfish — who hardly ever knew a night free from 
 harassing cough, and yet her face wears an expression of 
 unchanging happiness — such happiness that I feel ashamed 
 of myself whenever I am in her presence — it is the happiness 
 of an absolutely unselfish nature. 
 
 Heart of Christ, O cup most golden^ 
 
 Brimming with salvation's winej 
 MilHon souls have been beholden 
 
 Unto thee for Ufe divine : 
 Thou art full of blood the purest; 
 Love the tenderest and surest ; 
 Blood is life, and life is love ; 
 Oh, what wine is there Uke love ? 
 
 Heart of Christ, O cup most golden^ 
 
 Out of thee the martyrs drank. 
 Who for truth in cities olden 
 
 Spake nor from the torture shrank ; 
 Saved they were from traitor's meanness; 
 Filled with joys of holy keenness; 
 Strong are those that drink of love ; 
 Oh. what wine is there Uke love ?
 
 156 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Heart of Christ, O cup most golden. 
 
 To remotest place and time. 
 Thou for labours wilt embolden 
 
 Unpresuming but sublime ; 
 Hearts are firm, though nerves be shaken, 
 When from thee new life is taken ; 
 Truth recruits itself by love; 
 Oh, what wine is there like love ? 
 
 Heart of Christ, O cup most golden. 
 
 Liberty from thee we win ; 
 We who drink; no more are holden 
 
 By the shameful cords of sin ; 
 Pledge of mercy's sure forgiving. 
 Powers for a holy living, 
 These, thou cup of love, are thine ; 
 Love, thou art the mightiest wine. 
 
 From " The Rivulet," T.T. Lynch.
 
 TEMPERANCE. 
 
 [The following is a portion of an address given first at Leeds.] 
 
 " Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee : 
 he shall never sufier the righteous to be moved. But thou, O God, 
 shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction ; bloodthirsty and 
 deceitful men shall not live out half their days ; but I will trust in thee." 
 
 — Psalm Iv. 22-23. 
 
 I have been asked this evening to devote the time at 
 my disposal to the subject of " Temperance." I propose to 
 do so, but I accept the title in its wider application. 
 
 If it is fanatical to be a total abstainer, there was never a 
 fanaticism more justified. No one can observe the withering 
 curse of " the drink " even as it blights the life of a single 
 individual, without feeling with Paul that anything which 
 makes it easier for the tempted to fall is, for those who can 
 influence the victim, unlawful. Who has not seen the terrible 
 consequences to the home where " drink "has made an en- 
 trance, the deepening shadow of a hopeless misery that settles 
 upon the family life, the degradation, moral and physical, 
 the loss of self-respect, the actual distortion of character which 
 follow one upon another like the strokes of a pitiless fate. 
 
 Those who refuse the easy platitudes of the arm-chair 
 optimist, and witness for themselves the effect of the traffic, 
 or examine critically the national statistics as they relate to 
 expenditure and health, recognise in alcoholism a national 
 curse, a direct and serious menace to the morale and physique 
 of the race. 
 
 No opposition can be too strenuous to an evil which 
 corrupts our politics, breaks up the home-life, and creates 
 and fosters crime. In this view all present are probably 
 agreed, and it is on that account that I feel free to dwell upon 
 
 IS7
 
 158 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 a wider application of that virtue which, under the name of 
 Temperance, has perhaps been too exclusively associated 
 with one particular failing. 
 
 Our modern life, calls, indeed, for a Temperance gospel 
 more comprehensive in its scope, and more positive in its 
 teaching. 
 
 The evil to be cured goes deep. Excessive drinking is 
 not so much a thing by itself, as one bad and striking symptom 
 of a prevailing temper. It is an outward indulgence marking 
 a moral relaxation, one form only of a widespread paganism. 
 
 The virtue of Temperance, the ordered control of life's 
 activities, cannot be regarded by itself. It stands intimately 
 related to the secret spring of life's motive, it is the expression 
 of a settled purpose, the action of one who " has kept watch 
 o'er man's mortality," whose faith passes the bounds of death, 
 who reads in the changing shows of life the ways and will of 
 God. 
 
 It is not only because gambling is economically unsound, 
 or drunkenness physically injurious, that we condemn them 
 both. It is because intemperance imphes a purposeless life. 
 
 " Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half 
 their days." No, for theirs is at the best a half-hfe. They 
 control nothing, rather are they controlled. Their passions, 
 their lusts drive them like the strong wind of the " Inferno " in a 
 pitiless circle. They arrive nowhere ; they are the sport of 
 the tempest. They can will nothing, they can find no rest. 
 Self-realisation — that is a thing impossible, for, dominated 
 by their lusts, their higher nature is thwarted, crushed, ex- 
 tinguished. The fierceness of their craving for selfish satis- 
 faction, be it money, gambling, drink, or worse, absorbs them. 
 The fulness of a life conscious of its meaning, ennobled and 
 quickened by a sense of the Divine purpose, this they cannot 
 know. 
 
 There is a pathos in it, for it is fulness that they crave, 
 and the satisfaction of a passion seems to cover, if it be for 
 the moment, the haunting unreality and the emptiness that
 
 TEMPERANCE. 159 
 
 assails their souls. The drunkard in his cups forgets the 
 
 misery of his aimlessness ; the dilettante in his study, the 
 
 gambler with his dice, each seeks escape from the fatuity of 
 
 selfishness, the hopelessness of the life that is not linked with 
 
 God. 
 
 " Sweet cup of life no power shall fill again,- 
 Thy juice goes singing through each gladdened vein, 
 Drink, drink my love, two mouths upon the brim, 
 Ah, drink, drink, drink each little drop and drain, 
 For have ye thought how short a time is ours. 
 Only a little longer than the flowers. 
 Here in the meadow just a summer's day,- 
 Only to-day ; to-morrow — other flowers." 
 
 There is nothing in life more terrible than this. True 
 indeed are the words of the Psalmist, "Bloodthirsty and de- 
 ceitful men shall not live out half their days." 
 
 To Hve out all our days, to live them fully, intensely, 
 to feel in them the throb of an ever-present reahty, a signi- 
 ficance deep and lasting, to look unflinching on death, because 
 we can look beyond 
 
 " And see the children sport upon the shore,- 
 And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore," 
 
 is to know, not the fitful fever of the self-indulgent, or the sad 
 anaemic pleasures of the ascetic, but the quiet and sustaining 
 joy of the temperate life. 
 
 " I will trust in thee," says the Psalmist, turning from 
 the fever and lust of headstrong men to that which alone gives 
 hope amid the shocks of life's circumstance. It is just the 
 life of quiet strength, controlled force, definite aim, steady 
 trust, which in the haste and turmoil of an age over-stimulated, 
 surfeited with the things of sense, we need to live. 
 
 It seems so hard to learn the secret of life, — not escape, 
 not indulgence, but possession and control. 
 
 The old monks shut themselves in cells or hid themselves 
 in the deserts, though even there the devOs pursued them, and 
 by counting their beads tried to win Paradise.
 
 i6o JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 That way is not permitted to us. It too was only a half- 
 life, for it was only half a victory. 
 
 Our problem is different. It is to Hve with the world, 
 fighting through its daily struggles, tasting its daily alternation 
 of bitter and sweet, and there, in the market, the street, the 
 home, the office, to conquer and grow strong. More ! It is 
 to accept its pleasures, to love its beauty, to love life itself, 
 even as the Greek loved it for the very joy of living, and yet 
 so to accept and to love, that all may minister to the highest 
 that we know. This is the hardest as it is the greatest victory. 
 
 Let us, in short, be willing to live the simple life, simple 
 in its trust and faith, simple in its tastes, sincere and deep in 
 its purpose. 
 
 And we shall find that the true life though the simplest 
 is yet the richest, for to him who seeks the Kingdom, all things 
 are added. Nor is it bare, for asceticism is no true simplicity, 
 and the Kingdom of God is full of beautiful things. 
 
 Let us only be sure that we possess our goods and that 
 our goods do not possess us. 
 
 Our dress, our style of living, our reading, our thoughts, 
 our relaxations, our theatres, concerts, novels ; to what end 
 are they means ? Are they tyrannical or do they minister 
 to eternal life ? Have we purpose or are we aimless ? Is our 
 waggon hitched to a star ? 
 
 For Temperance is nothing negative. It is a positive 
 virtue, and its root is trust in God, which is hope in man and 
 the faith that conquers the world.
 
 "WHEN WAR SHALL BE NO MORE." 
 A PLEA FOR COMMON SENSE. 
 
 Cavendish, a good Christian according to the prevaiHng 
 standard of his times, writes to Lord Hunsdon, in 1588 : — 
 " It hath pleased Almighty God to suffer me to circumpass the 
 whole globe of the world, entering in at the Strait of Magellan, 
 and returning by the Cape of Buena Esperanya ; in which 
 voyage I have either discovered or brought certain intelli- 
 gence of all the rich places of the world which were ever dis- 
 covered by any Christian. I navigated along the coast of 
 Chili, Peru, and New Spain, where I made great spoils. I 
 burnt and sunk nineteen sail of ships, small and great. All the 
 villages and towns that ever I landed at, I burned and spoiled." 
 
 We cannot read this now without a smile. It may have 
 seemed natural to the bold buccaneer to preface such an ac- 
 count with the words " It hath pleased Almighty God " ; 
 but I fancy that had Lord Brassey's voyage in the celebrated 
 " Sunbeam " been of like character, some doubt as to the 
 sanction of the Almighty would have found expression among 
 his countrymen. 
 
 Since those roving and boisterous times we have seen a 
 development in our social ideals ; international relationships 
 are such as to prohibit the launching of new "Alabamas" with 
 impunity, and the privateer is no longer permitted to infest 
 the highways of commerce. 
 
 The walls of York speak eloquently to the truth caught 
 by Sir Bedivere from the lips of the dying King, that " the 
 old order changeth, yielding place to new." 
 
 161 
 
 13
 
 i62 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 The Scotch expresses, with their luxurious dining-cars, 
 would surprise our ancestors, not more because of their speed 
 and the mystery of their motive power, than because of their 
 subhme contempt for border-raiders and savages of the Gram- 
 pians. On rare occasions blows may be struck in the House 
 of Commons, to the grief and shame of a nation ; but we do 
 not expect, with all their zeal for Disestablishment, to see the 
 Welsh sweep down on Hereford and Gloucester ; nor will the 
 citizens of York ever again see the smoke of Scotch cattle- 
 raiders on the Hambleton Hills. 
 
 Private wars and border-raids are things of the past ! 
 
 A Salisbury does not call out the vassals of Hatfield 
 that he may count the number of his faithful, and seek fresh 
 courage from the glitter of their arms, before he faces the kilted 
 warriors of Dalmeny ; nor need he fear a claymore behind each 
 tuft of heather, should he visit the grouse-moors of the north. 
 
 Judicial combats, when Justice kept her sword but threw 
 away her scales, have given place to our law courts, with judge 
 and jury. The wearying delays and the frequent fees are at 
 least more tolerable than the barbarous bludgeonings and 
 mutilations they supersede. 
 
 Common sense taught our forefathers the injustice and 
 folly of a system where might alone was right, and if our present 
 legal machinery be cumbrous and costly we can alter all that 
 too in time. 
 
 In 1849, Victor Hugo, speaking in Paris, said : — " A 
 day will come when war shall appear as absurd and be as 
 impossible between Paris and London, between St. Petersburg 
 and Berlin, as it would be now between Rouen and Amiens, 
 between Edinburgh and London, between Boston and Phila- 
 delphia. A day will come when the only battle-field will be 
 the market open to commerce, and the mind opening to new 
 ideas. A day will come when bullets and bombshells will be 
 replaced by votes, by the universal suffrage of nations, by 
 the venerable arbitration of a great Sovereign Senate, which 
 will be to Europe what the Parliament is to England, what the
 
 " WHEN WAR SHALL BE NO MORE." 163 
 
 Diet is to Germany, what the Legislative Assembly is to 
 France." 
 
 There is a minority to whom, for good reasons, the pros- 
 pect of a time " when Universal Peace shall lie like a shaft 
 of light across the land " does not appeal ; but, on the other 
 hand, if the advocate of Peace be only careful to insert a 
 saving clause, placing the realisation of his hopes in some 
 immeasurably distant future, he wins almost universal con- 
 sent. 
 
 It would be amazing, did one not realise the deadening 
 effect of custom, to see the apathy with which the churches 
 regard the glaring inconsistency, so fatal to the spread of their 
 influence, which permits them on the one hand to train mil- 
 lions of fighting men, and on the other to preach the Gospel of 
 Peace, forsooth, to all the world ! 
 
 What can be more pitiable than the spectacle of ministers 
 of the Prince of Peace sheltering themselves behind the Old 
 Testament, and justifying their indifference on the grounds 
 of an obsolete ideal expressly set aside by the very Christ 
 they seek to serve ! Under pressure, however, this incon- 
 sistency is generally admitted, and the war system is euphe- 
 mistically described as a " necessary evil." 
 
 The huge military establishments which are crushing out 
 the life of Europe, swallowing in equivalent an hour a day of 
 every working-man's labour, and handicapping us in the 
 race with America, are spoken of as the greatest securities 
 against war ; though at certain periods when an increase in 
 armament is contemplated it is more convenient to speak of 
 " the huge powder magazines which a spark may explode ! " 
 
 The idea that large standing armies are the custodians 
 of peace is perversely fallacious. You cannot have millions 
 of men confined to barrack life, and their officers an influential 
 class, denied that opportunity of distinction and promotion 
 afforded by active service, which they quite naturally desire, 
 without creating and maintaining in society a dangerous 
 and disturbing element. But why need this inconsistency
 
 i64 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 continue ? Why need we have lynch law at all between nation 
 and nation ? 
 
 We have established the reign of law between man and 
 man within the State, we have done away with petty baronial 
 wars and internecine strife, — the next step in social evolution 
 is to extend the reign of law to international relations. 
 
 Are we, in short, to call ourselves Christian States and 
 continue to permit our international affairs to be conducted 
 in the fashion of savages ? The past development clearly 
 marks out for us the direction in which to work. We must 
 aim at introducing the reign of law, as opposed to brute force, 
 into international politics. 
 
 This mad rivalry between the nations for a first place in 
 the mihtary race cannot go on. We must bring the moral 
 weight of intelligent communities to bear in the decision of 
 international questions. We must stimulate in the minds of 
 the people a consciousness of the present folly. The increas- 
 ing pressure of armaments will make the work of education 
 easy if vigorously undertaken, and when the people become pos- 
 sessed of the thought that the reign of law is applicable to 
 international affairs, and that a way of deliverance from the 
 present intolerable t5/ranny lies open before them, that thought 
 will soon clothe itself in practical form. 
 
 Great ideals create great peoples. 
 
 A military nation may have for its ideal such a state of 
 things as we see in Germany, where within a week a million 
 men may be hurled over the frontiers of an enemy. 
 
 I think there is a higher ideal. 
 * Emerson says : — "If you have a nation of men who have 
 risen to that height of moral cultivation that they will not 
 declare war and carry arms, for they have not so much mad- 
 ness left in their brains, you have a nation of lovers, of bene- 
 factors, of true great and able men. Let me know more of 
 that nation ; I shall not find them defenceless, with idle hands 
 hanging at their sides. I shall find them men of love, honour, 
 and truth ; men of an immense industry ; men whose in-
 
 " WHEN WAR SHALL BE NO MORE." 165 
 
 fluence is felt to the end of the earth ; men whose very look 
 and voice carry the sentence of honour and shame ; and all 
 forces yield to their energy and persuasion. 
 
 '• Whenever we see the doctrine of peace embraced by a 
 nation, we may be assured it will not be one that invites 
 injury ; but one, on the contrary, which has a friend in 
 the bottom of the heart of every man, even of the violent 
 and the base ; one against which no weapon can prosper ; 
 one which is looked upon as the asylum of the human race and 
 has the tears and the blessings of mankind." 
 
 People are fond of referring the realisation of such ideals 
 to the millennium, as if the millennium were a ripening plum 
 that will drop, independent of human agency, at the appointed 
 hour ! 
 
 No great reform has ever been carried without a period 
 of education and hard work ; no legislation of moment has been 
 effected that has not had the pressure of the popular will 
 behind it. 
 
 The work of educating the nations to peace rests primarily 
 with the Churches. It is they who must insist on self-res- 
 traint, suppress the spirit of revenge, and realise the universal 
 brotherhood of man. 
 
 Let us no longer mock the Cross on the altar by holding 
 military services in our cathedrals and stimulating the passions 
 of a false and ignoble patriotism, but let us have services 
 devoted to peace. 
 
 Let the Churches cease to coquet with militarism, to deck 
 with attractive colours a pagan survival of a barbarous age, 
 and regardless of fashion and opinion, stand true to the 
 principles they represent, and the battle will be won. 
 
 [PubUshed in York Monthly Magazine, 1894].
 
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 PART III. 
 ART AND HISTORY.
 
 ART AND HISTORY. 
 
 INTRO D UCTOR Y NOTE. 
 
 " The Art of Engraving in Relation to the Religious 
 Thought of the Renaissance," was the title of a course of six 
 lectures given in June and July, 1904. While including 
 much of the material of previous lectures on Diirer, Holbein, 
 and Early German and Italian Engraving, this particular 
 series was specially prepared for Woodbrooke, and was the 
 final embodiment of years of Art Study. Unremitting care 
 and minute research were devoted to the compilation and 
 revision of notes on the origin of the Woodcut, Block books, 
 Early Book Engravings, Chronological Tables relative to 
 early engravings, and memoranda relating to the lives and 
 work of Diirer and Holbein. These notes, printed as sylla- 
 buses, were distributed to the audiences, and formed valuable 
 guides to the lectures. The amount of labour involved in 
 their preparation (as well in that of the slides as of the 
 lectures themselves), was very great, and was carried out 
 with the thoroughness which characterised all John Wilhelm 
 Rowntree's work. 
 
 In the first lecture, " The Childhood of Faith," he led his 
 hearers back into the fifteenth century, and made them 
 " sit where the people sat," for whom the first engravings 
 on paper published in Europe, opened the golden gates of 
 imagination. 
 
 The second lecture, " The Revolt of Faith," was a sum- 
 mary of the earher life and work of Albrecht Diirer. A 
 
 169
 
 170 JOHN WILHELM ROVVNTREE. 
 
 striking analysis of his illustrations to the Apocalypse showed 
 the effect upon the artist of the Renaissance, and its recoil 
 from the corruption of the Roman Church, 
 
 The third lecture, "The Recovery of Faith," dealt with the 
 work of Diirer under different aspects, and described in much 
 detail his " Melancholia," and " The Knight, Sin, and Death," 
 as illustrating the spirit of the time. 
 
 The fourth lecture, " The Emancipation of Faith," 
 was a Study of " Art emancipated from the limitations of 
 the Gothic, and Faith emancipated from the spiritual frost of 
 ecclesiastical dominion." 
 
 The fifth lecture, " The Failure of Paganism," dealt 
 exhaustively with " The Dance of Death," and had as the 
 keynote, " If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are 
 of all men most miserable." The thought was further em- 
 phasised by the symbolism of Holbein's " Ambassadors." 
 
 In the sixth lecture his own mental attitude towards 
 " The Place of Art in Religion and Life " was summarised.
 
 ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 
 OF THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 (I.) EARLY ENGRAVINGS AND SIMPLE FAITH. 
 
 It was not till the opening of the fifteenth century 
 that paper, known in Europe two centuries earlier, became 
 plentiful, and it is at the beginning of the fifteenth century 
 that we discover our first prints. These are known as Helgen, 
 saints' images, — and were exceedingly numerous. Huss was 
 burnt in 1415, Luther's hammer was heard in 1517, and between 
 those dates an extraordinary production of religious pictures 
 took place. No doubt the Church was seeking to promote 
 piety by the multiplication of sacred emblems, and thus to 
 stay an evergrowing scepticism. But though, as we shall 
 find, this scepticism found early expression, we are compelled 
 to see in these Helgen something more than the machinations 
 of the priest. They speak the language of the soul — the soul 
 of the common people. And it is the simple, trustful, nay, 
 sometimes fearful language of little children. The Helgen 
 represent in art, as do the pictures of Wilhelm of Cologne 
 and Stefan Lochner, the childhood of faith. The storm is 
 soon to break, and in the Apocalypse of Diirer we shall hear 
 the howling of the vengeful tempest. Touched by the 
 reforming spirit of his age, the engraver is to stand forth, if 
 we may adopt the language of Ruskin, as " the sign-painter of 
 God." But this is the calm before the storm — the childhood 
 of unquestioning faith, call it credulity if you will. Pur- 
 chased at the shrine of a saint or given as the memento of 
 some pilgrimage, the Helgen were cherished as precious 
 things, and pinned up like a penny almanack on the cottage 
 walls of the poorest. They have a touching interest on this 
 
 171
 
 172 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 account, which grows no less when we remember that they 
 were the unconscious preparation for change. As Dr. 
 Lippman has said in his charming book upon Itahan wood- 
 engraving, " the coloured woodcuts so dear to the people of 
 the North, became, in the end, one of the most potent agencies 
 of the movement for Reform, and were, even in the second 
 half of the sixteenth century, recognised as such by the leaders 
 of the Protestant cause." 
 
 " In their relation to contemporary thought, the quaint, 
 crude cuts are as windows through which we may study the 
 inner life of a bygone age. The antiquarian, no less than 
 the artist, and the student interested in the evolution of 
 human thought no less than either, may well give more than 
 a passing glance to these records of the engraver's knife." 
 
 (II.) THE ST. CHRISTOPHER OF 1423. 
 
 Take for instance the St. Christopher of 1423. The 
 story is simply and earnestly told. Earnestly enough. The 
 legend at the foot may be translated thus : — 
 
 " Each day that thou the Ukeness of St. Christopher shalt see. 
 That day no frightful form of death shall make an end of thee," 
 
 Did not the Squire in the wonderful tale of Canterbury, 
 wear " A Christofre on his brest of silver shene ? " 
 
 Ah, dreaded powers of death ! ah, simple age of credulous 
 faith ! This is no idle tale that is told. There is a magic 
 in it. Art that is earnest, " und mil gefuhl," be it never so 
 faulty in its technique, strikes deeper than ever it does in the 
 service of Sir Midas and his age of gold. 
 
 And yet we have not done. On one bank, earthly toil, 
 the secular life. The miller and his ass, the grinding mill, 
 the peasant staggering under his burden to his little hut, — 
 no perspective — no perhaps not, but a truth simply told. 
 
 And on the other bank, the religious life. The hermit 
 holding aloft the lamp of faith, the rabbit in the tall grass, 
 undismayed, for it fears no man in a land of holy peace !
 
 ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 173 
 
 Was it nothing that a people for whom the glorious 
 illuminated missals with their rich and endless emblazonment 
 were things unattainable, — was it nothing that these pictures 
 should adorn their bare walls and carry into the monotony 
 of their life, — a life, remember, without the solace of books — 
 such challenge to the slumbering imagination and the sluggish 
 soul ? 
 
 (III.) ST. BRIDGET AND THE VIRGIN OF BERLIN. 
 
 Of the same period is the St. Bridget in the Althorp 
 collection. St. Bridget of Sweden was born in 1302 
 and died in 1373. This simple cut tells the devout all 
 that they need to know. She went upon a pilgrimage to 
 Jerusalem, — do you not see her pilgrim's hat, staff and scrip ? 
 She was favoured with visions and revelations of the Blessed 
 Virgin. Is she not there before you with the holy Child 
 embosomed in clouds ? She was a princess of the blood-royal 
 of Sweden, — behold the lion of Sweden and the crown. She 
 died in Rome ; upon a shield the letters S P Q R tell this 
 forth. The Virgin was tender towards her, and this central 
 fact of the saint's life is enshrined in the letters M I CHRS 
 carved upon the desk, — Mutter lesus Christus. 
 
 And last, but not least, the purport of the artist, the cry 
 of some burdened soul for whom were vouchsafed no white 
 presences upon the hills, no esctacy of saintly rapture, the 
 cry of the plain wayfaring man, struggling through a hard 
 and perhaps loveless life, "O Brigita bit Got fiir uns! " 
 
 This is a German picture ; let us take a Flemish example. 
 It is known as the Virgin of Berlin. Standing against a 
 flamboyant aureole, the Madonna, not ungracefully drawn, 
 and with not a little of the sweetness and grace proper to 
 her, makes a picture which, with its evidence of the influence 
 of the Van Eycks, is full of interest to the art student, despite 
 its primitive style. 
 
 But another interest attaches to the scrolls with their old 
 Flemish legend. We may read them thus : —
 
 174 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 " Who is this Queen that standeth here ? 
 'Tis she who saves the world from fear. 
 
 How shall her name be named to us ? 
 Mary, mother, maiden glorious. 
 
 How came she to that height above ? 
 Humbly by charity and love. 
 
 Who then shall be lifted next to her ? 
 Whoso is most her follower." 
 
 So we may take leave of the Helgen, simple, crude pictures, 
 cut by tyros with an ordinary knife on planks of pear or other 
 fair-fibred wood, of small artistic merit and yet a precious 
 record of a struggling art and of a spiritual temper that was 
 shortly to be tried in the furnace of fiery doubt. Perhaps 
 the monks designed them, though at times even town cor- 
 porations, like those of Ulm, Niiremberg and Augsburg, ordered 
 their production for the public good. Perhaps, and this is 
 very likely, they were the work of the " brothers of the 
 common life," who, wiser than the Quakers, make it part of 
 their labour to teach the illiterate by means of pictures. 
 
 * « 4c ♦ 
 
 Who will cry " O Brigita bit fiir uns ! " in these days ? We 
 have grown out of our childhood now, and as the sea yields 
 up its mystery, the grey enveloping Atlantic proves but a 
 highway and the world grows smaller, eternity fades. Through 
 trailing clouds of glory do we come. Yes, but the clouds that 
 were rosy are grey. The childhood of faith. Has it nothing 
 that is precious, something that realism, and science and the 
 self-assurance of knowledge cannot give ? 
 
 Look at the outside of the Ghent altar-piece, the famous 
 work of the brothers Van Eyck, finished in 1432. The theme 
 of the two panels we are to inspect is the Annunciation — in 
 the one the angel Gabriel, in the other the Virgin. The spirit 
 of the happy child-soul breathes with a rare fragrance in the 
 kneeling angel, pure and sweet as the lily he holds. The 
 world lies beyond the Gothic window, or rather all the world 
 of the artist is a church, and the church is all the world —
 
 ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 175 
 
 a world that is intimate with God, that finds His love most 
 fitly expressed in the holy Mother, so tender so gentle, so 
 calm. 
 
 Well may the angels in the upper wing panels join in a 
 song of gladness and praise. These happy children of a 
 heavenly Father cannot help but sing, for their lives and their 
 love are one with His and with the world. 
 
 Why were such pictures painted then ? Why are they 
 never painted now ? 
 
 (IV.) THE MASS OF ST. GREGORY. 
 
 Let us take up a wood-cut of Diirer's and seek our answer 
 there. We are back again in the childhood of faith, in a world 
 full of dark superstition, in the twilight of the middle ages. 
 And here surely is some Romish fiction. St. Gregory, Gregory 
 the Great, is kneeling before the altar in prayer. To him, and 
 to him alone, in a golden mist of vision, the Christ appears 
 with all the symbols of His passion. 
 
 In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries this Mass 
 of St. Gregory was a popular theme, and several stories are 
 told to illustrate it. In Caxton's Golden Legend we read : 
 
 " It happened that a widow that was wont every Sunday 
 to bring hostes to sing mass wyth, should on a time be houslyd 
 and communed, and whan St. Gregory should give to her the 
 holy sacrament in saying Corpus Domini Christi, etc., that is 
 to say. The body of our Lord Jesus Christ kepe thee into 
 everlasting life, anon this woman began to smile to fore 
 St. Gregory, and anon he withdrew his hand and remysed the 
 sacrament upon the aulter. And he demanded her to fore the 
 people why she smiled and she sayed, Because that the bread 
 that I have made wyeth my proper hands, thou namest it the 
 body of our Lord Jesu Christ. Anon St. Gregory put himself 
 to prayer with the people for to pray to God that hereupon 
 he would show his grace for to confirme our belief, and when 
 they were risen fro prayer Saint Gregory saw the holy sacra- 
 ment in figure of a piece of flesh as great as the little finger
 
 176 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 of an hinde, and anon after, by the prayers of St. Gregory the 
 flesshe of the sacrament turned into semblance of bread as it 
 had be to fore and therewith he communed and housled the 
 woman, which after was more rehgious, and the people were 
 more ferme in the faith." 
 
 The doctrine of transubstantiation, in its crude material- 
 istic form is an impossible one, but there is a sense in which 
 the strictest Quaker may accept it, a sense in which it is true. 
 The spirit of prayer is a transforming, a transubstantiating spirit. 
 The man who prays is transformed, and the world about him 
 is transubstantiated. The far meadows behind the setting 
 sun are his, the singing angels make music for him, and the 
 clouds of his glory are radiant with the light of heaven. 
 
 (V.) THE " PRAYING HANDS." 
 
 The faith that finds its voice in prayer is the faith in 
 which alone the greatest art is born. It is the faith of him 
 whose life and work we are next to consider. Diirer has left 
 us a wonderful study of the hands of a praying apostle, a 
 study for his Heller altarpiece. They are marvellous in 
 their fidelity of execution, but their technical interest has 
 always been their least interest for me. They epitomise 
 the man and all that is best in the age of the childhood of 
 faith. He who can pray like that will not smile with the 
 widow, for the common bread of life will be divine, and with 
 Paul the mystic, his homespun will be a heavenly raiment, for 
 he is " hid with Christ in God." 
 
 (VI.) ALBRECHT DURER AND HIS AGE. 
 
 The position of German art at this period is of interest. 
 In i486, Albrecht Diirer was apprenticed to Michael Wolgemut, 
 a painter of a contemporary school, of which he was almost the 
 last noteworthy representative. In this apprenticeship, we 
 have the meeting of the old and the new. Between Wolgemut 
 and Diirer, a definite line can be drawn. In the time of
 
 ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 177 
 
 Wilhelm Meister painting was bound exclusively to the service 
 of the church — the cloister-like piety of the pictures which 
 represent the Cologne school express the serene content of 
 minds not yet touched by the spirit of inquiry. The con- 
 ditions of development had hardly existed before Diirer, 
 for it was only in his lifetime that the great change came, 
 (foreshadowed in the Van Eycks) from mediaevalism to realism, 
 from clerical mythology to poetry and genre. It is only when 
 the cities of Germany grew rich with trading and the burgher's 
 ambitions had been fired by the jingling of his ducats, that 
 we find in the advent of the private purchaser the needed 
 outlet and scope for the latent artistic feeling of the North. 
 South of the Alps, the dawn of the Renaissance had broken 
 into a blaze of glory. Its influence through scholars, books, 
 and rumour, travelled over the mountains by the highroads 
 of commerce, and added yet another element to the increasing 
 ferment in the North. 
 
 A glance at the list of contemporary artists is enough to 
 show what its stimulus must have been in the world of German 
 art. To exchange drawings with Raphael, to have com- 
 munication with Mantegna, to hob-a-nob with Bellini, to 
 watch the rise of Titian and Giorgione, to have a law-suit with 
 Marc Antonio, to be criticised by Vasari, to catch gossip from 
 time to time of Botticelli, to hear of Holbein's departure 
 for England, to mourn the death of Lorenzo de Medici, to be 
 favourably thought of by Leonardo da Vinci, and to have one's 
 prints admired by Michael Angelo is not the lot of every man, 
 but it was the lot of «Albrecht Diirer. 
 
 (VII.) THE REFORMATION PICTURED IN DURER'S 
 
 APOCALYPSE. 
 
 In 1498, Diirer published the Revelations of St. John the 
 Divine with Latin and with German text, and fifteen woodcuts 
 I5i by ii|^ inches in size. 
 
 14
 
 178 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 A Revelation of St. John, these pictures are also a revela- 
 tion of art. They mark an epoch in the history of wood en- 
 graving, an epoch in the life of Diirer himself. That they are 
 unique in the fearlessness of their realism, pre-eminent in 
 their tempestuous power cannot be gainsaid. That they are 
 original in the quality of their message is neither true nor 
 necessary for their commanding greatness. 
 
 They are first an interpretation, reverent, and extra- 
 ordinarily exact, of the weird imagery of the Apocalypse. 
 Never before have the dreams of Patmos had such a pourtrayal. 
 Never again will they find in black and white an interpretation 
 so instinct with the magic of genius. 
 
 But they are more than this. We hear in them not only 
 the menace of a far-off judgment upon all the world, but rather 
 the muttering of a storm imminent and local. The cuts 
 we are to examine expressed in language that the contem- 
 poraries of Diirer perfectly understood, the gathering unrest 
 of the age. Men were not happy. Licentious revels, reckless 
 living, extravagant display, the poverty and the massacre of 
 peasants, the dark mystery of the recurring plague with its 
 swift smiting, so pitiless, unsparing and cruel, the lawlessness, 
 the roving of robber bands, and above all and even yet more 
 terrible, the mockery of a religion professed by unclean lips 
 and battening on the pardoner's gold. The harlotry of the 
 convents, the open scoffing of the priests, smote the pious 
 with heavy dismay, and fed fiercely the devouring flame of 
 doubt. 
 
 Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die. No 
 man hath seen God at any time. Religion is a mockery, 
 Rome a fraud, Death a curse, and life a gamble. 
 
 To men who thought these things, sold in the markets, 
 on the church door steps, here, there, north and south, these 
 winged words of an artist's soul sounded the note of defiance 
 for which they had long waited. The pulse beat quieter as the 
 pictures were conned and their meaning read. It was some- 
 thing at least for a great voice to say the world was wrong —
 
 ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 179 
 
 it tuned men's ears for the hammer-strokes at Wittenberg. 
 " Whenever," says Professor Thausing, " the pubhc mind 
 has been at a loss to understand the existing state of things 
 in religious matters, it has always turned eagerly to that 
 mysterious book which also owed its origin to a similar 
 feeling of discontentment — the Revelation of St. John, which 
 God gave unto him to show His servants things which must 
 shortly come to pass." 
 
 Let us turn to the pictures and examine them. 
 
 The storm is in full blast. We can hear the howling of 
 Diirer's tempest. The four horsemen of the sixth chapter 
 (1-8) are let loose. " And I saw when the Lamb opened one 
 of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures 
 saying as with a voice of thunder, Come. And I saw and 
 behold a white horse and he that sat thereon had a bow ; 
 and there was given unto him a crown ; and he came forth 
 conquering and to conquer. And when he opened the second 
 seal I heard the second living creature saying, Come. 
 And another horse came forth, a red horse ; and to him that 
 sat thereon it was given to take peace from the earth and that 
 they should slay one another ; and there was given unto him 
 a great sword. And when he opened the third seal I heard 
 the third living creature saying, Come. And I saw and behold 
 a black horse ; and he that sat thereon had a balance in his 
 hand. And I heard as it were a voice in the midst of the four 
 living creatures saying, A measure of wheat for a penny, 
 and the oH and the wine hurt thou not. And when he opened 
 the fourth seal I heard the voice of the fourth living creature 
 saying, Come. And I saw and behold a pale horse, and he 
 that sat upon him, his name was Death, and Hades followed 
 with him. And there was given unto them authority over 
 the fourth part of the earth to kill with sword and with famine 
 and with death and by the wild beasts of the earth."
 
 i8o JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 To the writer of Revelations the first horseman represents 
 conquest (the Roman general in a triumph rode on a white 
 horse) — the evil force of Roman dominion. The rider on the 
 red horse represents war in its aspect of slaughter. The rider 
 on the black horse is famine, it is a time of scarcity when food 
 is sold by weight. And on the pale horse, as we are told, the 
 rider is death — the personification of the destructive forces and 
 the wild beasts of the earth. 
 
 " And so there grew great tracts of w-ilderness, 
 Wherein the beast was ever more and more 
 But man was less and less." 
 
 This is the threatening of the Apocalypse. And think 
 how terribly true it was. Think of the Peasants' War, the 
 burning and slaughter of the Inquisition, the depopulation 
 of Germany in the long and fearsome death-grip of the Thirty 
 Years War. Men did not see these things when they saw the 
 four riders of Diirer, but there was that in the air which 
 pointed the menace of the words. And it was all to come so 
 soon. The horsemen are swift — their sweep, their onrush is 
 so impetuous. And see how the artist helps you to feel what 
 he feels. The margin cuts off the head of the foremost horse 
 and the tail of the last one, and you are allowed only to see 
 the forepart of the horses. They are coming at you — are to 
 trample upon you. It is an overwhelming avalanche of wrath 
 and it spares none, for wickedness is everywhere, A Nurem- 
 berg housewife, a fat merchant, a shrieking peasant, a fright- 
 ened burgher, and a tonsured head. But the worst is not 
 told. The breaking of the fifth and sixth seals is included 
 in one design — the fifth cut of the series. Above the clouds 
 white robes are being distributed to the martyrs for the faith. 
 Remember that though the design was finished earlier, the 
 year of publication was the year of Savonarola's martyrdom. 
 The fame of this bruited abroad would add additional interest 
 to this cut, and that I do not make an idle suggestion, a refer- 
 ence in a letter of Diirer's of 1521 will show. When quoting
 
 ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. i8i 
 
 from this passage in Rev. vi. (9-17) he speaks of the innocent 
 blood shed by the Pope, the priests and the monks ; " these 
 are the slain that cry aloud for vengeance at the foot of the 
 altar of God." Below the cloud the significance of the 
 tonsured head in the previous cut is brought home. Amongst 
 " those who hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the 
 mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks Fall on us,and 
 hide us from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne and 
 from the wrath of the Lamb," we see not only Emperor and 
 Empress, but a wailing pope, a dismayed cardinal, a bishop 
 and a monk, and, most significant of all, opposite, by the 
 little child, a woman rails with fierce, wide open mouth 
 against the representatives of religion. 
 
 The seventh cut gives us the substance of Rev. viii. and 
 ix. 1-12, the distribution of the trumpets to the seven angels, 
 and the plagues caused by the first five of them, and then we 
 pass to what is, I think, the most ruthless, the most terrible 
 picture of all, the unloosing of the four angels. We have seen 
 them in repose. Here they are in action. From under the 
 golden altar sweeps the army of warriors on lion-headed horses 
 that vomit flames. On the earth below are the four destroying 
 angels at their appointed task. No longer calm sentinels, 
 furies rather, fierce with the infinite wrath of a divine ven- 
 geance. One seizes a woman by her hair, another overthrows 
 horse and rider, one seizes the Pope by the shoulder having 
 already killed the bishop who lies behind. 
 
 Here Germany, the pent-up spirit of the people, speaks. 
 This is the Reformation. 
 
 There are times, times like the present, when an apocalypse 
 has its place, times when alas ! more is thought of the man 
 in the street than of the Man on the Cross. Our petty cares 
 and petty interests need to be swallowed up in the larger 
 thoughts of God, thoughts full of destiny and purpose, thoughts 
 of labour and of service, thoughts of that new Jerusalem 
 which comes down from heaven here upon this earth and in 
 this present life. The easy optimism of ignorance, no less
 
 i82 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 than the pessimism of a nerveless will, the selfishness of the 
 luxurious spirit and the thoughtless levity of the superficial, 
 these create an atmosphere in which no soul can live. The 
 tempest of the spirit that smites them down may be terrible, 
 but there is healing power in its devastation. We must clear 
 the site before Jerusalem can be builded. 
 
 (VIII.) THE MELANCHOLIA— THE ZEITGEIST OF 
 THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 Let us stop for a moment and think what was happening 
 when Diirer bent over the copperplate with contracted brow 
 and firm hand grasping the obedient tools. 
 
 Few men had seen greater changes in the world of religion, 
 in social life, or in art than he — the picture-poet of Germany. 
 Only twenty years before his birth, Constantinople had fallen 
 to the Turk, and a corrupt and dwindling Christendom had 
 stood appalled at the prospect of its own extinction. The 
 terrible emblem of the crescent planted thus arrogantly on 
 European soil had heralded not annihilation but revival. 
 Yet hitherto it had proved a revival of the arts rather than 
 of religion. Humanism, not faith, letters not love, culture 
 not discipline, luxury not service, pleasure not holiness, — 
 these were the current symptoms. The joy of the Renaissance 
 was Ucentious, sybaritic. True, there was the Academy of 
 Plato in Florence, but visit the Venice of the Renaissance 
 and what can you say ? The old land-marks had gone, 
 submerged in a rising tide of knowledge. Yes, but Aphrodite 
 had risen again from the foam, and the gods of ancient Greece 
 ruled once more upon the heights of Olympus. No one 
 thought to roll away the stone from the tomb of the Man of 
 Galilee. Knowledge, erudition, this was all in all. And to 
 the pageantry of the Renaissance what a background ! The 
 scarlet woman of the Apocalypse with her cup of abominations. 
 The mocking free-thinker, the horrified peasant, the people
 
 ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 183 
 
 ashamed and dismayed. " God," said Pope Leo, " has given us 
 the Papacy, let us enjoy it"; and in Rome the cardinals and 
 the courtezans profane the temple daily, while knowledge 
 increases, religion is dying, and the mind of Europe is stretched 
 mercilessly upon the rack. The explorer is winning new 
 worlds across the seas. Miracles are receding on every hand. 
 The world contracts and becomes commonplace. Round not 
 flat, it is no longer the centre of a subordinate universe. 
 A whole mass of ideas and superstitions, cherished for ages, 
 is suddenly engulfed in the quicksands of Time. Printing 
 has arrived to give wings to thought, new ideas have a cur- 
 rency altogether more rapid and extensive than was possible 
 before. The intellectual panorama is swiftly changing. 
 Men have no sooner grasped a new thought and lo ! it is old, 
 and the world has moved past them. Dazed, bewildered, they 
 grope, wanting a guide. True, this revival of learning is 
 rich in results, but whither do they tend ? What boots it 
 all ? The peasants are sullen or in fierce revolt ; Europe 
 is a tangle of interests, conflicting, worr3dng, scheming : and 
 again and again, remorseless, inexorable, resistless, the Plague 
 strikes its blind, unmeaning blows, leaving maimed cities, 
 shattered homes, terrible heaps of the dead. Oh ! this dark 
 mystery of life and death, of joy and pain, of this travailing 
 world, groaning for the coming of the sons of God. Will 
 light ever break ? Is there any meaning at all in this cease- 
 less play of character and circumstance ? Is there indeed a 
 God ? 
 
 To men who feel the pressure of these conditions, who 
 ask these questions, Diirer sends his engraving of Melancholia, 
 
 There she sits — the Zeitgeist — the spirit of the striving, 
 troubled age. With strong pinions of imagination, crowned 
 with the bays of thought, brooding with chin on hand, with 
 the compass held listless on her lap, she gazes darkly into the 
 future. The divining crystal is black and uninforming, the 
 greyhound of the fleeting house lies curled at her feet, the 
 tools of labour and science are scattered about her, the hammer.
 
 i84 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 the plane, the saw, the crucible. A cherub — the human soul 
 — sits upon the grindstone of necessity, above the scales 
 by which men weigh evidence, the ladder leading from the 
 known to the unknown, the hour glass and the passing-bell 
 which tell of the short day of man and the long night of the 
 grave. A crowded city upon the shore of an endless sea — 
 the limit of human knowledge and achievement and the 
 untravelled mystery of the future, are lit by the flare of a 
 comet, portent of evil, and by a rainbow of hope. A bat 
 flitting across the lurid sky bears upon a scroll the legend 
 " Melancholia." 
 
 It only remains to speak of the figures upon the wall. 
 Add them whichever way you will they yield the same result. 
 The tablet may be said to represent the baffled philosophy of 
 man, but there is another significance. In 1514, onMayi6th 
 or 17th, Diirer's mother died. Diirer has left an account of 
 the event. " She feared death much," he writes, " but she 
 said that to come before God she feared not. Also she died 
 hard and I marked that she saw something dreadful for she 
 asked for the holy water, though, for a long time, she had 
 not spoken. Immediately after her eyes closed over. I saw 
 also how Death smote her two great strokes to the heart, and 
 how she closed mouth and eyes and departed with pain. I 
 repeated to her the prayers. I felt so grieved for her that I 
 cannot express it. God be merciful to her." 
 
 Lionel Cust asserts that the tablet has reference to this. 
 Whether we accept this or not, the pathetic story of the mother's 
 death and Diirer's evident grief lend a peculiar interest to 
 the engraving which made its appearance in the year of 
 bereavement. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. Without a 
 living knowledge of God what avail alchemy, philosophy and 
 mathematics ? 
 
 (IX.) ST. JEROME,— THE RETURN TO FAITH. 
 But there was a rainbow. Let us follow where it leads. 
 We turn to the second picture, the picture that is intended to
 
 ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 185 
 
 be set in antithesis to the first. We pass at once from dark- 
 ness to hght, from toiling thought to peaceful contemplation, 
 from anguish of mind to gladness of heart. Here sits St. 
 Jerome in the Temple of Peace. The dog sleeps soundly 
 in the warm sunshine, the lion keeps one eye open and listens 
 in the silence to the scratching of the saintly pen. Outside 
 doubtless the bees are humming among the flowers. The 
 books, the slippers, the cushions, the scissors in the rack, 
 bespeak the recluse, a settled and orderly routine, a life 
 of quiet contemplation. Jerome, good man, is at work on the 
 Vulgate. The soft light that streams radiantly upon him 
 through the round panes is the divine approval shed upon 
 his labour. The cross, the rosary, the skull, betoken the 
 piety of warm and assured faith. 
 
 Have we here a reflection of the struggle earlier in the 
 life of the artist, when he turned from the classic to Christian 
 art ? Certain it is that in Jerome we see the true opposed to 
 the false path ; knowledge and scholarship allied with faith 
 and piety. There can be no issue from all this darkness, 
 the artist is saying, apart from a knowledge of God. The 
 Melancholia with its detailed witness to the machinery of the 
 intellect is gloomy in tone, the Jerome is flooded with sunshine. 
 
 (X.) THE KNIGHT, SIN, AND DEATH. 
 We move a step forward. Among Diirer's drawings is a 
 sketch for an armed knight. We need to see the picture as 
 a whole. The Christian knight of German mysticism, 
 associated perhaps in our minds with Fouque's Sintram, is 
 before us. Fully armed, calmly confident, he rides the narrow 
 defile. Behind him the Fiend, beside him Death, before him 
 a slippery rock ascent, above him the castle of God. " Ein 
 feste Burg ist unser Gott ! " Observe the details. The 
 Fiend has one whole, one broken horn, to mark his imper- 
 fection, the ears of an ass to mark his obstinacy, a snout 
 to mark his vileness, a goat's hoof to mark his bestiality. 
 Death on a dying horse holds up an hour glass in solemn
 
 i86 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 warning, vipers crown him and the passing bell tolls at the 
 horse's neck. But there is yet one significant detail. The 
 oak of victory crowns the head of the knight's horse. He 
 will yet win his way to the city that is set upon a hill. 
 
 No one can examine these pictures without feeling some- 
 thing more than the pleasure afforded by their great technical 
 perfection. They appeal directly and powerfully to the mind 
 and heart. We are separated by many centuries from the 
 dreaming philosopher of Nuremberg, whose magic of black and 
 white so fascinates us to-day. But we are nearer to him 
 than our years. Many parallels between our own age and 
 that of the Renaissance unite us in a common experience. 
 There have been changes and conditions in the last hundred 
 years which have provoked the same fear, the same pessim- 
 ism, the same dismay, the same idle and shameless revels. 
 Again the world has grown smaller and miracles have re- 
 ceded. Not Gutenberg but Watts, not Martin Behaim 
 but Speke and Livingstone, not Copernicus but Darwin, 
 not Erasmus but the German critics. The landmarks we 
 steered by have been submerged and we may no longer sail 
 by old familiar headlands. More than this, Europe to-day 
 professing Christianity, maintains armed millions trained to 
 war, holding them in leash, but ready to let them loose. 
 She desires not the Cross, but wealth, not humility but rank, 
 not service but pleasure. God has given us civilisation, let us 
 enjoy it, and the free-thinker stands and scoffs as he stood 
 and scoffed in Diirer's Apocalypse. The peasant is no longer 
 cut down by the long bright sword of the Swabian Leaguer, 
 but in a thousand cities he is murdered by the selfishness 
 and indifference of Society, that permits the slimi if only it 
 be spared the luxuries. 
 
 And we, we as individuals, have we no affinity with the 
 artist and his pictures ? I think we have. The darkness 
 and fatuity of the life lived apart from God, has its bitter 
 melancholy, its comet of threatening doom. We probe 
 with the tools of science and philosophy but our energy is
 
 ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 187 
 
 vain, until such time when the surrendered will shall perform 
 the Divine work with gladness, and the sun streams in through 
 the windows of the soul. 
 
 Then come temptation, come death — we ride invulner- 
 able. The heart that has surrendered is the heart that knows 
 and conquers. Selfishness is broken, and pride thrown down. 
 With the oak of victory as a nodding plume, and the morning 
 light upon the fair towers of the Holy City, we ride through 
 the night into the dawn, from strife and sorrow to everlasting 
 peace and joy.
 
 THE ARTIST, THE APOSTLE, AND 
 THE MYSTIC. 
 
 It is possible, though open to dispute, that in 1494 Albrecht 
 Diirer wandered through the ways of Venice, an obscure 
 youth, in search of ideas and experience. If the supposition, 
 not wholly groundless, should ever find support in convincing 
 evidence, an additional interest will attach to those tem- 
 pestuous pictures expounding Die Heimlich Offenbarung 
 Johannes which engrossed Diirer's pencil on his return to 
 Niiremberg. 
 
 John Addington Symonds, speaking of the " Bride of 
 the Adriatic," describes the serenity of her undisturbed 
 security, the luxury of her wealth, and the "physiognomy 
 of ease and proud self-confidence " exhibited in "all her 
 edifices." 
 
 Such symptoms scarcely suggest an apocalypse, but 
 when the gifted writer turns to the religion of Venice, he 
 tells us that it " was the faith, not of humble men or of 
 mystics, not of profound thinkers or of visionaries, so much 
 as of courtiers and statesmen, of senators and merchants, 
 for whom religion was a function among other functions, not a 
 thing aparty not a source of separate and supreme vitality." 
 
 Venice, alas ! was a second Corinth, and gloried in the 
 infamy of every vice. The splendour of artistic environment, 
 and the seciu-ity of a free and peaceful government were not 
 then, as they never can be, the sure guarantee of a spiritual 
 Utopia. Take off her painted mask, and Venice stands as an 
 epitome of the age, and an expression of that spirit which 
 called forth the scathing satire of Diirer's picture apocalypse 
 
 188
 
 THE ARTIST, THE APOSTLE AND THE MYSTIC. 189 
 
 There is one wood-cut of the series, which illustrates the 
 seventeenth chapter of the book of Revelation. The orthodox 
 religion of the day is held up to scorn as the scarlet woman 
 on the seven-headed beast. In the impudent glitter of her 
 hoyden finery, she offers her dubious charms to an astonished 
 peasant, and a straddling, sarcastic, free-thinking artizan. 
 Only a thin-lipped monk, low-browed and fervent, kneels 
 in adoring prayer. 
 
 This appearance of an apocalypse is the appearance of 
 lightning in a threatening sky. There are definitely marked 
 and recurrent periods when the apocalypse of John supplies 
 the material for the thought and imagery of the prophet 
 struggling against some access of iniquity. 
 
 Such a period was that of George Fox, When we think 
 of the seventeenth century we think first of the Puritans, and 
 then we remember "Hudibras," and the plays of Wycherley. 
 But we must not forget that the people " in scorn called 
 Quakers," gathered together in protest against both, against 
 the solemnly conducted worship of God, no less than against 
 the flagrant vice of the theatres and the court. They pierced 
 the deception of outward appearance, and spoke of that which 
 satisfied their contemporaries as " Mystery — Babylon." 
 
 One of Penington's tracts, " Babylon the Great Described " 
 (I waive the rest of the title), appeared in 1681, and is strangely 
 sympathetic in teaching to the engraved apocalypse of 1498. 
 After dealing slightly with the ob\dous sins of the flesh, 
 Penington devotes himself to the more subtle wiles of his 
 symbolic city. The " great Masterpiece of Babylon is to 
 set up a false Church, which, by reason of its paint and 
 likeness to that which once was true, should pass up and 
 down the world, and be taken for the true, and here lies her 
 Beauty, her Glory, her Majesty, her Life, her Heart, even 
 in the deceivableness of this appearance. . . She often 
 reneweth and changeth her paint nearer and nearer to the 
 Image and former likeness of Truth, that she might make it 
 pass instead of the Truth, and so keep that which is indeed the
 
 190 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Truth down still under reproach. . . Therefore she hath 
 her sorts of paint by her, her varieties of sorcery, of witchery, 
 of Inchantments (sic), whereof her cup is full, and wherewith 
 her wine is made strong to make the inhabitants of the earth 
 drunk thereby . . . She speaks fair words ; she calls 
 to have the worship of God set up, a Godly Ministry, and 
 the ordinances of God in a nation ; but the thing is not so 
 in the sight of God." 
 
 He is not satisfied with the solemnly conducted worship, 
 which Charles II. could attend, only to return with renewed 
 zest to the base frivolities of his mocking entourage. 
 
 How is it to-day ? 
 
 Recently, in the Hibhert Journal, appeared four articles 
 on the " Alleged Indifference of Laymen to Religion." Here 
 again the external evidences of wealth, security, and " proud 
 self-confidence " do not satisfy, but the editor prints in capital 
 letters the startling question, " Where is Christianity ? " 
 He asserts, that what men want is a " more valid proof than 
 has yet been offered that the world is serious, when it professes 
 the Christianity which is a life and not a creed." 
 
 It appears that we are still in the streets of Babylon ! 
 Shall, we, I wonder, imitate the young artist in Venice, and 
 go home to issue an apocalypse ! 
 
 Quakerism, like the primitive Christianity it professed 
 to revive, was apocalyptic in its temper. It saw visions, it 
 spoke an inward truth, its life was pure. Is it possible that 
 we have fallen at last to the deception of a painted image ? 
 Do we, in the simplicity of a creedless faith, live in that 
 reality and power which transcends all creeds ? Do we, in 
 the trials of life, and bearing the penalties of the flesh, dare 
 to say with Fox, that we dwell " in Paradise ? " 
 
 Perhaps the " plain man " is satisfied ; he is thankful 
 that he is what he is, and impatient of all this nonsense about 
 a spiritual life. And, knowing the plain man, we are often 
 inclined to be satisfied too. He may be unspiritual, but then 
 he is such a good fellow ! We enjoy his dinners, his coffee
 
 THE ARTIST, THE APOSTLE AND THE MYSTIC. 191 
 
 and cigars, and his stories make us laugh. But there are 
 moments when we are conscious that something is wrong. 
 The painted mask shps a little, and we catch a hint of the 
 truth. The fact is that the " plain man's " house is in 
 Babylon. It may be in a good quarter. There may be no 
 vice, and the slums may be shut off by intervening property, 
 but it is the spirit of Babylon that broods over it ; Isaac 
 Penington would never have lived there. " He that is not 
 with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me 
 scattereth ! " The greater number of us sedulously forget 
 that Scripture, and bask contentedly in the meadows which 
 are, as we verily believe, in the land of Beulah, and in sight 
 of the heavenly city. Too late we discover that the meadows 
 border not upon Paradise but upon the city of Vanity Fair. 
 
 Assuredly all " plain men " are not of this stamp. Many 
 are earnest and seek reality in social service. They are 
 strenuous to redeem the world from its ugliness. And it is 
 good so far, for Christianity is not an abstraction, nor is it 
 even a creed. To quote the Hihhert Journal again : " It is 
 a state of the will in the first place, and of the intellect only in 
 the second." But the question arises : What is the motive 
 of such effort ? Is it consciousness of any spiritual ground- 
 work ? Do our activities spring from our spiritual experience, 
 or are they a substitute for it ? 
 
 Have we in the mystical language of the Gospel been 
 " born again " ; has all creation a " new smell," or are we 
 simply struggling in the toils of self, discontented with Babylon 
 perhaps, but still within its walls ? This is the recurring 
 question under a hundred forms asked by Fox and his fellows. 
 They called men from the " outward," whether the " outward " 
 of solemn worship in some beautiful Church, or the " outward " 
 of the daily life in home or market, on the magistrates' bench, 
 or behind some ploughing team. " Turn in, turn in," cried 
 William Penn, " I beseech you ! There you want Christ, and 
 there, blessed be God, you may find Him ! " No ministry of 
 the Word, however cultured or equipped, no social service,
 
 192 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 however scientific or informed, can have either power or 
 permanence, without the acknowledged indwelhng of the 
 Divine Love. This it is that hberates, saves, redeems ; 
 that purifies and fits for the loftiest enterprises of the soul. 
 We must abandon self-love, to seek victory in self-surrender, 
 and peace in the selfless ambition to honour a living God. 
 
 " Lord," said Albrecht Diirer, " give us then the new 
 and beautiful Jerusalem, which comes down from heaven, 
 and of which the apocalypse speaks ! " But to win the 
 franchise of Jerusalem we cannot continue citizens of Babylon. 
 "Come forth my people out of her, that ye have no fellowship 
 with her sins." Let us cherish the faith of " humble men 
 and of mystics," and join our prayer with Penington's who 
 was of these : 
 
 " Awake ! arise ! Stand up from the dead ! Come out 
 of the thick, dark land, where the pure God of Life is not to 
 be found. Come out of Babylon and touch not the unclean, 
 that the pure life may receive you into unity with itself ! " 
 
 [Published in British Friend, February, 1904.]
 
 AUGUSTINE. 
 
 [This formed part of a series of lectures on the Doctrine of 
 the Atonement ; most of them were never written outatlength.] 
 
 Lecture I. 
 
 We have come now to what George Matheson has called 
 the close of the child-life of Christianity. 
 
 One commanding figure stands out in this period of 
 transition at the threshold to the age of scholasticism (the 
 school-life of Christianity), viz., St. Augustine. 
 
 So greatly has he dominated Christian thought, so clearly 
 can his influence be traced in the teaching of Anselm upon 
 the Atonement, that we are bound even in a hasty and super- 
 ficial survey like this, to devote more particular attention to 
 him. Not only so ; we are endeavouring to form some idea 
 of the life which struggled to find expression in the creeds, to 
 clothe with flesh the dry bones of theology, to discover what 
 was the need men sought to satisfy when they formulated 
 the doctrine of the Atonement. 
 
 It may be a more direct pcth to the attainment of our 
 object if we deviate from the general historical survey on 
 this occasion, and inquire somewhat into the nature of the 
 spiritual struggle by which Augustine passed from darkness 
 to light. The record of the passion of a single soul may 
 cast a wide illumination upon the problems of life, and give 
 reality and force to Christian truth, which we may miss in 
 the cold and clear-cut formula. 
 
 If this be true we are singularly fortunate in our choice 
 of St. Augustine, for in the story of his conversion we have 
 that which is typical of his generation. In him we read as 
 in a mirror the inward mood of the saddest and darkest 
 
 193 
 
 15
 
 194 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 age in human history. All the sinister tendencies which had 
 been gathering strength met in his mind. And more than this, 
 though it is fifteen centuries since the Bishop of Hippo wrote 
 his Confessions, they come to us with the force and with the 
 freshness of a contemporary document. It is impossible 
 to read them without emotion. Their naked and transparent 
 sincerity, their terrible and ruthless exposure of the most 
 hidden thought, their story of fierce temptation and human 
 passion, of mental conflict, of anguish of soul and of heart- 
 hunger, not only call out our sympathy, but touch us to the 
 quick and compel us by their searching truthfulness to read 
 our own heart without self-deception. 
 
 We will then postpone to the next occasion the considera- 
 tion of Augustine's influence upon the theology and polity 
 of the Latin Church, and devote ourselves this evening to 
 that part of the " Confessions " which lead us up to and in- 
 clude Augustine's conversion. 
 
 Augustine was born in Africa, in 354 ; to be more precise, 
 at Tagaste, in Numidia. 
 
 The political atmosphere of the Roman Empire was 
 already heavy with the menace of the coming storm. Decline 
 had become so evident that men of intellectual force no longer 
 looked to Rome as the mistress in whose service the highest 
 ambitions for usefulness might be gratified. 
 
 In 361, amid waning hopes, declining intellectual ac- 
 tivity and growing scepticism, Julian, the last of Constantine's 
 house, ascends the throne of the Caesars. 
 
 It may serve both as a rebuke and an encouragement 
 for those who despair of the vitality of the Christian faith, to 
 recollect that in the year 361 a.d. a Roman C?esar, concerned 
 for the moral elevation of his people, regarded the influence 
 of official Christianity as barren, and proclaimed the restora- 
 tion of paganism in the belief that he was promoting a moral 
 reformation. 
 
 It was a dark hour, but the little African boy, who was 
 meantime playing with nuts and sparrows in the streets of
 
 AUGUSTINE. 195 
 
 Tagaste, was the destined saviour of the church in this crisis 
 of her life. Not that the boy as yet gave promise of the man 
 he was to be. Ardent, affectionate, excitable he was always, 
 but the Bishop of Hippo was to be slow in the making. 
 
 The Confessions are complete, they begin at the beginning. 
 There are some quaint touches which throw a side-light even 
 upon his baby days. 
 
 " I grew indignant with my elders for not submitting to 
 me, and took my vengeance on them with tears." " Such," 
 Augustine sagely remarks, after years had brought experi- 
 ence, " have I learned infants to be from observing them." 
 
 Later he writes, " As a boy I began to pray to Thee, 
 and I used to ask Thee, though small yet with no small earnest- 
 ness, that I might not be flogged at school." 
 
 Alas ! Augustine did not so comport himself as to escape 
 flogging. He was fond of play. " Why did I so much hate 
 the Greek which, as a little boy, I used to study ? Not even 
 yet is it quite clear to me. For the Latin I loved, . . . 
 at least what the so-called grammarians taught me." 
 
 He hated reading, ^\^:iting and arithmetic. " One and 
 one, two, two and two, four, — this was to me a hateful sing-song. 
 The wooden horse filled with armed men, and the burning 
 of Troy and Caesar's shade, were the vain spectacles most 
 charming to me." 
 
 " Thefts also I committed from my parents' cellar and 
 table, either because tempted by gluttony, or that I might 
 have to give to boys who sold me their play." 
 
 " In this play I often sought to win by cheating . . . 
 and what could I so ill put up with, or when I found out 
 did I denounce so fiercely as that very thing which I was doing 
 to others, and for which found out, I was denounced, but 
 yet chose rather to quarrel than yield." 
 
 " And is this the innocence of boyhood ? Not so, oh 
 Lord, not so. I cry Thy mercy, oh my God, For those very 
 sins, as riper years succeed are transferred from tutor and 
 master, from nuts and balls and sparrows, to magistrates and
 
 196 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 kings, to gold and mansions, and slaves, just as severer punish- 
 ments displace the cane." 
 
 As a young man, he sins to the flesh " with a proud 
 dejectedness and a restless weariness." 
 
 And he complains that when in the full course of his vices, 
 his friends only care " that I should learn to make a good 
 speech and be an impressive orator." So he is sent to Carthage. 
 The expenses were found " rather by the resolution than by 
 the means of my father, who was but a poor man of Tagaste." 
 " But yet this same father had no concern how I grew to- 
 wards Thee or how chaste I were, so that I were but a cul- 
 tured speaker, however barren I were to Thy culture, oh God." 
 
 At Carthage, " I made myself out more vicious than I 
 was to avoid being blamed, and when there was nothing 
 which I could plead guilty of, to be like the most abandoned, 
 I would pretend that I had done what I had not done, that I 
 might not seem more contemptible because I was more inno- 
 cent, or be held the cheaper because more chaste." 
 
 This spirit comes out in a specific incident, recorded with 
 some detail. " I wanted to thieve and I did it, though 
 compelled by no want or poverty, but through a loathing 
 of righteousness and a surfeit of iniquity. Nor did I want 
 to enjoy what I sought by my theft, but the theft and sin 
 itself." 
 
 The desire of good esteem lay at the root of his conduct. 
 " When it is said ' let's go, let's do it,' we are ashamed not 
 to be shameless." 
 
 He was the chief in the Carthage School of rhetoric. 
 In his nineteenth year he reads Cicero's " Hortensius." 
 
 " Hov/ I did burn then my God, how I did burn to soar 
 again from earthly things to Thee." He notes the omission 
 of the name of Christ in it. " This only gave me pause, that 
 the name of Christ was not in it. For this name, according 
 to Thy mercy, oh Lord, this name ofmy Saviour Thy Son had 
 my tender heart, even with my mother's^milk, drunk in, and 
 deeply treasured ; and, whatsoever was without that name,
 
 AUGUSTINE. 197 
 
 though never so learned, polished or truthful, took not entire 
 hold of me." 
 
 So he turns to Scripture. " I began to turn my mind 
 to the Holy Scriptures that I might see what they were. But, 
 behold, I see a thing not understood by the proud, nor laid 
 open to children in mien lowly, in issue lofty and veiled with 
 mysteries ; and I was not such as could enter into it, or stoop 
 my neck to follow its steps. For, not as I now speak did I 
 feel when I turned to those Scriptures, but they seemed to 
 me undignified in comparison with Ciceronian dignity, for 
 my swelling pride shrunk from their humble method, nor 
 could my sharp wit penetrate their depths. Yet were they 
 such as would grow up in a little one. But I disdained to 
 be a little one ; and swoln with arrogance took myself to 
 be a great one." 
 
 At this point Augustine joins the Manichasans.* 
 
 " I fell in with men raving with pride, very carnal and 
 worldly. . . Oh, Truth, Truth, how inwardly did even then 
 the marrow of my soul pant after Thee, when they often and 
 diversely, and in many and huge books, clamoured to me of 
 Thee in empty words. . . Yet because I thought them to 
 be Thee, I fed thereon ; not greedily, because Thou didst 
 not in them savour to me as Thou art ; . . . nor was I 
 nourished by them, but rather exhausted. Food in dreams 
 shows very like the food of waking men ; yet are not those 
 asleep nourished by it, for they are asleep." 
 
 For nine years (20-29), Augustine remained with the 
 Manichaeans, to the great sorrow of the saintly Monica, his 
 mother. 
 
 " Almost nine years passed in which I wallowed in the 
 mire of that deep pit . . . the while, however, that 
 chaste widow, devout and sober, though something brighter 
 
 * Manichaeism is not a Christian system of thought except in 
 name. The predominance of evil was explained by tlie supposed 
 existence of an evil deity, who, from all eternity resisted the good 
 deity, and furnished the larger part of the material out of which the 
 world had been made.
 
 198 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 for the hope, yet no whit relaxing in her weeping and mourning, 
 ceased not at all hours of her devotions to lay before Thee 
 her sorrow on my behalf." 
 
 Having returned home, the death of a dear friend greatly 
 troubled him. " I had poured out my soul upon the sand, 
 in loving one that must die, as if he would not die." Unable 
 to bear Tagaste any more, he returns to Carthage, " dis- 
 traught without rest, without counsel, for I bore about a 
 torn and bleeding soul." 
 
 Recovering somewhat in the whirl of a great city, he 
 writes " Fair and Fit," dedicated to " one Hierius, an orator 
 of the city of Rome." 
 
 In this treatise he defined " fair " as that which is so in 
 itself, and " fit " that which is beautiful as it corresponds 
 to some other thing." "For I had not known or learned that 
 no substance was evil, and that our mind was not the supreme 
 and unchallengeable good." " I preferred to argue that Thy 
 unchangeable substance had been compelled to err, rather 
 than confess that my changeable substance had chosen of 
 its own will to turn aside from the way, and now for a punish- 
 ment lay in error." 
 
 At twenty-nine years of age, many questions had arisen 
 in his mind, which he had sought to answer, and which he 
 asked his Manichaean friends to answer. They referred 
 him to a certain Faustus, a brilliant orator of that sect. 
 Faustus visits Carthage. Augustine, disappointed, finds 
 him pleasant, eloquent, but shallow. " What availed the 
 most courteous butler to assuage my thirst for a rarer 
 vintage ? " 
 
 Shaken in his Manichaeism, he determines upon Rome. 
 Deceiving his mother, who desires to keep him, he escapes 
 in a vessel, and sets foot in Italy. 
 
 Having left Manichseans, he still clings to the belief that 
 it is not men who sin. " I still thought that it is not we our- 
 selves that sin, but that some other nature (what I know not) 
 sins in us." Disappointed in his teacher, he is naturally
 
 AUGUSTINE. 199 
 
 attracted to Academius, who taught that men should doubt 
 everything. 
 
 What he did believe in those days is best put in his own 
 words : — " I believed Evil ... to be some . . . 
 kind of substance, and to have its own foul and hideous bulk. 
 . . . . And because some sort of piety constrained me 
 to believe that the good God had created no evil nature, 
 I conceived two masses, mutually antagonistic, both infinite, 
 but the evil narrower, the good greater. . . When my mind 
 sought to revert to the Catholic faith, I was repelled, since 
 that was not the Catholic Faith which I thought to be so. 
 And I thought it was more reverent in me, my God, to believe 
 Thee infinite on all sides, except upon that one where the 
 mass of evil opposed itself against Thee." 
 
 " Yea and our Saviour Himself, Thy only Begotten, 
 I believed to have been reached forth (as it were) for our 
 salvation, out of the mass of Thy most lucid substance, so as to 
 believe nothing of Him but what I could imagine in my vanity. 
 His nature then being such, I thought could not be born of 
 the Virgin Mary. . . I feared therefore to believe Him 
 bom in the flesh, lest I should be forced to believe Him 
 defiled by the flesh." 
 
 We now approach the crisis of his life. He goes to Milan 
 to teach rhetoric. He hears Ambrose " whose eloquent 
 discourses did then plentifully dispense unto Thy people the 
 fatness of Thy wheat, the gladness of Thy oil, and the sober 
 inebriation of Thy wine." 
 
 He is almost persuaded by Ambrose and " after the 
 manner of the Academics (sceptical of everything and 
 wavering between all) I settled so far that the Manichaeans 
 must be abandoned." 
 
 At this point he is joined by his mother. Augustine 
 tells the story of her voyage in a paragraph which must be 
 repeated both for its beauty and for its quaint touch of 
 humour : " Strong in her piety, following me over sea and 
 land, and amid all perils safe in Thy protection. For through
 
 200 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 the dangers of the sea she comforted the very mariners, by 
 whom passengers unacquainted with the deep are generally 
 comforted when troubled." 
 
 Augustine tells her he is not yet a Christian. She re- 
 plies, " I believe in Christ that before I depart out of this 
 life I shall see thee a faithful CathoHc." 
 
 He continues to be impressed by Ambrose. " I began 
 to condemn my own despair for having believed that no 
 answer at all could be given to such as hated and scoffed 
 at the Law and the Prophets." 
 
 He is still troubled to conceive of a " spiritual substance." 
 " Could I once have conceived a spiritual substance all their 
 (the Manichaeans) devices would be cast down immediately 
 and thrown off from my mind, but I could not." 
 
 He is helped by hearing Ambrose " most diligently 
 recommend to the people as a rule, this saying, 'The letter 
 killeth, but the spirit giveth life.'" He still withholds from 
 Christianity. " I witheld my heart from all assent, dreading 
 a downfall, and came nearer being killed by the suspense. For 
 I wished to be as assured of the things I saw not, as I was that 
 seven and three are ten." 
 
 Throughout all the changes of his opinion, his belief 
 in the immortality of the soul has remained. " In disputes 
 with my friends of the nature of good and evil, I used to hold 
 that Epicurus would to my judgment have won the palm, had 
 I not believed that after death there remained a life of the 
 soul, and durations of requitals." 
 
 Now in his thirty-first year he advances a step. He 
 sets behind him his vicious living and conceives of God 
 as incorruptible. " And I a man, and such a man, sought 
 to conceive of Thee the Sovereign and only and true God, 
 and I did in my inmost soul believe that Thou wert incor- 
 ruptible and inviolable and unchangeable, though not knowing 
 whence or how." " My heart passionately cried out against 
 all my phantasms, and with this one blow I sought to beat 
 away from the eye of my mind all that unclean troop which
 
 AUGUSTINE. 201 
 
 buzzed around it." ..." yet I did not hold that the 
 cause of evil was explained and disentangled." 
 
 " I strained to perceive what I now heard, that freewill 
 was the cause of our doing ill, and Thy just judgment of our 
 suffering ill, but I was not able." 
 
 " But it lifted me a little toward Thy light to know that 
 I had a will. . . But again I said. Who made me ? Did 
 not my God, who is not only good but goodness itself ? ' ' 
 
 " Whence then, comes it, that I choose the evil rather 
 than the good ? Who set this in me ? If the devil were the 
 author, whence is that same devil ? And if he also by his 
 own perverse will, of a good angel, became a devil, whence again, 
 came in him that e\dl will, whereby he became a devil ? ' ' 
 
 " I sought anxiously ' Whence was evil ? ' . . . Thou 
 knewest what I suffered, and no man. For what was there 
 of it which I could convey by my tongue into the ear of 
 my most familiar friend ? " 
 
 He reads a Latin translation of Plato's works. He finds 
 a striking parallel to the opening passages of John's Gospel, 
 " but that the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, 
 I read not there " {i.e. in Plato). 
 
 " And being admonished to return to myself, I entered 
 with Thy guidance into my inmost self, and I was enabled 
 to do so, for Thou wert my helper. And I entered and beheld 
 with the eye of my soul, above my mind, the Light unchange- 
 able ; not this common light which shines for all flesh . . . 
 not such was this light, but other, yea far other from all these. 
 Nor was it above my soul as oil is above water, nor yet as 
 heaven is above earth ; but higher than I because it made 
 me ; and I below it because I was made by it. He that 
 knoweth the Truth, knoweth what that Light is ; and he 
 that knoweth it, knoweth Eternity." ..." And Thou 
 didst beat back the weakness of my sight, streaming forth 
 Thy beams of light upon me most strongly and I trembled 
 with love and awe, and I perceived myself to be far off from 
 Thee, . . . as if I heard Thy voice from on high, ' I
 
 202 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 am the food of them that be full grown ; grow, and thou shalt 
 feed upon Me ; nor shalt thou transmute Me into thee, as 
 thou dost the food of thy flesh, but thou shalt be transmuted 
 into Me.' " 
 
 " And I said ' Is Truth therefore nothing because it is 
 not diffused through space, finite or infinite ? ' And Thou 
 criedst to me from afar, ' Yea verily, I am that I am.' " 
 
 " And I heard as the heart heareth, nor had I room to 
 doubt, and I should sooner doubt that I live, than that Truth 
 is not." 
 
 Then it came to him that creatures not God are subject 
 to change, and that God made all things good. " Therefore 
 if all things be deprived of all good they will entirely cease 
 to be. . . The Evil then which I sought, whence it is, 
 is not any substance ; for, were it a substance it should be 
 good. For either it should be an incorruptible substance, 
 and so a chief good, or a corruptible substance, which, unless 
 it were good could not be corrupted." 
 
 " And I inquired what iniquity was, and found it to be 
 no substance but the perversion of the will, turned aside 
 from Thee, oh God." 
 
 But he does not yet understand how " the Word was 
 made Flesh." 
 
 He now comes under the influence and teaching of one 
 Simplicianus, with whom he has much converse. He endures a 
 great conflict of wills : " My two wills, one old, and the 
 other new, one carnal, the other spiritual, warred against 
 each other, and by their discord squandered my soul." 
 
 "Then upon a day, there came to see me and Alypius one 
 Pontitianus our country-man, in so much as he was an African, 
 holding a high command in the Palace. I do not know what 
 his business was with us, and we sat down to converse, and 
 it happened that upon a table, for some game before us, he 
 observed a book, took, opened it, and greatly to his surprise 
 found it the Apostle Paul. Whereat smiling and looking 
 upon me he expressed his joy, for he was a Christian." He
 
 AUGUSTINE. 203 
 
 is led on in converse. In course of this, Pontitianus tells the 
 the story of St. Anthony. Augustine is greatly affected. 
 
 " I was gnawed within and exceedingly confounded 
 with an horrible shame while Pontitianus was so speaking. 
 With what stripes of condemnation scourged not I my soul 
 that it might follow me in striving to go after Thee. But 
 it still withstood, refused though not excused itself. Then, 
 in this powerful struggle of my inmost dwelling-place, I 
 fell upon Alypius and cried out ' What ails us ? What 
 heardest thou ? The unlearned start up and take heaven 
 by force, and we with our learning and without heart, lo ! 
 where we wallow in flesh and blood. Are we ashamed to 
 follow, because others are gone before ? — and not ashamed 
 not even to follow ? ' I rushed out then into the garden 
 and Alypius hurried after me. I was groaning in spirit, in- 
 dignant with most relentless indignation that I could not 
 journey towards Thy will and covenant, oh my God. 
 If I tore my hair, beat my forehead, if locking my fingers I 
 clasped my knee because I willed, I did it. But I might have 
 willed and not done it. . . But I did not then do that 
 which I, with an incomparably greater longing, wished to do. " 
 
 " More easily did my body obey the weakest willing of 
 my soul, in moving its limbs at its nod, than the soul obeyed 
 itself to accomplish in the will alone this its momentary will. 
 Whence is this strange anomaly ? . . The mind commands 
 the body and it obeys instantly ; the mind commands itself 
 and is resisted. . . Whence this strange anomaly ? It 
 willeth not entirely, therefore doth it not command entirely. 
 . . . . It is therefore no anomaly, but a disease of the 
 mind, that it doth not wholly rise, for it is uplifted by truth 
 but pressed down by habit." 
 
 " Thus soul-sick was I and tormented, accusing myself 
 much more severely than my wont, rolling and turning me 
 in my chair, till that were wholly broken, whereby I now was 
 but shghtly held. . . For I said within myself, ' Be it 
 done now, be it done now,' and as I spake I came near to
 
 204 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 resolution, now I nearly did it yet I did it not, but fell not 
 back into my old place, but stood hard by and drew my 
 breath. . . And Alypius sitting close by my side in silence, 
 watched the issue of my unwonted emotion. . . When 
 deep reflection had from the secret store of memory drawn 
 and heaped together all my misery in the sight of my heart, 
 there arose a mighty tempest bringing a heavy downpour of 
 tears." 
 
 Augustine desires solitude, and flings himself under a 
 fig-tree. " And not indeed in these words, yet to this purpose 
 spake I much with Thee, ' And Thou O Lord, how long ? 
 how long. Lord, wilt Thou be angry for ever ? O, remember 
 not against us former iniquities,' for I felt that I was holden 
 by them. Why not now ? why not this hour make an end 
 of my uncleanness ? " 
 
 " And lo ! from a neighbouring house I hear a voice as 
 of a boy or girl, singing, and oft repeating, ' Take read, take 
 read.' " 
 
 Augustine takes the words as a divine command, and 
 remembering that Anthony had changed his life through en- 
 tering a church as the words " Go sell all that thou hast and 
 give to the poor " were being read, he goes to the seat where 
 he left x\lypius, and takes up the volume of the Apostle, 
 which had attracted the notice of Pontitianus. " I seized, 
 opened, and in silence read the passage upon which my eyes 
 first fell, ' Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering 
 and wantonness, not in strife and envying ; but put ye on 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh 
 to fulfil the lusts thereof.' No further would I read, nor 
 was there need, for, instantly, at the end of this sentence, 
 as though my heart were flooded with a light of peace, all 
 the shadows of doubt melted away." 
 
 " Then, putting my finger between, or some other mark, 
 I shut the volume, and with a calm countenance made it 
 known to Alypius. . . Thence we go in to my mother, 
 we tell her ; she exulteth and triumpheth, and blessed Thee,
 
 AUGUSTINE. 205 
 
 ' Who art able to do above that which we ask or think,' for 
 she perceived that Thou hadst given her more for me, than 
 she was wont to ask in her sorrowful and tearful groanings. 
 For Thou didst so convert me unto Thyself that I sought 
 neither wife, nor any hope of this world, standing in that rule 
 of faith, where Thou hadst in a vision revealed me to her so 
 many years before. And Thou didst turn her mourning into 
 joy, fuller by far than she had desired."
 
 AUGUSTINE. 
 
 Lecture II. 
 
 Last time we dealt with Augustine's conversion as 
 described in the " Confessions," and are concerned this evening 
 with his philosophy and theology. 
 
 Augustine, the " doctor of grace," was born in 354 at 
 Tagaste, in Numidia. His conversion took place thirty-three 
 years later, 387. It is 150 years since Tertullian turned 
 Montanist and Irenaeus died, a hundred years since the 
 Decian persecution. Since those dark days of terror, Con- 
 stantine has come and gone — Jerome has given the world 
 his translation of the Scriptures, and passed to the church 
 triumphant ; it still wants twenty years before Ambrose 
 steps into the pulpit at Milan, to enthral with his eloquence 
 the impressionable Numidian youth. He was born into 
 stirring times. As the aged Bishop of Hippo, he was to witness 
 the crash of the Roman world, to hear as he lay dying the 
 thunder of the Vandals at his city gates. 
 
 Augustine stands indeed between two epochs with his 
 back to the age of the Fathers and his face to the long darkness 
 of the mediaeval age. The old world is dying around him, 
 the new has not yet taken shape. But in him the hour had 
 found the man. 
 
 We have already marked the main facts of his life — 
 his vicious youth in Carthage, his search for truth, never really 
 abandoned even in the midst of evil pleasures, his Manichae- 
 ism, his reaction to Agnosticism, his flight to Milan, his 
 encounter with Ambrose, his study of Plato, and finally, after 
 a terrible struggle, his conversion to Christianity. 
 
 206
 
 AUGUSTINE. 
 
 207 
 
 We have noticed his familiarity with different phases of 
 thought, his deep sense of sin, his profound dissatisfaction 
 with the world. 
 
 To a man of weak will and strong passions, whose main 
 strength lay in the emotions, who had no canon for the 
 recognition of truth, whose intellectual stability had been 
 shaken by his many changes of belief — it was an immense 
 relief when the crisis had passed. 
 
 Light came to him in the recognition that the seat of 
 evil lay, not as the Manichaeans taught, in matter, but in 
 the human will. Conversion was for Augustine, both the 
 recognition of this fact, and the surrender of his will to an 
 authority he had learned to recognise. What was that 
 authority ? Christ ? God ? The Higher Law ? The Di- 
 vine will ? 
 
 Yes and no. 
 
 In the burning pages of the " Confessions," there is 
 passionate testimony to the dominance of Christ. But 
 men see Christ at best through the medium of their thoughts, 
 and the atmosphere of Augustine's age was but murky at 
 the best. 
 
 There Wcis an element of mysticism in Augustine, but 
 mysticism is not incompatible with dependence upon ex- 
 ternal authority. And the conditions both in Augustine's 
 character and his environment, made it inevitable that he 
 should fall back upon such external authority as he could find. 
 
 That external authority was the Roman Church, glorified 
 by the eloquence of Ambrose, and sanctified by the illumina- 
 tion of a conversion which sealed the complete surrender of 
 the ardent African. 
 
 Ambrose had defied the Roman empress, and humiliated 
 the emperor Theodosius. The fact would not be without 
 its significance to Augustine. 
 
 The Roman Church, which was already becoming the 
 state, was shaping in the Latin mind " as a vast, mysterious 
 entity, a personification, as it were, of the hierarchy or epis-
 
 2o8 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 copate, a living corporate existence, endowed from without 
 with all the powers, the supernatural gifts and grace for the 
 salvation of men. In one sense, it is true, all men who were 
 in communion with the Catholic episcopate, were spoken of 
 as the church. But in the most important sense, the church 
 as teaching and ruling the world was not the people but the 
 hierarchy ; the grace that saved was deposited primarily, 
 not in the congregations, but in the bishops by whom it was 
 administered to the people. Thus the church had taken 
 the place of Christ as the way of redemption, and had become 
 the mediator between God and man." 
 
 This change in the church has its effect upon the new 
 convert. Despite the expression of personal devotion to 
 Christ in the " Confessions," it has been remarked that the 
 theology of Augustine would stand almost unshaken if 
 Christ were eliminated. 
 
 But before we come to the theology we must give a brief 
 space to the philosophy of Augustine. 
 
 For Augustine, before his conversion, had studied 
 Plato and imbibed not a little of the Greek influence in the 
 study of that great philosopher's translated works. 
 
 Indeed to Plato, Augustine, in the words of Dr. Fairbairn, 
 " owed his lofty idealism which gave to his system all its 
 dignity and all its power." 
 
 Not that his philosophy can lay much claim to order or 
 system. Augustine was not a clear, ordered thinker ; — to 
 quote Fairbairn again, — "His works are almost all occa- 
 sional — torn from him by the necessities of the moment, 
 exhibiting all the one-sidedness and exaggeration of a singu- 
 larly rich and restless mind, that throws itself successively 
 on single aspects of the truth and deals with each aspect as 
 if it were the whole. He had the excellencies proper to one 
 who is, in the field of controversy, perhaps the supremest 
 master, but his system has all the defects proper to his pre- 
 eminence in this field — i.e., it is in no respect a^system, but 
 only a succession of positions polemically maintained."
 
 AUGUSTINE. 
 
 209 
 
 This fault was however a virtue. As Canon Mozley 
 says : "In argument he was not too deep ; to have been so 
 would have very much obstructed his access to the mind of the 
 mass, and prevented him from getting the ear of the church 
 at large." 
 
 Bearing this in mind, and remembering that this charac- 
 teristic of Augustine was to lead him into no little con- 
 tradiction in his theology, let us briefly examine his philosophy . 
 
 Augustine as philosopher. — "For him as for Plato science 
 means a purer, cleaner, more exalted life, the life of a thinker." 
 
 Reason is a gift of God. He has given it to us that we 
 may know all things. Reason is the eye of the soul, by which 
 we perceive the highest wisdom, and that is God Himself. 
 
 There should be no antagonism between reason and faith ; 
 faith, which some oppose to reason, is only possible to reason- 
 able beings. 
 
 Nevertheless, chronologically faith precedes intelligence. 
 " Credo ut intelligam." Augustine makes faith a condition 
 of knowledge. Nevertheless, he regards it as a provisional 
 state, inferior to reasoned knowledge and which ultimately 
 resolves itself into knowledge. 
 
 Augustine's theodicy is Platonic. Beyond, outside, 
 without God, there is nothing. Everything has reality 
 below, in and through Him. 
 
 God is the beginning, middle and end. Nor are goodness, 
 justice and wisdom accidental attributes, but are of the 
 universal essence of God. 
 
 Omnipotence, presence, and eternity, these too are of the 
 Divine essence. Nevertheless Augustine is careful to dis- 
 tinguish between God and the world. His speculations 
 about God are necessarily involved in a series of antinomies. 
 
 God is substantiallj' omnipresent, without, however, 
 being everything ; everything is in Him though He is not 
 the all. He is the Creator of intelligence, and yet is superior 
 to it. He is present everywhere, without being bound to 
 any place. 
 
 16
 
 210 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 He thus escapes pantheism by his doctrine of creation 
 ex nihilo. 
 
 If the universe had emanated from God, then it would 
 be itself of divine essence and identical with God. So to 
 Augustine it is not an emanation, but a creation, by an act of 
 free-will. The Stoics held that God was the soul of the world 
 and that the world was the body of God. Not so Augustine. 
 
 Augustine, with his deep sense of sin, cannot bear the 
 thought of God as immanent in the world ; the thought was 
 to him an outrage upon the divine majesty of God. 
 
 Upon the doctrine of the Trinity Augustine is interesting. 
 The three hypostases of the Trinity, although distinct, 
 constitute but one God, just as reason, will, and the emotions, 
 form but one and the same human being. Augustine is 
 acute in his criticism of Arianism. 
 
 " What do you mean," he says, " by assuming that the 
 Son created the world at the command of the Father ? Do 
 you not thereby assert that God the Father did not create 
 the world, but simply ordered a demiurge to create it ? 
 What is the Son if not the Word of God, and what is a com- 
 mand if not an act of speech ? Hence God commanded the 
 Son, through the Son, to create the world. What a strange 
 and absurd conclusion. Arianism should have seen that the 
 command by means of which God created the world out of 
 nothing simply means the creative word itself. God is a 
 spirit and we should not and cannot form an image of the 
 immaterial." 
 
 As for the creation, we have seen that Augustine re- 
 garded the world as created by an act of free-will. Therefore 
 the world had a beginning. Origen, and the Neo-Platonists 
 would accept, on the contrary, the idea of emanation. They 
 believed in eternal creation ever in process. 
 
 Augustine therefore is face to face with the difficulty 
 of conceiving God without the universe. He meets the 
 difficulty with an inconsistency ; Augustine the philosopher 
 and Augustine the theologian being here in antagonism.
 
 AUGUSTINE. 211 
 
 He maintained that God created the universe by an act 
 of fiee-will, and yet creation was not the result of caprice, 
 but of eternal decree. He then realises that it is indifferent 
 whether the will of God compels Him to create the world at a 
 given time, or whether it compels Him to perform the act 
 of creation eternally. In either case we have absolute 
 determination. 
 
 Therefore Augustine declares that the principle and 
 supreme norm of things is the divine freedom, and therefore 
 again it is futile to inquire into the cause of creation. 
 
 Turning to the soul, we find Augustine anticipating 
 the familiar argument of Descartes, Cogito ergo sumi, in 
 seeking for a proof of its existence. He lays stress upon 
 thought, consciousness, and memory, and herein shows 
 philosophic common sense. 
 
 But what about the origin of the soul ? Some say it 
 emanates from God. But that is too much honour. 
 
 No, for Augustine, sharing the heavy sense of sin and 
 evil which weighed upon his generation, it was impossible 
 to accept the thought. The soul must be a creation of God. 
 If so it had a beginning. When ? Some say the soul was 
 created in Adam, and all other souls produced per traducem. 
 
 This idea would powerfully have supported Augustine's 
 doctrine of sin transmitted from Adam. But he rejects it as 
 too materialistic. Others say that souls were created before 
 bodies, and existed in another state, but were not introduced 
 till after the Fall, the object of their captivity in human bodies 
 being in expiation of sins committed in a previous life. This 
 was a view that was borrowed largely from Plato. 
 
 But Augustine considers the complete absence of any 
 recollection of a previous life forbids the acceptance of this 
 theory, and falls back on the belief that body and soul are 
 created together. 
 
 But he regards the soul as distinct from the body, and 
 as immortal. To him the reason is an evidence of immor- 
 tality. The reason brings the soul into touch with eternal
 
 212 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 truth. As the soul yields to the truth, they become in effect, 
 one. 
 
 Physical death is a mere incident, but the death of the 
 soul would mean separation from truth. But who can 
 of himself wholly separate himself from truth ? God alone 
 can separate them, but what conceivable ground can he 
 have for this ? 
 
 The Greek fathers had struggled against the tendency 
 present, for instance, in Neo-Platonism, to separate man 
 and the world from God. 
 
 Augustine, on the contrary, feels the gulf so keenly, 
 that he aims at elevating God and debasing man. Man 
 must owe nothing to himself, all to God. 
 
 The soul is a passive instrument. It receives all its 
 impressions and ideas of sensible things through the senses ; 
 moral and religious, through the spirit. Augustine conceives 
 of a heavenly light within the soul but not identical — the 
 Inner Light of the early Friends — which interprets and reveals 
 truth to the soul. 
 
 But the more Augustine becomes convinced of the fall 
 and radical corruption of human nature, the dimmer this 
 light appears to him. 
 
 After the Fall, reason is obscured by sin, and the inner 
 light changes to darkness. Had it remained pure, God would 
 not have had to incarnate Himself in Jesus in order to reveal 
 himself to humanity. 
 
 Turning to morals : — We find Augustine lifted by the 
 influence of Plato above the level of patristic ethics. Virtue, 
 not happiness, is the highest good. He maintains 'against 
 Tertullian that morality is absolute and does not depend upon 
 a person. He claims that the Divine Will does not make 
 goodness, beauty and truth, but they themselves constitute 
 the very will of God. 
 
 He says : "Is the moral law good because God is the 
 highest Law-giver ? No. We regard Him Who has given us 
 the moral law as the highest law-giver because it is good."
 
 AUGUSTINE. 213 
 
 A thing is not bad because God forbids it, God forbids 
 it because it is bad. 
 
 The Latin fathers, Jerome and Chrysostom, condoned 
 and authorised, as do the Jesuits, official falsehood. Permit 
 falsehood and 3'ou permit sin, answers Augustine. 
 
 Augustine acknowledges the insoluble problems of 
 human freedom in relation to divine prescience. If God 
 foresees our actions and permits them, they become neces- 
 sary. Then how explain free-will, responsibility, and sin ? 
 
 We shall see in his theological system where these diffi- 
 culties led him. 
 
 Augustine's theology. — It is not as a philosopher that we 
 can dismiss Augustine. " It was to the Church as it had 
 grown up in Latin Christendom that Augustine had been 
 converted, and great as were the innovations which he sanc- 
 tioned upon the theories of his predecessors, it was still to the 
 Latin Church as an institution that he consecrated the 
 labom's of his life. As he came in contact with sects or 
 heresies which denied its authority or rejected its essential 
 principle, his conception of it became more clear and dogmatic, 
 and it may be said of his life work as Bishop of Hippo, that 
 its predominant aim was to adjust social institutions and 
 even humanity itself, to the claims of a hierarchy divinely 
 appointed to teach and rule the world." 
 
 The first of these controversies was with the Manichceans, 
 and he uses the arguments of Tertullian. 
 
 Truth is a deposit in care of the' episcopate, it is found 
 only in the Church, and to the Church even Scripture owes 
 its authority. There is here no appeal to the divine light 
 in the soul bringing it in contact with eternal truth. 
 
 The second controversy was with the Donatists. Here 
 the idea of the Church fixes itself more clearly in Augustine's 
 mind and affects of course his conception of God. 
 
 The Donatists were a North African sect, who protested 
 against the laxity which re-admitted the apostates of the 
 Diocletian persecution into the communion of the Catholic
 
 214 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Church. They encountered persecution from the Emperor, 
 and under its pressure developed the further contention 
 that it was sinful for the Church to depend upon the State. 
 
 In answer to the first point, Augustine claims that the 
 Church must include in its nature the tares with the wheat. 
 But he was driven further. With his conversion he had 
 accepted Cyprian's dictum, that outside the Church is no 
 salvation. All men must therefore obey the Church. 
 Augustine did not accept Cyprian's idea of the Church as 
 merely offering a probation to men. No, it was here by divine 
 appointment, and if so all men must come into it — by force 
 if no other way. Therefore the Church might call upon the 
 sword of the state in her need. 
 
 The Manichceans denied that the Church was the sole de- 
 pository of truth, the Donatists denied its right to rule the con- 
 science, and now Augustine is face to face with the Pelagians. 
 
 They denied that the Church was necessary for salvation. 
 But to Augustine the Church had taken the place of Christ 
 as the way of salvation, and he now seeks a dogmatic basis 
 by which to justify the claim of the Church to be mediator 
 between God and man. In doing this he lays the corner 
 stone of Latin theology. 
 
 The foundation of that theology is Augustine's doctrine 
 of original sin. The dogma is unknown in Greek theology, 
 and is an innovation in Latin thought, though vaguely 
 suggested by Tertullian and Cyprian. 
 
 According to this dogma, humanity is solely separated 
 from God by Adam's fall. The guilt of one man dooms the 
 whole race to everlasting woe. The redemption of the world 
 by Christ assumes an insubordinate place and is practically 
 denied. Adam not Christ becomes the normal man, the type 
 of the race. 
 
 There is a solidarity in sin not in redemption. How is 
 the sundered relationship to be restored ? 
 
 Christ is no longer the bond which unites God with 
 humanity. The incarnation has become a mystery.
 
 AUGUSTINE. 215 
 
 He was oppressed by the sense of sin in himself and 
 others ; the appalhng depth of human wickedness. To the 
 mind of a practical Roman it was meaningless to think or 
 act as if humanity were redeemed to God. 
 
 He abandons universal redemption and seizes upon the 
 principle of individual election. Some only are saved. 
 
 The union with God is the divine will — it is free — not 
 grounded in righteousness or love (note the decadence and 
 contradiction of his earlier thought) — and it is vain to inquire 
 into its working. 
 
 Thus we come to this, that out of the freedom of God's 
 creative will has sprung the arbitrary determination con- 
 stituting right. 
 
 It is a capricious predestination which acts without 
 reference to human efforts or attainments. 
 
 The Catholic Church is the one appointed channel through 
 which the predestined elect are to be saved. All who come 
 into the Church will not be saved, but all must be drawn in 
 that all the elect may have the means of grace. 
 
 As Augustine saw in his conversion, sin has its seat 
 in the will ; but original sin has corrupted the will, and 
 example and exhortation are powerless to re-create it. 
 
 Baptism is the means of re-creation and now comes to 
 have a dogmatic meaning not before possessed. For the 
 heathen there is no hope, nor for the unbaptised. 
 
 Augustine was not without opposition. Theodore of 
 Mopsuestia reflected upon Augustine's lack of reverence and 
 of true fear in asserting things about God which human justice 
 would condemn, and in the West, Vincent of Lerins, protesting 
 against Augustine's innovations, set forth the famous doctrine 
 " That should be held for Catholic truth, which has been 
 believed everywhere, always and by all." That has since 
 remained the standard exposition of what is called the great 
 Catholic principle, by the very Church which accepted the 
 innovations against which the doctrine was raised. 
 
 The Greek Fathers had set forth Christ as the teacher
 
 2i6 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 of the world, whose presence in the world was the power 
 by which men were delivered from sin. 
 
 In Augustine's system, Christ becomes an impersonal 
 theological expression ; grace, which is in one aspect the 
 will of God choosing the elect, in another a deposit vested in 
 the Church and to be dealt out to the faithful in the sacraments. 
 Augustine did not definitely initiate it, but nevertheless upon 
 this teaching, the sacramentarian theology came to be based. 
 
 The doctrine of endless punishment is now taught with a 
 rigidity previously unknown, and the belief in a bodily resur- 
 rection stimulates the idea of purgatory. Augustine speaks of 
 a purifying fire for the elect. 
 
 Prayers for the dead under Augustine become prayers 
 for the alleviation of purgatory. 
 
 We have noted the inconsistencies of Augustine's 
 teaching ; the curious dualism which shows itself in the 
 contradiction given in later years to his earlier philosophy. 
 
 We have seen how the influence of church authority on 
 the one hand, and of his deep sense of sin upon the other, 
 worked upon him. 
 
 Augustine however, with all his limitations, was great 
 in that he made possible the survival of the Latin Church, 
 when the waves of barbarism, like an advancing tide, were 
 drowning the sand castle of the Roman Empire. 
 
 The ages to come were ages when men needed authority, 
 and when the Greek appeal to reason would have fallen 
 upon ears too ignorant to comprehend. The influence 
 of Augustine upon subsequent thought was far-reaching. 
 Geneva and Wittenberg testify to his power. John Wy cliff 
 and John Huss built upon his teaching. 
 
 " For a thousand years," says Allen, " those who came 
 after liim did little more than re-affirm his teaching, and so 
 deep is the hold which his long supremacy has left upon the 
 church, that his opinions have become identified with the 
 divine revelation, and are all that the majority of the Christian 
 world yet know of the religion of Christ."
 
 THE FRIENDS OF GOD. 
 2 Cor. iii. i8. 
 
 In the thirteenth century, St. Francis of Assisi had given 
 expression to the reaction against the Christianity of Hilde- 
 brand and Innocent III. In the fourteenth century the 
 " Friends of God " gave expression to the ever recurring 
 revolt against externahsm in rehgion. 
 
 Scattered along the banks of the Rhine from Cologne 
 to Basle, which was their headquarters, these " Friends " 
 witnessed, amid the discords of political and ecclesiastical 
 strife, to the eternal peace of God in the soul. 
 
 They were the contemporaries of Wycliff, of Dante, 
 Chaucer, and Giotto. They saw the Jubilee of 1300, that 
 famous year which marks not only the close of the mediaeval 
 papacy, whose glories lie buried in the grave of Boniface, 
 but the supreme unfolding of Dante's life, the " Divina 
 Commedia." 
 
 They viewed with the distress of all good Catholics 
 the Babylonish captivity of Avignon, and heard, as who did not, 
 of the nameless vices of the Papal court. They saw the 
 horror of the Black Death, and its physical terrors deepened 
 the gloom of the political and ecclesiastical world. 
 
 Theirs, then, was a time of intellectual activity, and of 
 social and religious unrest. If in Italy we have Dante and 
 Giotto, we have too the strife of Ghibelline and Guelph, and 
 the scandal of the absent Pope. If in Germany we have an 
 Emperor who defies the Pope, and stands for comparative 
 
 217
 
 2i8 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 freedom of thought, we have also the anarchy following upon 
 interdict, the unsettlement and uncertainty of the long strife, 
 and the curse of civil war. 
 
 Two brief extracts from the Chronicle of Adolf Arnstein, 
 armourer of Strasburg, the fictitious document in which 
 Robert Vaughan, in his " Hours with the Mystics," has thrown 
 together the real historical details of the period, may serve 
 to complete our background, and leave us free to consider our 
 subject. 
 
 "1324, St. Kylian's Day. — What a day this has been! 
 Strasburg and all the states which adhere to Louis are placed 
 under the bann. The bells were ringing merrily at early 
 morning ; now, the Interdict is proclaimed, and every tongue 
 of them is silent. As the news flew round, every workman 
 quitted his work. The busy stalls set out on either side of 
 the streets were left empty. The tools and the wares lay 
 unlocked at and untouched. The bishop and the clergy of 
 his party, and most of the Dominicans, kept out of sight. My 
 men are furious. I have been all day from house to house, 
 and group to group, telling the people to keep a good heart. 
 We shall have a sad time of it, I see. It is so hard for the 
 poor creatures to shake off a fear in which they have been 
 cradled. 
 
 "The clergy and the monks will pour out of Strasburg 
 as out of a Sodom, in shoals. A mere handfid will stay 
 behind, — not nearly enough to christen those who will be 
 born and shrive those who will die in this populous city. 
 They may name their price ; the greedy of gain may make 
 their fortunes. The miserable poor will die, numbers of them 
 in horror, unable to purchase absolution. And then, out of 
 the few priests who do remain, scarcely any will have the 
 courage to disobey the pope, and, despite the Interdict, 
 say mass." 
 
 " 1326, March. St. Gregory's Day. — ^A long conversation 
 with Henry of Nordlingen. He has journeyed hither, cast
 
 THE FRIENDS OF GOD. 219 
 
 down and needy, to ask counsel of Tauler, Verily he needs 
 counsel, but hath not strength of mind to take it when givea 
 Tauler says Henry has many friends among the excellent 
 of the earth ; all love him, and he is full of love, but sure a 
 pitiful sight to see. His heart is with us. He mourns over 
 us the trouble of the time. He weeps for the poor folk living 
 and dying without the sacraments. But the Interdict crushes 
 his soul." 
 
 A.D. 1339, Jan. "Bitter wind and sleet this morning. 
 Saw three Dominicans creeping back into the town, who had 
 left it a month ago refusing to say mass. Poor wretches, how 
 starved and woe-begone they looked, after miserable wander- 
 ings about the country in the snow, winter showing them scant 
 courtesy, and, sure I am, the boors less ; and now coming 
 back to a deserted convent and to a city where men's faces are 
 towards them as a flint. Straight, as I saw them, there came 
 into my mind that goodly exhortation of Dr. Tauler's, that we 
 should show mercy, as doth God, unto all, enemies and friends 
 alike, for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, 
 how can he love God, whom he hath not seen ? Ran after 
 them, called them in, thawed them, fed them, comforted 
 them with kind words and good ale by the great fire — then 
 argued with them. They thought it a cruel thing that they 
 must starve because pope and emperor are at feud. ' And 
 is it not,' urged I, ' a crueller that thousands of innocent, 
 poor folk should live without the sacrament, never hear mass, 
 perhaps die unshriven, for the very same reason ? Is not 
 God's law higher than the pope's — do to others as ye would 
 they should do unto you ? Could you look for other treat- 
 ment at the hands of our magistrates, and expect to be 
 countenanced and sustained by them in administering the 
 malediction of their enemies ? ' Thought it most courteous, 
 however, to ply them more pressingly with food than with 
 arguments. 
 
 " While they were there, in comes my little Otto, opens 
 his eyes wide with wonder to see them, and presently breaks
 
 220 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 out with the words, now on the tongue of every Strasburgher 
 a rhyming version of the decree : 
 
 ' They shall still their masses sing, 
 Or out of the city we'll make them spring.' 
 
 Told him he should not sing that just then, and when he was 
 out of the room, bade them mark by that straw which way 
 the wind blew." 
 
 Adolf Arnstein is represented by Vaughan as one of 
 the " Friends of God," but he had never any existence in 
 fact. Who then really were these people ? Let us quote 
 once more from our chronicle : — 
 
 " Through all Rhineland hath he moved godly men, 
 both clerks and laity, to draw nearer the one to the other, 
 forming together what we call the association of the Friends 
 of God for the better tending of the inward life in these troub- 
 lous times, for wrestling with the Almighty on behalf of His 
 suffering Christendom, and for the succour of the poor people, 
 by preaching and counsel and sacrament, that are now as 
 sheep without a shepherd, and perishing for lack of spiritual 
 bread. Tauler is of the foremost among them, and with his 
 brethren, Egenolph of Ehenheim and Dietrich of Colmar, 
 labours without ceasing, having now the wider field and 
 heavier toil, as so few are left in Strasburg who will perform 
 any church service for love or money. Ah ! well might 
 the Abbess Christina say of him that the Spirit of God dwelt 
 within him as a sweet harping. He has travelled much of 
 late, and wherever he goes spreads blessing and consolation ; 
 the people flock to hear him ; the hands of the Friends of 
 God are strengthened ; and a savour of heavenly love and 
 wisdom is left behind. His good name hath journeyed, they 
 say, even beyond the Alps, and into the Low Countries. 
 Neither are there wanting many like-minded, though none 
 equal to him. He found at Cologne Henry of Lowen, Henry, 
 and Franke, and John of Sterngasse, brother Dominicans 
 all of them, preaching constantly, with much of his own fer-
 
 THE FRIENDS OF GOD. 221 
 
 vour, if with a doctrine more like that of Eckhart. In Switzer- 
 land there is Suso, and I hear much of one Ruysbroek, in the 
 Netherlands, a man younger than Tauler, and a notable 
 master in the divine art of contemplation. 
 
 " Among the Friends of God are numbers both of men and 
 women of every rank, abbots and framers, knights and nuns, 
 monks and artizans. There is Conrad, Abbot of Kaisersheim ; 
 there are the nuns of Unterlinden and Klingenthal, at Colraar 
 and Basle, as well as the holy sisters of Engelthal ; the knights 
 of Rheinfeld, Pfaffenheim and Landsberg ; our rich merchant 
 here, Rulman Merswin, and one, unworthy of so good a name, 
 that holds this pen. Our law is that universal love commanded 
 by Christ, and not to be gainsaid by his vicar. Some have 
 joined themselves to us for awhile, and gone out from us 
 because they were not of us ; for we teach no easy road to 
 heaven for the pleasing of the flesh. Many call us sectaries, 
 Beghards, brethren of the Free Spirit, or of the New Spirit, 
 and what not. They might call us by worse names, but 
 we are none of these. The prophecies of some among us, 
 concerning judgments to be looked for at the hands of God, 
 and the faithful warnings of others, have made many angry. 
 Yet are not such things needed, when, as Dr. Tauler saith, 
 the princes and prelates are, too many of them, worse than 
 Jews and infidels, and mere horses for the devil's riding. So 
 far from wishing evil, we mourn as no others over the present 
 woe, and the Friends of God are, saith Dr. Tauler again, pillars 
 of Christendom, and holders off for awhile of the gathered cloud 
 of wrath. Beyond all question, if all would be active as they 
 are active in works of love to their fellows, the face of the time 
 would brighten presently, and the world come into sunshine. 
 
 " It was but yesterday that in his sermon Tauler repeated 
 the saying of one — an eminent Friend of God — ' I cannot pass 
 my neighbour by without wishing for him in my heart more 
 of the blessedness of heaven than for myself ; ' ' and that,' 
 said the good Doctor, ' I call true love.' Sure I am that such 
 men stand between the living and the dead."
 
 222 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 The name of Dr. Tauler, familiar to us through Whittier's 
 poem, has been frequently mentioned in this record, but we 
 must go back a generation to discover the immediate origin 
 of the society. It is now commonly recognised, Inge acknow- 
 ledges in his Bampton Lectures, that the fourteenth century 
 mystics were directly indebted to Meister Eckhart. 
 
 He was a Dominican monk, prior of Erfurt, and Vicar 
 ofThiiringen, born about the middle of the thirteenth century, 
 the date (probably before 1260) is not known. He became the 
 vicar-general for Bohemia, and about 1325 preached a great 
 deal in Cologne. Semipantheistic in his teaching, he was at 
 heart an Evangelical Christian. Professor Inge says of him, 
 " his transparent intellectual honesty, and his great powers 
 of thought, combined with deep devoutness and childlike 
 purity of soul, make him one of the most interesting figures 
 in the history of Christian philosophy." 
 
 But, though a philosopher, his style was popular and 
 epigrammatic. He desired to reach the people, and spoke 
 in German. He did not qualify himself when speaking after 
 the manner of philosophers who weigh each word, and whose 
 knowledge of the subtlest variations of meaning prohibits 
 the use of simple sentences. 
 
 Consequently, he has been much misunderstood, and 
 somewhat unfairly handled. 
 
 Nevertheless there is something of the Asiatic in his 
 mysticism, e.g., " Thou shalt love God as He is, a non-God, 
 a non-Spirit, a non-person, a non-form. He is absolute, bare 
 unity." And again, of the true believer : " Is he sick ? He 
 is fain to be sick as well. If a friend should die — in the name 
 of God. If an eye should be knocked out — in the name of 
 God." The fatalism of the Hindoo peasant in time of famine 
 is of a piece with this teaching. 
 
 Philosophically, Eckhart's doctrine may be summed up 
 thus : — "The ground of your being lies in God. Reduce your- 
 self to that simplicity, that root, and you are in God. There 
 is then no longer a distinction between your spirit and the
 
 THE FRIENDS OF GOD. 223 
 
 divine — you have escaped personality and finite limitation. 
 Your particular self, as a something separate from God, is gone. 
 Henceforth what seems an inclination of yours is in fact the 
 divine good pleasure. You are free from law." 
 
 It is well to erect prominent danger-boards along this 
 path, and history has not a few melancholy lessons which may 
 serve. But let us be just. Remember how the church had 
 hidden away the Christ, so that man knew not where He had 
 been laid. There was a great thought wrapped up in this 
 dangerous language — the consciousness that men were 
 potentially the sons of God, a recognition of the divine spark 
 in the soul, the only and eternal warrant of the Royal Priest- 
 hood. Eckhart's life, austere, practical, full of evangelical 
 and strenuous labours, went far to limit the danger of his 
 pantheism, and we owe him a great debt for the reaction which 
 he set up against the externalism of Rome. 
 
 One illustration of the real beauty of his teaching shall 
 suffice to show us his positive side. 
 
 A crowd outside the church are disputing over a sermon 
 which Eckhart has just preached, "When," says our 
 chronicler, " I saw advancing towards us the stately form of 
 Master Eckhart himself. He looked with a calm gravity 
 about upon us, as he paused in the midst — seemed to under- 
 stand at once of what sort our talk had been, and appeared 
 about to speak. There was a cry for silence : ' Hear the 
 Doctor ! hear him ! ' Whereon he spoke as follows : — 
 
 " 'There was once a learned man who longed and prayed 
 full eight years that God would show him some one to teach 
 him the way of truth. And on a time, as he was in a great 
 longing, there came unto him a voice from heaven and said, 
 "Go to the front of the church, there wilt thou find a man 
 that shall show thee the way to blessedness." 
 
 " ' So thither he went, and found there a poor man whose 
 feet were torn and covered with dust and dirt, and all his 
 apparel scarce three hellers worth. He greeted him, saying, 
 " God give thee good morrow." Thereat made he answer, " I
 
 224 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 never had an ill morrow." Again said he, " God prosper thee." 
 The other answered, " Never had I aught but prosperity." 
 
 " ' " Heaven save thee," said the scholar, " how an- 
 swerest thou me so ? " 
 
 " ' " I was never other than saved." 
 
 " ' " Explain to me this, for I understand not." 
 
 "'"Willingly," quoth the poor man. "Thou wishest 
 me good morrow. I never had an ill morrow, for, am I an 
 hungered, I praise God ; am I freezing, doth it hail, snow, 
 rain, is it fair weather or foul, I praise God ; and therefore 
 had I never ill morrow. Thou didst say, God prosper thee. 
 I have been never unprospered, for I know how to live with 
 God ; I know that what He doth is best, and what God giveth 
 or ordaineth for me, be it pain or pleasure, that I take cheerfully 
 from Him as the best of all, and so I had never adversity. 
 Thou wishest God to bless me. I was never unblessed, for 
 I desire to be only in the will of God, and I have so given up 
 my will to the will of God, that what God willeth I will." 
 
 " ' " But if God were to cast thee into Hell," said the 
 scholar, " what wouldst thou do then ? " 
 
 " ' " Cast me into hell ? His goodness holds Him back 
 therefrom. Yet if He did, I should have two arms to embrace 
 Him withal. One arm is true Humility, and therewith am 
 I one with His holy humanity. And with the right arm of 
 Love, that joineth his holy Godhead, I would embrace Him, 
 so He must come with me into hell likewise. And even so, 
 I would sooner be in hell, and have God, than in heaven, and 
 not have Him." ' " 
 
 This story is found in an appendix to Tauler's "Medulla 
 Animae," and in Whittier's poem is attributed to Tauler. There 
 is, however, every reason to believe that it is Eckhart's. 
 
 So much then, of the origin of the Society, but who were 
 the members ? There is the unknown author of the " Theologia 
 Germanica," a book written about 1350, and of which Luther 
 writes : " And I will say, though it be boasting of myself 
 and I speak as a fool, that next to the Bible and St. Augustine,
 
 THE FRIENDS OF GOD. 225 
 
 no book has ever come into my hands, whence I have learnt 
 or would wish to learn, more of what God and Christ and man 
 and all things are." 
 
 There is Ruysbroeck, from whom selections have recently 
 been translated and published in the Devotional Library 
 series by Hodder and Stoughton, with a long bat interesting 
 preface by Maurice Maeterhnck. He was born in 1293, and 
 died in 1381, and wrote most of his treatises in the convent 
 of Griinthal, in the forest of Soignies. He was the object of 
 great veneration, but was neither learned nor a clear thinker. 
 He was emotional rather than speculative, a stern rebuker 
 of the sins of the clergy, and of the spiritual indolence which 
 hid itself in the cloak of contemplation. 
 
 Like him in emotionalism, but widely different in his 
 experience, was Henry Suso. He was born in 1295, and died 
 1365. He called himself " the servitor of the Eternal Wis- 
 dom." He was a disciple of Eckhart, whom he understood 
 better than did Ruysbroeck. He was a man of remarkable 
 literary gifts, and published a striking history of his Hfe. 
 To mortify his flesh he undertook cruel asceticisms, though, 
 with Tauler he did not enjoin this upon others. He would 
 unite with Tauler where he says, " We are to kill our passions — 
 not our flesh and blood." 
 
 So intense was the fire of the divine fervour within him, 
 that upon one occasion he cut deep in his breast the name of 
 Jesus, so that the marks of the letters remained all his life 
 as he says, " the length of a finger point." 
 
 But, undoubtedly the greatest among the Friends of 
 God is John Tauler. He was born about 1300, and entered a 
 Dominican convent in 1315. He studied at Cologne and Paris. 
 As a Dominican he was allowed to preach in Strasburg, 
 in spite of the great Interdict, and laboured incessantly among 
 the people. During the Black Death he stuck to his post, 
 and ministered devotedly to his flock. 
 
 He was a thinker as well as a preacher. He was in 
 many points in harmony with Eckhart, but his doctrine of 
 
 ir
 
 226 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 the ground of the soul was not as in Eckhart, pantheistic. 
 "God is all," says Tauler, "but all is not God. He far 
 transcends the universe in which He is immanent." 
 
 His emphasis, as is natural in a reaction from externalism, 
 lies on the indwelling of God in the soul as the real centre of 
 life. 
 
 What Eckhart calls the spark — meaning that latent ele- 
 ment of the Divine which is in human nature, and which 
 John designates as " the light that lighteth every man that 
 cometh into the world," Tauler calls the Image. In the 
 Theologia Germanica the thought is differently expressed. 
 There we read that " the soul has two eyes, one of which, the 
 right eye, sees into eternity, the other sees time and creatures." 
 The writer significantly adds that we cannot see with both 
 eyes together, the left eye must be closed before we can see 
 with the right. " Scripture has its analogy, I think, with 
 this thought, in the words, " Ye cannot serve God and Mam- 
 mon." 
 
 Tauler had a deep sense of sin, but he expressed his 
 thoughts in language of his own. With him Heaven and Hell 
 were neither place nor time, but states of the soul. Sin, — 
 nay. Hell itself, was selfishness. " The more of self and me 
 the more of sin and wickedness." For him there are three 
 stages in progress : — 
 
 1st. The lower power must be governed by the higher. 
 " Jesus cannot speak in the temple of thy soul till those that 
 sold and bought therein are cast out of it." 
 
 2nd. The Contemplation of Christ. " Wilt thou," 
 he says, " with St. John, rest in the loving breast of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, thou must be transformed into His beauteous 
 image by a constant earnest contemplation thereof." 
 
 3rd. The union with God. " Let go all forms, and 
 suffer Him to work with thee as His instrument." 
 
 But Tauler's contemplation is not mere indolent and 
 self-centred passivity. Like all the Friends of God he lays 
 stress on the active will.
 
 THE FRIENDS OF GOD. 227 
 
 He sets forth contemplation in this wise : — " Spiritual 
 enjoyments are the food of the soul, and are only to help us 
 in our active work. Sloth often makes men fain to be excused 
 from their work, and set to contemplation. Never trust in a 
 virtue that has not been put to practice," and elsewhere he 
 says, " Works of love are more acceptable to God than lofty 
 contemplation," and in a sentence which modern Friends 
 may take to heart, " All kinds of skill are gifts of the Holy 
 Ghost." 
 
 Tauler was a great preacher, his burning sincerity pierced 
 the mask of the world's hypocrisy, and insisted on the kingdom 
 finding its capital in the heart. 
 
 " Christ in thy soul, and not the truth about Him in thy 
 brain is thy life's hfe ; and the agony of His love must pierce 
 thee somewhat deeper than the pathos of a tragedy. There 
 are those who live complacently in the facilities and enjoyments 
 they have in certain practices of devotion, when all the while 
 it is they themselves, as thus devout, and not their Lord 
 whom they love." 
 
 Tauler, unlike Eckhart, recognised the place of the 
 historic Christ, even when he emphasised His universal and 
 eternal presence. To him the Son was the way to the Truth. 
 There is much in the writings of these fourteenth century 
 mystics which is peculiarly helpful. They warn us again and 
 again of empty emotion and vague speculation, but they call 
 us from the feverish dependence upon temporal things to 
 the eternal verities of innermost life. 
 
 We must not decry mysticism. In all living religion, 
 whatever be its outer doctrinal expression, the element of 
 mysticism will be found. Nor are we in any danger of being 
 too mystical. At the present moment the danger lies all the 
 other way. Life is so crowded with jostling interests, that it 
 is hard to find time for those silences in which the soul can 
 expand and grow. 
 
 Even in the so-called return to Christ there is an element 
 of danger. Bibhcal criticism has its value, and has rendered
 
 228 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 a positive service not yet properly acknowledged by the 
 Christian Chiirch, but what if we stop short at the scientific 
 and literary ? The Bible is something more than a literature. 
 We cannot merely analyse and discuss Christ, as we would 
 Shakespeare or Homer. 
 
 In seeking the true historic Christ, our research must be 
 something other than the digging of antiquarians in the 
 sand-heaps of Babylon. Read the story of Tauler's two 
 years of voluntary retirement, in the midst of his popularity 
 as a great preacher, and learn what that struggle meant to 
 him. To discover Christ is to wrestle in spirit with powers 
 that no mere historic knowledge will overcome, that no mere 
 emotion or sudden rapture can sweep away. 
 
 There are, as St. Bernard has said, three kinds of love, 
 the sweet, the wise, and the strong. The first is as a gilded 
 image of wood, the second as a gilded image of silver, the 
 third an image of pure gold. We must desire and cherish 
 the strong love which is pure gold, which will not be denied, 
 though no ecstatic thrill possess us, which will not rest content 
 with history or literature, or with sensuous imagery, but 
 strives in active service and in prayerful contemplation to 
 realise the glory of the living Christ within.
 
 WESLEY. 
 
 A Lecture given in Westboro* Chapel, Scarborough, 
 
 IN 1903, AND AFTERWARDS REVISED. 
 
 In 1717, what is known as the Bangorian Controversy 
 raged between the High and Low Church on a vast scale, 
 and with intense heat. It has been said that the controversy 
 had no definite issue, but it formed the pretext for the sup- 
 pression of the Convocation of the Estabhshed Church, an 
 institution which was not destined to be revived until in 
 1850 it reappeared in its present form. 
 
 For our purpose the date and the suppression, when, 
 as Hallam says, "A little dust was scattered on the angry 
 insects," are important. 
 
 The Established Church in 1717 was definitely stamped 
 as a department of the State ; this union gave a disastrous 
 emphasis to the popular opinions upon religion, for they 
 were thus intimately connected with prevaihng political 
 notions. 
 
 Lecky, in his history of the eighteenth century, remarks 
 that " The theological conception which looked upon religion 
 as a kind of adjunct to the police force, which dwelt almost 
 exclusively on the prudence of embracing it, and on the ad- 
 vantages it could confer, and which regarded all spirituality 
 and all strong emotions as fanaticism, corresponded very 
 faithfully to that political system under which corruption 
 was regarded as the natural instrument, and the maintenance 
 of material interests as the supreme end of government ; 
 while the ihigher motives of political action were system- 
 atically ridiculed and discouraged."
 
 230 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Walpole's motto of " Let rest " cannot truthfully be said 
 to fit a century which, beginning with Marlborough, ended 
 with Lord North, the loss of America, the upheaval of the 
 French Revolution, and the costly campaigns of the younger 
 Pitt. 
 
 It was, however, the unconfessed motto of an Erastian 
 Church which forbad Wesley the freedom of its pulpit, and ul- 
 timately drove the Methodists into open schism. But before 
 we discuss John Wesley, let us briefly review the main religious 
 and social characteristics of the times in" which he lived, 
 for we shall need to keep these vividly before us if we are 
 properly to estimate and appreciate the extent and the fruit 
 of his labours. 
 
 In 1847, a writer in the North British Review, speaking 
 of the eighteenth century, delivers himself as follows : — 
 " Never has century risen on Christian England so void of 
 soul and faith as that which opened with Queen Anne, . . . 
 There was no freshness in the past, and no promise in the 
 future. The Puritans were buried and the Methodists were 
 not born. The philosopher of the age was Bolingbroke, 
 the moralist was Addison, the minstrel was Pope, and the 
 preacher was Atterbury. The world had the idle, discon- 
 tented look of the morning after some mad holiday, and, 
 like rocket sticks and the singed paper from last night's 
 squibs, the spent jokes of Charles and Rochester lay all 
 about, and the people yawned to look at them. The reign 
 of buffoonery was past, but the reign of faith and earnestness 
 had not commenced." 
 
 Carlyle expresses himself with more savage force : — " It 
 was the age of prose," he says, " of lying, of sham, thefraiidu- 
 lent bankrupt century, the reign of Beelzebub, the peculiar 
 era of cant ..." 
 
 We cannot of course, brush aside this remarkable century 
 with a mere damnatory phrase. Indeed, Mr. Balfour, though 
 deprecating the arbitrary division of human progress into 
 fixed periods of hundreds of years, has expressed his preference
 
 WESLEY. 231 
 
 for the eighteenth century over the nineteenth. While I 
 cannot profess to unite in his choice, I admit there is some- 
 thing — not much perhaps — to be said for it. 
 
 But much can be said to justify the wrath of Carlyle. 
 It matters not what sphere of hfe or activity we consider, 
 the story is the same : Do we take poHtics ? The corruption 
 of Parliament throws a lurid light on the political morality 
 of the upper classes. Listen to Dr. King as he speaks of 
 Walpole : — 
 
 " He (Walpole) wanted to carry a question in the House 
 of Commons, to which he knew there would be great oppo- 
 sition. . . . As he passed through the Court of Requests, 
 he met a member of the contrary party, whose avarice he 
 imagined would not reject a large bribe. He took him aside 
 and said, ' Such a question comes on this day, give me your 
 vote, and here is a bank bill of ;r2,ooo.' The member made 
 him this answer — ' Sir Robert, you have lately served some 
 of my particular friends ; and when my wife was last at Court, 
 the King was very gracious to her, which must have happened 
 at your instance. I should therefore think myself very 
 ungrateful (putting the bank bill into his pocket) if I were 
 to refuse the favour you are now pleased to ask me.' " 
 
 This is an individual instance, but a typical one. Marl- 
 borough, one of the basest rogues in history, was no better 
 than this. Parliament was a Fagin's den, with titled thieves, 
 thieves who were Hooligans to boot. The young sparks of 
 aristocracy, under the name of Mohawks, tyrannised at 
 night over the London streets. They stopped people and 
 made them dance by pricking their legs with their swords ; 
 sometimes they would put a woman in a tub and set her 
 rolling down a hill ; others would place her on her head with 
 her feet in the air ; some would flatten the nose of the un- 
 offending wretch they caught, and press his eyes out of their 
 sockets. No wonder that Montesquieu was able to say of 
 these people " If anyone speaks of religion, everybody begins 
 to laugh."
 
 232 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Rawson Gardiner's picture may be taken as accurate. 
 He says : — " Life was not beautiful. The streets of London 
 were as Hogarth painted them. In such a world the rich 
 man took his pleasure swearing and cursing, and drinking 
 himself into the gout as he went." If we turn to the common 
 people we find them no better than savages. Education 
 was but a flickering and feeble flame in a night of heathen 
 darkness. Sports were brutal, and insensitiveness to suffering 
 bred indifference to death. Indeed, fatal accidents were a 
 fit subject for mirth. During the severe winter of 1739, 
 when the Thames was frozen over and booths erected upon 
 it, an exciseman fell into one of the holes in the ice, and the 
 brutal jest made on the drowned man ' that if the owner of 
 the booth had any run goods he was lost, as an exciseman 
 was gone into his cellar ' — is given merely as the good saying 
 of a merry fellow." Among the popular diversions was 
 " cock-throwing " ; battering to death a cock tied to a stake, 
 and of course the more serious entertainment of bull and 
 bear baiting. 
 
 Thousands attended the frequent public executions, or 
 lined the streets to see a half-naked wretch, not infrequently 
 a woman, flogged through the town at the cart-tail. Criminals 
 were exhibited in their cells at is. a head, and rows of skulls 
 were still allowed to moulder on Temple Bar. The penal 
 code was cruel — no fewer than 160 offences were punishable 
 by death. 
 
 Sanitation, both prison and domestic, was much as it is 
 to-day in the Ottoman Empire, and devastating fevers and 
 smallpox swept whole towns like a scourge. 
 
 The homes and condition of the labouring classes were 
 terrible. Without intellectual life or political freedom, and 
 with barely the form of religion, they seemed to justify the 
 saying that you " cannot make a man a saint in mind if you 
 keep him a brute in body." 
 
 But among the upper classes the case of religion was 
 little better, and indifference showed itself in the decay of
 
 WESLEY. 233 
 
 Sunday observance. " People of fashion," wrote Archbishop 
 Seeker " (especially of that sex which ascribes to itself most 
 knowledge), have nearly thrown off all observation of the 
 Lord's day . . . and if to avoid scandal they sometimes 
 vouchsafe their attendance on Divine worship in the country, 
 they never do so in town." 
 
 Gambling was universal, and in the middle of the century 
 reached its chmax. Government lotteries flourished, and 
 their proceeds built Westminster Bridge and founded the 
 British Museum. Wrote Walpole to a friend : — " The 
 ladies game too deep for me. The last time I was in town 
 Lady Hertford wanted to play, and I lost fifty-six guineas 
 before I could say an Ave Maria. I do not know a teaspoon- 
 ful of news ; I could tell you what was trumps, but that 
 was all I heard." 
 
 The mania tainted commerce. Bogus companies bred 
 like flies. The British public bought shares in a company 
 for fishing up wrecks on the Irish coast, for making salt water 
 fresh, and for importing jackasses from Spain. 
 
 Heavy drinking was fashionable. Addison, Steele, 
 Harley, Bolingbroke, Cartmel, Pulteney, Walpole and William 
 Pitt the younger, were drunkards. Vice received the sanction 
 of the Court ; men blushed to be thought chaste, and the 
 theatres were so licentious that even Georgian ladies went to 
 their boxes masked. Literature was often foul, and the 
 most popular history was the " Chronique Scandaleuse." 
 
 In one of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's letters occurs 
 the following (1725) : — " I am told that there is at this moment 
 a bill cooking up at a hunting seat in Norfolk, to have ' not ' 
 taken out of the commandments and inserted in the Creed 
 at the ensuing Session. It certainly might be carried with 
 great ease . . . honour, virtue, and reputation, which 
 we used to hear of in our nursery, are as much laid aside as 
 crumpled ribbons." 
 
 This no doubt referred to doings at Walpole's country 
 seat, for Walpole, like Bolingbroke, was of vicious life, indeed
 
 234 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 his revels there were of such a character that decent men left 
 the neighbourhood when he arrived. 
 
 It is not indeed necessary to exclude the upper classes 
 in accepting Southey's statement that " Though the temporal 
 advantages of Christianity extended to all classes, the great 
 majority of the populace knew nothing more of religion than 
 its forms. They had been Papists and now they were Pro- 
 testants, but they had never been Christians." It may seem 
 strange in the light of Mr. Balfour's choice that we have been 
 compelled to draw such a picture, for, with Mr. Balfour, we 
 not unnaturally think of the i8th century as a century of 
 brilliant men. Goldwin Smith reminds us that the reign 
 of Anne has been called the Augustan age of England. " There 
 is a likeness," he says, " Both were ages of calm, self-com- 
 placency, and jubilant literature after civil storms. Besides 
 its literature, in the persons of Pope, Addison, Swift, Steele, 
 Defoe, the reign had its science in the person of Newton, 
 its philosophy in that of Locke, its scholarship in that of 
 Bentley. It had its architect in the builder of Blenheim, a 
 palace in majesty, whatever may be said of the style. Its 
 statesmen were literary and patronised letters. It was an 
 age, stately, refined, picturesque, in a formal way so far as the 
 higher class was concerned. But beneath the rather arti- 
 ficial brilliancy of the surface lay much that was far from 
 brilliant . . . " as we have already seen. 
 
 This formality extended to the Church. 
 
 The English idol was the golden mean. Mr. Bickerstaff 
 in one of the " Tatlers," describes an invention of his which 
 he calls the Ecclesiastical Thermometer : — 
 
 " The reader will observe," says Mr. Bickerstaff, ironi- 
 cally, " that the Church is placed in the middle part of the 
 glass between zeal and moderation, the situation in which 
 she always flourishes, and in which every Englishman wishes 
 to see her who is a friend to the constitution and to his country. 
 However, when it mounts to zeal 'tis not amiss, and when it 
 sinks to moderation 'tis still in a most admirable temper, —
 
 WESLEY. 235 
 
 the worst of it is that when it once begins to rise it has still 
 an inclination to ascend, insomuch that it is apt to climb 
 from zeal to wrath. The point of doctrine which I would 
 propagate by this invention is the very same which was long 
 ago advanced by that able teacher, Horace. We should take 
 care never to overshoot overselves in the pursuit even of 
 virtue ; whether zeal or moderation be the point we aim at, 
 let us keep fire out of the one and frost out of the other." 
 Excellent advice ! if the first injunction is easy to observe, 
 what shall we say of the second ? But let us be just. In 
 spite of the moral frost which bound up the religious life of 
 England under the sway of the golden mean, the Established 
 Church was not without its virtue. Perhaps the sunshine 
 was cold and watery, but still it was there. Lecky says : — 
 " The selfishness, the corruption, the worship of expediency, 
 the scepticism as to all higher motives that characterised 
 the politicians of the school of Walpole, the heartless cynicism 
 reigning in fashionable life, which is so clearly reflected in the 
 letters of Horace Walpole and Chesterfield, the spirit of a 
 brilliant, varied and contemporary literature, eminently 
 distinguished for its measured sobriety of judgment, and for 
 its fastidious purity and elegance of expression, but for the 
 most part deficient in depth, in passion and in imagination, 
 may all be traced in the popular theology." 
 
 So much Mr. Lecky admits, but elsewhere he puts the 
 other side :— " It was a period," he says, " when among 
 the higher divines there were many who followed the lead 
 of Hoadly and warmly, steadily, and ably fought the battle 
 of liberation and toleration in every field. It was a period 
 when theological teaching was at least eminently practical, 
 was characterised by a rare moderation and good sense, and 
 was singularly free from everything that was fanatical, 
 feverish or mystical. The Church made it her peculiar 
 mission to cultivate the decencies of life, to inculcate that 
 ordered, practical and measured virtue which is most con- 
 ducive to the welfare of nations,"
 
 236 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Outside the limits of the Church we note also the existence 
 of the " Society for the Reformation of Manners " — an in- 
 tensely unpopular and perhaps not always wisely conducted 
 body, which attempted to sweep the Augean stables of pubUc 
 morals. It closed many disorderly houses, prosecuted no 
 fewer than seventy to eighty persons a week for swearing, 
 and effected the suppression of Sunday markets. In its 
 Annual Report in 1735 it was stated that the number of 
 prosecutions for debauchery and profaneness in London 
 and Westminster alone since the foundation of the Societies, 
 had been 99,380. These are suggestive details. No age is 
 ever wholly bad, but when all is acknowledged we have to 
 confess at this period a substantial failure of organised 
 Christianity. A Moses was still wanting to strike the 
 rock of popular indifference with the rod of spiritual 
 passion, and without that rod the life-giving stream refused 
 to flow. 
 
 The Church preached decency and the respectable virtues, 
 the Essayists in prose. Pope in verse, and Hogarth on canvas 
 attacked vice with the weapons of satire and ridicule — but 
 the world sinned on ! 
 
 Taste was on the side of virtue, if fashion was on the 
 side of vice. But the world was to learn again the old truth 
 that literary quahties and aesthetic culture are not in them- 
 selves moral dynamics. The real reformation was to be the 
 work of a people who, if they outraged the proprieties, pos- 
 sessed that priceless quality defined in the Scriptures as bap- 
 tism with the Holy Ghost and with fire. 
 
 I do not think that I can better sum up the situation 
 than by quoting two eighteenth century poets. Listen to 
 this august soliloquy on " Man " : — 
 
 Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, 
 A being, darkly wise and rudely great ; 
 With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, 
 With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, 
 He hangs between ; in doubt to act, or rest ; 
 In doubt to deem himself a God, or beast ;
 
 WESLEY. 237 
 
 In doubt his mind or body to prefer ; 
 Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err. 
 Alike in ignorance, his reason such. 
 Whether he thinks too Uttle or too much ; 
 Chaos of thought and passion, all confused ; 
 Still by himself abused or disabused. 
 Created half to rise, and half to fall ; 
 Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all ; 
 Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled. 
 The glory, jest and riddle of the world. 
 
 And then listen to this cry from the deeps : — 
 
 I was a stricken deer that left the herd 
 
 Long since — with many an arrow deep infixed 
 
 My panting side was charged, when I withdrew 
 
 To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. 
 
 There was I found by One, who had Himself 
 
 Been hurt by the archers. In His side He bore, 
 
 And in His hands and feet, the cruel scars ; 
 
 With gentle force soUciting the darts 
 
 He drew them forth and healed, and bade me Uve. 
 
 The one is Pope — the other Cowper. Between them 
 stands John Wesley and the Methodist Revival ! 
 
 In the charming lectures by Stopford Brooke on " The 
 Theology of the English Poets," the contrast is effectively 
 drawn between the exquisite steelwork of the essay on " Man " 
 (wherein are preserved the speculations of Leibnitz and 
 Bolingbroke) and the intense passion of Cowper. " We 
 step," says Stopford Brooke, " from the one to the other 
 as from a frozen to a tropic isle. Pope, impersonal, apart, 
 touched with scorn, thinking of God as Creator alone ; Cowper, 
 personal, self-compassionate, intense in his realisation of 
 Christ, thrilling with devotion." 
 
 What is the reason for this contrast ? I have already 
 foreshadowed it, but I will quote once more from our author, 
 and let him state the reason in his own words : — 
 
 " It was the great religious movement, led by the Wesleys, 
 joined afterwards by the fiery force of Whitefield, which 
 descended through Newton to the hymns and poetry of 
 Cowper. It was a preaching, which, beginning in the year
 
 238 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 1739, seven years after the first books of the Essay on Man 
 appeared, woke up, and into fierce extremes, the reUgious 
 heart of England. The vast crowds which on moor or hill- 
 side, in the deserted quarries of Devon and Cornwall, listened 
 to Wesley, excited by their own numbers, almost maddened 
 by his passionate preaching and prayer, lifted into Heaven, 
 and shaken over Hell, in turns, as the sermon went on, crying 
 aloud, writhing on the ground, tears streaming down their 
 cheeks, could not^find in the hymns of Watts or the metrical 
 Psalms, any expression of their wild experience : and the 
 inexpressible emotion of their hearts demanded voice for 
 itself in poetry and in music, the two languages of emotion." 
 
 While we are busy with Stopford Brooke, and still in 
 the field of literature, let us further strengthen our im.pression 
 of the meaning and environment of Methodism by a brief 
 glance at Watts. 
 
 Watts lived an easy retired life in a great country house 
 from 1712 to 1748, and, as Stopford Brooke remarks, there 
 is in his hymns " that pleasant devotion to God which arises 
 from piety and comfort, from placid enjoyment of the beauty 
 of the world, from a distant contemplation of the poor beyond 
 the gates of the park, and from the gratitude to God which 
 both these enjoyments are likely to create." 
 
 The distant contemplation of the poor beyond the gates 
 of the park ! We should not dare to level such a shaft at 
 the Wesleys, men who won their Ramillies and Oudenardes 
 among the very poor. The spirit that bore unflinchingly 
 the reproaches of the fashionable and the buffetings of the 
 mob was of a different order. Charles Wesley's hymns 
 breathe the passion which drove the brothers to preach, not 
 in the pulpit but in the streets and fields, not to indifferent, 
 well-bred audiences, but to colliers and roughs. The hymno- 
 logy of Methodism is impassioned, personal and doctrinal : 
 it was impassioned, for its subject was the history of the 
 heart in its long struggle with sin, in its wrestling with God, 
 in the horror of its absence from Him, in the unspeakable
 
 WESLEY. 239 
 
 joy of its presence with Him, in its degradation, its redemp- 
 tion and its glory — above all, in its personal relation to Christ 
 and the world of feelings which arose from that relation : 
 nor was there a single chord of religious feeling left unsounded, 
 nor any that was not strung to tension. 
 
 It was also especially personal. The first person was 
 continually used, so that each who sung or read the hymns 
 spoke of himself and felt Christ in contact with himself. 
 And it was doctrinal, for whether it sprang from the party 
 of Wesley or that of Whitefield, it was built on clear lines of 
 theological thought : and the opposition between the parties 
 who knew well the power of verse as a teacher and fixer of 
 doctrine, caused the lines to be drawn with studious clearness. 
 Watts could 
 
 Sing the Almighty Power of God 
 
 That made the mountains rise ; 
 That spread abroad the flowing seas 
 
 And bnilt the lofty skies, 
 
 but it was Cowper, stirred by the appeal of direct personal 
 religion, whose swift rush of feeling can find expression in 
 the lines : — 
 
 Hark ! my soul, it is the Lord ; 
 'Tis thy Saviour, hear His word ; 
 Jesus speaks, and speaks to thee, 
 Say, poor sinner, lovest thou Me ? 
 
 Hear John Wesley speak of faith, and you detect at once 
 the personal note in his teaching. 
 
 " A string of opinions," he says, "is no more Christian 
 faith than a string of beads is Christian holiness. It is not 
 an assent to any opinion or any number of opinions." " This 
 justifying faith implies not only the personal revelation, the 
 inward evidence of Christianity, but likewise a sure and 
 firm confidence in the individual believer that Christ died 
 for his sin, loved him, and gave his life for him." 
 
 "By a Christian," he says elsewhere, " I mean one 
 who so believes in Christ as that sin hath no more dominion 
 over him."
 
 240 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Moses has struck the rock — the stream is flowing — the 
 people are thirsty — but what is it that has put the rod into 
 Moses' hand ? It was unquestionably Wesley's conversion. 
 There was a time when he saw, as he thought the truth, but 
 did not feel it. He was a cedar of Lebanon whom the Lord 
 had not broken, and in the knowledge of this he suffered deep 
 depression. We may remember that for him Hell was no 
 mere relic of devil worship, but as with Dante, a terrible and 
 vivid reality, but yet we shall be mistaken if we treat the 
 experience of Wesley as springing from mere blind terror. 
 Conversion is not now in fashion ! But strip away the in- 
 tellectual wrappings, reduce the theology to its primary 
 elements, and we discover that Wesley's experience is just 
 that without which none can enter the inner court of the 
 Temple, conviction for sin, or to put it in the eloquent 
 language of the Apostle Paul " the terror of the Lord." The 
 mode of conversion may vary infinitely with the variety 
 of human character and conditions, but essentially it is the 
 passage from the animal to the spiritual — and that is the 
 passage from death to life. It cannot be a matter of indiffer- 
 ence to any human soul to make that passage. 
 
 " Out of great martyrdom came I to this peace," says 
 Dante. Yea ! and the soul that struggles for the loftiest 
 self-realisation must needs know that martyrdom. 
 
 " Conversion," I say, is in disrepute. The phrase has 
 been twisted to false meanings, it has been discredited by 
 mistaken claims, but in its truest and deepest sense, con- 
 version remains the supreme end of life. To Dante it came 
 out of great martyrdom, and slowly, with the passage of the 
 years ; to Wesley it came swiftly. 
 
 On Wednesday, May 24th, 1738— we will be precise, for 
 the event recorded was momentous in English history, — 
 Wesley went unwillingly to a Society in Aldersgate Street. 
 But I will quote from the Journal. " In the evening I went 
 very unwillingly to a Society in Aldersgate Street, where 
 one was reading Luther's Preface to the Romans. About a
 
 WESLEY. 241 
 
 quarter before nine, while he was describing the change 
 which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt 
 my heart strangely warmed ; I felt I did trust in Christ, 
 Christ alone, for Salvation : and an assurance was given 
 me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved 
 me from the law of sin and death. I began to pray with all 
 my might for those who had in a more especial manner des- 
 pitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified to all 
 there what I then first felt in my heart." But it was not 
 long before the enemy suggested " This cannot be faith, 
 for where is thy joy ? " He returned home, and was buffeted 
 with temptations ; he cried out and they fled away ; they 
 returned again and again. "I, as often lifted up my eyes," 
 he says, " and He sent me help from His holy place, and herein 
 I found the difference between this and my former state 
 chiefly consisted. I was striving, yea, fighting, with all 
 my might under the law, as well as under grace : but then 
 I was sometimes, if not often conquered. Now I was always 
 conqueror ! " 
 
 And what did this conversion make of him, what was 
 its practical fruit ? It drove him to help the poor ! 
 
 Wesley as we all know, was an Oxford scholar. He 
 was pre-eminently a gentleman in bearing, and like George 
 Fox, neat in dress, noble in carriage and features. To judge 
 him at first sight one would mark him off as born to preach 
 to cultured congregations. But his heart was with the 
 people, the savage brutal labourers, abandoned by the fas- 
 tidious to their passions and their ignorance. 
 
 " 'Tis well," he says, " a few of the rich and noble are 
 called. Oh ! that God would increase their number. But 
 I should rejoice were it the will of God, if it were done by the 
 ministry of others. If I might choose, I should still as I have 
 done hitherto, preach the gospel to the poor." 
 
 Indeed, Wesley has a wholesome and not unmerited 
 contempt for some forms of so-called culture. Writing to 
 an Earl, he says, " To speak rough truth, I do not desire 
 
 18
 
 242 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 any intercourse with people of quality in England. I mean 
 for my own sake. In most genteel religious people there 
 is so strange a mixture that I have seldom much confidence 
 in them. But I love the poor ; in many of them I find pure, 
 genuine grace unmixed with paint, folly, and affectation." 
 
 Once Wesley was preaching in Monktown Church, 
 Pembroke, and he thus records his experience, " I suppose 
 it has scarcely had such a congregation in it during this 
 century. Many of them were gay, genteel people ; so I spoke 
 on the first elements of the Gospel : but I was still out of 
 their depth. Oh ! how hard it is to be shallow enough for 
 a polite audience." He loved the people, even when they 
 turned upon him like wild beasts. More than once he was 
 in danger of his life. A single instance must stand as illus- 
 tration. Wesley was visiting an invalid lady at Falmouth. 
 Suddenly the house was beset by the mob, who roared out 
 " Bring out the Canorum," " where is the Canorum," a Cornish 
 nickname for the Methodists. The crews of some privateers 
 headed the rabble, and presently broke open the outer door 
 and filled the passage. By this time the people of the house 
 had all made their escape, except Wesley and a poor servant 
 girl, who, for it was now too late to retire, would have had 
 him conceal himself in a cupboard. He himself, from the 
 imprecations of the rabble, saw his life to be in the most 
 imminent danger, but any attempt at concealment would 
 have made the case more desperate, and it was his maxim 
 always to look a mob in the face. As soon therefore, as the 
 partition was broken down, he stepped forward into the 
 midst of them : " Here I am, which of you has anything 
 to say to me ? To which of you have I done any wrong ? 
 To you ? or you ? or you ? " Thus he made his way 
 bare-headed into the street, and continued speaking until 
 the captain swore that not a man should touch him : a clergy- 
 man and some of the better inhabitants came up and inter- 
 fered, led him into a house and sent him safely by water to 
 Penryn.
 
 WESLEY. 243 
 
 It is difficult for us to appreciate what all this means ; 
 difficult to realise the terrible degradation which in those days 
 had settled upon the men whose hearts John Wesley touched. 
 
 In 1684, an evil date, gin was discovered. Fifty years 
 later England consumed 7,000,000 gallons. The tavern 
 keepers painted on their sign-boards the invitation " to come 
 and get drunk for a penny, dead drunk for ' tuppence,' and 
 no charge for straw to lie on." When the gin had done its 
 work, the landlord dragged the victims into a cellar to sleep 
 off the carouse. 
 
 You could not walk London streets without meeting 
 wretches lying drunk in the gutters, smothered in mud, and 
 in peril of the carriage wheels. Do you want a vivid picture 
 of these gin-sodden people ? You may find it in " Barnaby 
 Rudge." 
 
 In 1780, when the Lord George Gordon riots held London 
 in a reign of terror for three days, barrels of gin were staved 
 in, and children and women, knelt, in the light of burning 
 buildings, at the running rivulets of fire-water, to drink them- 
 selves to death, their last hymn, the shouts and shrieks of 
 pillage. 
 
 Swift, in his " Travels of Gulliver," satirised his country- 
 men as " Yahoos." But remember that it was to the Yahoos 
 that John Wesley went, the love of the Gospel unquenchable 
 in his heart. 
 
 He distributed thirty thousand pounds ; he rode a 
 hundred thousand miles ; and he preached forty thousand 
 sermons, because he loved the Yahoos, and because he believed 
 that even the brutal colliers of Kingswood had souls. Lecky 
 says : — " That in such a society a movement like that of 
 Methodism should have exercised a great power, is not sur- 
 prising. The secret of its success was merely that it satisfied 
 some of the strongest and most enduring wants of our nature, 
 which found no gratification in the popular theology, that 
 it revived a large class of religious doctrines which had been 
 almost wholly neglected.
 
 244 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 "Theutterdepravity of human nature, the lost condition 
 of every man who is born into the world, the vicarious atone- 
 ment of Christ, the necessity to salvation of the new birth, 
 of faith, of the constant and sustaining action of the Divine 
 Spirit upon the believer's soul, are doctrines, which, in the 
 eyes of the Modern Evangelical, constitute at once the most 
 vital and the most influential portions of Christianity, but 
 they are doctrines, which, during the greater part of the 
 eighteenth century, were seldom heard from a Church of 
 England pulpit. 
 
 " The moral essays, which were the prevailing fashion, 
 however well suited they might be to cultivate the moral 
 taste, or to supply rational motives to virtue, rarely awoke 
 any strong emotions of hope, fear, or love, and were utterly 
 incapable of transforming the character and arresting and 
 reclaiming the thoroughly ' depraved.' " 
 
 All this is true, but surely it was not in a modification 
 or development of the popular theology, important as this 
 might be, that the deepest wants of the age were met, or that 
 the ultimate secret of Methodist power was revealed. The 
 ultimate secret lay in the passion of redeeming love which 
 consumed John Wesley and his preachers. They felt the 
 power of sin, they saw it in society, they knew it in their 
 hearts. They felt and knew the love and power of God. 
 To them, sin was the great enemy to be overcome. They 
 saw that God hated and condemned it, and they met it, 
 not by satires, nor by moral maxims, but by active 
 warfare. 
 
 They saw that Christ was the witness to Love's redeeming 
 power, and they preached this love, as if the fate of the uni- 
 verse hung upon the salvation of a single soul. 
 
 " For God so loved the world, that He gave His only 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him, should not 
 perish, but have everlasting life." 
 
 With what thrilling power did these words come home 
 to the unlettered masons, shoemakers, labourers, who in
 
 WESLEY. 245 
 
 the open street, or in rude tabernacles, preached, amid prayers 
 and tears, the greatness of salvation. 
 
 Fanned by this Gospel, the wind of the Spirit smote 
 the people and they responded, with a great movement, 
 even as the ocean heaves under the gale. 
 
 Crudities ? Oddities ? Mistaken Biblical interpreta- 
 tion? False theology ? Limitations ? Yes ! these were 
 all there. The Methodists were not omniscient. John 
 Wesley, like every other man, had his faults. His experiment 
 in education was a blunder. He believed in witches. He 
 failed to condemn the violent paroxysms which attended 
 his preaching. He took a one-sided view of life, and his 
 asceticism was unwholesome. He did not always read events 
 or men aright. He took the wrong side in the American 
 war, and he married a termagant. 
 
 But if he had limitations, who among us can cast a stone ? 
 Let us recognise the faults of the Methodist movement as 
 we may, but it was a great day for England when John 
 Wesley stood up bareheaded in the open air, to speak to the 
 colliers of Kingswood. Augustine Birrell, in his appreciation 
 of Wesley, printed as a preface to the recently published 
 abridgement of the Journal, says of him, and I think the 
 language is just : — 
 
 " No man ever lived nearer the centre than John Wesley. 
 . . . You cannot cut him out of our national life. No 
 single figure influenced so many minds, no single voice touched 
 so many hearts. No other man did such a life's work for 
 England." 
 
 " John Wesley and his helpers," says Hugh Price Hughes, 
 in his introduction to the same edition, " were the first 
 preachers, since the days of the Franciscan friars in the 
 middle ages, who ever reached the working classes." 
 
 It was, in short, John Wesley, who in the eighteenth 
 century, if I may borrow once more from Birrell, first broke, 
 by the earnest penetration of his message, " the heavy slumber 
 of humanity."
 
 246 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 But to what deep issues Wesley woke the people Wesley 
 himself never knew. 
 
 I have said nothing of another movement which found 
 a picturesque representative in Thomas Paine. While 
 Wesley rode his horse with tireless energy into the remotest 
 corners of the kingdom, Free Thought was gathering a 
 strength that no Berkeley, Butler, Lardner or Warburton 
 could overcome, and which seemed to progress on a different 
 plane from that of Wesley. 
 
 The greatest legacy of the eighteenth century, greater 
 even than the Methodist Society, was undoubtedly that 
 bequeathed by John Wesley, namely the Evangelical revival 
 which has in measure affected every denomination. 
 
 But there is another legacy that was not bequeathed 
 by Wesley — I mean that revival of intellectual criticism 
 which we know to-day as modern thought. What is to be 
 the outcome of this modern thought ? 
 
 I must confess to no little surprise that Hugh Price 
 Hughes, in arraying what he regards as the battle of the 
 future should set George Fox and Wesley on one side, and 
 only John Henry Newman on the other. Even as an array 
 of the intellectual forces at issue this seems to me a mistake. 
 The spirit of Fox and of Wesley is still alive, but, pace the 
 Education Act, I believe that the vital force of Newman's 
 teaching is already spent. Time is against him. Reason 
 can never again be fettered as in the middle ages. You 
 may revive ex cathedra authority for a space, but you will 
 never maintain it against the liberty of untrammelled 
 thought. 
 
 No, in truth the issue is graver than that presented by 
 Hugh Price Hughes. 
 
 It is not between the different denominations of the 
 Christian Church — not between the principle of immediate 
 dependence, and of free grace, as opposed to a sacerdotal 
 restriction of the action and power of the Divine Love, that 
 the ultimate battle will lie, but between a faith illumined by
 
 WESLEY. 247 
 
 Christ, and a doubt, critical and profound. The great army 
 in array against us is the army of Free Thought. 
 
 I do not use the term in its narrower sense as one of 
 reproach, nor do I desire merely to provoke hostility towards 
 those whose doubts are earnest and sincere. We shall serve 
 no end of truth if we fight in the spirit of sectaries. 
 
 But here, nevertheless, is the vital struggle that must 
 determine the character and also the future of human 
 civilisation. 
 
 There is a great peril in it which looms the larger as we 
 perceive behind the glittering phalanx of intellectual interro- 
 gators the army of the indifferent, immobile and phlegmatic 
 to religious feeling. 
 
 There is a " slumber of humanity " in the nineteenth 
 century, but there is no voice to break its leaden power. 
 
 Mr, Lecky, speaking of the Evangelical revival, has 
 passed upon it the following criticism : — 
 
 " Regarding all doubt on religious matters as criminal, 
 discouraging every form of study that could possibly produce 
 it, deifying strong internal persuasions and shutting its 
 eyes on principle against every discovery that could impugn 
 its tenets, it has been essentially the school of those who 
 form their opinions rather by their emotions than by reason- 
 ing, and who deliberately refuse to face the intellectual 
 difficulties of the question." 
 
 " In the face of physical science, of modern Biblical 
 criticism and of all the light which history and comparative 
 mythology have of late years thrown on the genesis of religion, 
 the old theory of verbal inspiration, the old methods of Biblical 
 interpretation, the old pre-scientific conceptions of a world 
 governed by perpetual acts of supernatural interference, 
 still hold their ground in the evangelical pulpit. The in- 
 cursions of natural science have been met by a barrier of 
 invincible prejudice, by the belief that what are called orthodox 
 opinions are essential to salvation, and that doubt should 
 be avoided as a crime."
 
 248 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 This was written some time go, and describes a position 
 that few would now defend. But the criticism reminds us 
 that not in timidity nor by the weapons of traditional ortho- 
 doxy will the battle of faith be won, — and it reminds us of 
 something more. Lecky has described that which is not 
 necessarily inherent in an evangelical faith, nay, rather is 
 it that which has checked its growth and weakened its power. 
 Evangelicalism can neither be disproved nor dispensed with 
 — for it expresses that which is of the essence of the spiritual 
 life. The personal hold on God, the personal sense of His 
 love and power, the personal call to His service and the per- 
 sonal sense of sin, — this is Evangelicalism. 
 
 And this personal religion is precisely what we need in 
 our modern life. In spite of all the progress of a hundred 
 years there are sad parallels between the eighteenth and 
 nineteenth centuries. There is still material in England for 
 a satirist, and there is still room for a John Wesley, for fan 
 apostle converted to the hfe of the spirit, and charged with 
 the personal message of salvation. 
 
 Just because of the questions raised by science and of 
 the growing perplexity of life's problems, just because of the 
 social injustice of poverty, of the selfishness and jealousy of 
 men, do we need, as never before, to realise in our own hearts 
 the -passion and redeeming love of God as it is revealed to us 
 in history and experience in the cross of Jesus Christ. 
 
 May we still be enabled to repeat with Cowper his beauti- 
 ful lines : — 
 
 "... I was found by One who had Himself 
 Been hurt by the archers. In His side He bore^ 
 And in His hands and feet the cruel scars ; 
 With gentle force soUciting the darts, 
 He drew them forth and healed, and bade me live."
 
 WILLIAM LAW. 
 
 " The Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life " was 
 printed in 1729, when William Law, the author, was forty- 
 three years of age, and while John Wesley was acting as 
 curate for his father at Wroote. 
 
 Law was therefore in his fifth year when George Fox 
 died. 
 
 " He would," says Overton, his admirable biographer, 
 " have been a remarkable man in any age, but he was doubly 
 remarkable when we think of him as belonging to an age 
 which took its philosophy from Locke, its theology from 
 Tillotson, and its politics from Walpole, an age which had 
 hardly any sympathy with any of the phases of his character. 
 For he stood singularly apart from his contemporaries, though 
 he influenced them so deeply." 
 
 Born in 1686 in the Northamptonshire village of King's 
 Cliffe, William Law witnessed the subsidence of religious 
 fervour which followed the Toleration Act, and surviving the 
 advent of 1761, spanned in his lifetime the frozen interval 
 between the Puritan reformation and the fervours of early 
 Methodism. It was in 1738 that John Wesley believed 
 himself converted and appointed his first lay preacher, in 
 1739 that he began field-preaching and opened a Methodist 
 chapel in Bristol, Law therefore was able to see the full 
 flood of that revival which was to change the aspect of English 
 religious life. These facts are by no means irrelevant to 
 our title. The " Serious Call " had its definite influence 
 upon John Wesley, although it was the occasion of a some- 
 what pathetic difference between ^the great popular leader 
 and the learned recluse. For Law, one of the greatest English 
 
 249
 
 250 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 mystics, withal robust and practical and a controversialist of 
 extraordinary logical force, was never in any sense a popular 
 leader. His life was a quiet one. In 1705, he entered 
 Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and in 171 1 was ordained and 
 elected a fellow, receiving his M.A. in 1712. But he was 
 a non-juror, or in other words, accepting the divine right 
 of the Stuart succession (one pictures, by the way, the wry 
 grimace with which Charles II. would have listened to the 
 reading of the " Serious Call ") he declined the oath of 
 allegiance to George I. This fact barred the way to ecclesiasti- 
 cal preferment. Jacobite, non-juring High Churchman, 
 Law was driven, as were many in his position, to accept the 
 somewhat dangerous post of private chaplain. I say dan- 
 gerous because the life was one of pampered dependence 
 upon the favour of a private patron, and beset with tempta- 
 tions to which many succumbed. Law with his ascetic 
 temper was, however, proof against these, and when he en- 
 tered the house of Edward Gibbon, at Putney, a patron of 
 Jacobite sympathies, and grandfather of the celebrated 
 historian of Rome's Decline and Fall, he resided with the 
 family rather as an honoured guest than as a spiritual jackal. 
 His tutorship of Edward Gibbon's son, afterwards the father 
 of the one and only Gibbon acknowledged by Fame, was 
 not however successful — a fact, I think, due as much to the 
 weak and vacillating character of the pupil as to the tutor's 
 inability to handle with sympathy a mind so unlike his own. 
 Shortly after the death of Edward Gibbon the ease and 
 comfort of a great house and the luxury of a library which 
 Law controlled, and for which he chose with freedom the 
 books that he added, were withdrawn, and Byrom, Law's 
 gentle but somew^hat odd disciple, who played Boswell to 
 Law's Johnson, or if you like. Pope to Law's Bolingbroke, 
 hints that the more restricted circumstances of Law's life 
 encroached not a little upon that resignation which is enjoined 
 in the " Serious Call," and which perhaps in the circumstances 
 of Putney and Cambridge, where the " Call " was written.
 
 WILLIAM LAW. 251 
 
 could be practised with comparative complacence. In 
 Somerset Gardens at the back of the Strand, where Law now 
 resided, he displayed a little unwonted petulance, and pro- 
 voked the remark of a friend that he was " strangely altered, 
 grown sour." Certain it is that with all his tenderness and 
 real love, Law had a stern side to his nature. Byrom, who, 
 in spite of persistent snubbing, remained ever at Law's 
 feet, tells us : "I went home with Mr. Law, and in his room 
 he told me that his thought and mine had great sympathy ; 
 but that I was more easily wrought upon, and that his 
 strings were more hard." Perhaps, at times, they were also 
 a little frayed. At the close of 1740 Law " quietly retired " to 
 his native village of King's Cliffe, where he owned a house, 
 and where his brother George was still living. Here for three 
 years Ruysbroeck, Bertot and Behmen were, through their 
 books, his intellectual and spiritual comrades. 
 
 In 1740 Mr. Archibald Hutcheson died, and desired his 
 widow, who was rich in this world's goods, to lead a retired 
 and religious life under the spiritual guidance of the author 
 of the " Serious Call." A house was taken at Thrapstone, 
 ten miles from King's Cliffe, for this purpose, and at this place 
 the widow was joined by Miss Hester Gibbon, who desired 
 with Mrs. Hutcheson to live out in actual practice the teaching 
 of the book which occupies us this evening. 
 
 The ten miles which separated them from their spiritual 
 director proved, however, in what we fondly call " the good 
 old days " of bad roads, stage coaches and footpads, almost 
 as serious a matter as the " Call " itself, and in May, 1743, 
 a house was fitted up for the reception of the ladies at King's 
 Cliffe. Here in 1744, in Hall Yard, the two devout ladies 
 and the mystic philosopher and redoubtable controversialist 
 tried without delay their " holy experiment." 
 
 Seventeen years before William Law had founded a 
 school in King's Cliffe to educate and clothe fourteen poor 
 girls. In 1745 Mrs. Hutcheson founded a similar school for 
 eighteen boys ; the number being later increased to twenty.
 
 252 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 At the close of school life, if good behaviour stood to their 
 credit, the lads were to be put to some trade. A school-house 
 for the master was bought, a school built, and four tenements 
 for four ancient poor widow?. Law added himself another 
 school-house and school, and tenements for two ancient 
 maidens — who were to have 2s. 6d. every Saturday and ids. 
 every Lady Day. 
 
 Of the elaborate regulation which, like a hedge of prickly 
 cactus, grew up round these charities time forbids a catalogue. 
 One quotation must be sufficient to show their spirit, and to 
 illustrate the hopelessness and the fatal ignorance of human 
 nature which marked the development of schemes pure and 
 lofty enough in their motive. 
 
 " Rule IL Every girl that gives the lie to any other 
 girl, or to any person, or that calls another fool, or uses any 
 rude or unmannerly word, shall, the morning afterwards, 
 as soon as they are all there, be obliged to kneel down before 
 her mistress and, in the presence of them all, say in a plain 
 and distinct manner, these words : — ' Our blessed Saviour, 
 Jesus Christ, hath said that " Whosoever shall say, thou fool, 
 shall be in danger of hell-fire." I therefore am heartily sorry 
 for the wicked words that I have spoken to my fellow Chris- 
 tian ; I humbly beg pardon of God, and of all you that are 
 here present, hoping and promising by the help of God, never 
 to offend again in the Uke manner.' Then shall the girl 
 she had abused come and take her from her knees and kiss 
 her, and both turning to their mistress, they shall make a 
 curtsey and return to their seats." 
 
 These respectable charities, with their elaborate and 
 woefully mistaken regulations were, however, not the 
 whole expression of that determination to live out the 
 principle of the " Serious Call " which was supreme at Hall 
 Yard. 
 
 In the " Serious Cajl " Law insists upon early rising as a 
 condition, not only of physical but of spiritual health; ac- 
 cordingly he rose at five every day, and spent the first hours
 
 WILLIAM LAW. 253 
 
 in devotion. At nine, the whole family met for devotion, and 
 the collects and psalm for the day were said. " Then," and 
 here I quote from Overton's account, " Mr. Lawretired to his 
 study, but not to a sanctum where he was liable to no in- 
 terruption. His window overlooked a courtyard, and every 
 mendicant knew that if he appeared before that window, 
 and preferred his claim for relief, that claim would secure Mr. 
 Law's instant and careful attention, no matter how busily 
 he might be engaged. As there was no doubt the same free- 
 masonry among beggars in the eighteenth century, we can 
 readily believe that Mr. Law rarely spent a ' quiet morning ' 
 without holding a sort of ragged levee ; and as he always made 
 a point of enquiring into every applicant's peculiar wants, 
 and seeing them supphed with his own eyes, no small amount 
 of his time must have been taken up." 
 
 At noon in summer, at one in winter, the household 
 gathered for their chief meal, followed again and at once by 
 devotions. The afternoon Law spent in his study, joined 
 the ladies at tea, though he would not partake in this meal 
 except to eat a few raisins, and again the household gathered 
 for devotions. On this occasion the servants read a chapter 
 of the Bible in turn, the spiritual director explaining it. 
 A brisk constitutional and a frugal meal led up to the fourth 
 and final meeting for devotion, and after one pipe, and a 
 glass of water, William Law went to bed at nine o'clock. 
 If time permitted, one might be tempted to elaborate this 
 picture, which is not without its tender as well as its odd 
 touches, but one word must conclude the sketch. This ill 
 considered living out of the Sermon on the Mount led to evil 
 consequences. King's Cliff e became the tramp's Mecca, the 
 happy home of the idle and thriftless. The benefactors 
 of Hall Yard were mercilessly fleeced and shamefully imposed 
 upon. At last, the patience of the townsfolk broke down, 
 and open protest was entered against this systematic pauperi- 
 sation. A painful dispute arose, which was only healed by 
 an offer to remove the charities elsewhere.
 
 254 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 Enough has now perhaps been said to indicate the 
 practical weakness even of the trained logician and earnest 
 Christian, where " sanctified common -sense " and knowledge 
 of human nature are unassociated with dialectical gifts or 
 spiritual zeal. 
 
 It has been necessary, as it is only just in any apprecia- 
 tion of the " Serious Call," to remind you of the practical 
 break-down of Law's " Holy Experiment," but we shall 
 entirely misrepresent the value both of William Law's teaching 
 and the testimony of his life and in particular of the book 
 under discussion, if we fail to carry the examination further. 
 
 Law's was a powerful voice calling men from the sterility 
 of religious disputation to the moral realities of the inward 
 life of the spirit. The English interpreter of Jacob Behmen, 
 he may yet be said to stand in a line of apostolic succession 
 with the Cambridge Platonists on the one hand, and Thomas 
 Erskine, of Linlothen, on the other, the latter a name, by the 
 way, that should be better known and more widely honoured 
 than I fear it is. In Law's " Spirit of Prayer " and " Spirit 
 of Love," there is much prophetic of modern lines of thought 
 upon the great unsolved problem of the Atonement. As the 
 late Leslie Stephen has justly said in an appreciative analysis 
 of the writings of Law, he " was a man of remarkable power 
 and originality," and, speaking of his relations with John 
 Wesley " very superior as a thinker to his more active dis- 
 ciple." 
 
 The influence of Law over Wesley, despite the difference 
 and coolness which later sprung up between them, should 
 not be forgotten. Leslie Stephen writes : " Wesley himself 
 appears to have been influenced at the most critical period 
 of his life by three great writers : Thomas a Kempis, Jeremy 
 Taylor and Law. If the two former were the greatest men, 
 Law had the indefinite advantage of still being alive." . . . 
 " It was Law who alone of living writers materially influenced 
 Wesley's mind and gave to universal principles that special 
 form which rendered them suitable at the moment." " All
 
 WILLIAM LAW. 255 
 
 positive religion," says Vaughan in his " Hours with the 
 Mystics " " accomphshes its purpose only as it leads to a 
 filial subjection of the soul to God — as it conducts men beyond 
 itself, to immediate intercourse with the Deity. William 
 Law had this idea, it constitutes with him the natural basis 
 of all revealed religion." 
 
 It was this element of positive religion, this tendency 
 and bent of Law's teaching, which, doubtless attracted 
 Wesley and which ought, one would suppose, to have attracted 
 the Quakers. Law has however but a poor opinion of the 
 contemporary descendants of the primitive giants of the 
 seventeenth century. Byrom records in his Journal that 
 Law described the Quakers as "a subtle, worldly-minded 
 people ; that they began with the contempt of learning, 
 riches, etc., but now were a politic worldly society and a 
 strange people." I am afraid that a perusal of, for example, 
 John Griffith's Journal, and still more of the eighteenth century 
 minute-books and records of the Society, will lead to the 
 conclusion that the want of sympathy felt by Law had a 
 considerable explanation in the low spiritual state of our 
 fellowship. There were, of course, real and outward differ- 
 ences. Law as a high-churchman exalted the two sacraments 
 which the Quaker dispensed with, he insisted upon ordination, 
 the Quaker upon a common priesthood, free without rite 
 or human intervention. 
 
 On the other hand. Law's great doctrine was the Quaker 
 doctrine of the Inner Light, he held the unlawfulness of war, 
 the inexpediency of going to law, and stood to the literal 
 interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount, and finally, like 
 the true Quaker, Law was a mystic ; that is, he regarded 
 religion more as a matter of inward illumination than as a 
 matter of outward form, although, like the great Roman 
 Catholic mystics, the ritual of the church appealed strongly 
 to him as divinely appointed means of grace. 
 
 But much as we might be tempted to pursue this general 
 estimate of Law's influence and character, we must be satisfied
 
 256 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 to place him in his relation to historical events and the 
 development of religious thought, and turn in conclusion to 
 the " Serious Call " itself. In doing so, we must deliberately 
 forego all consideration of his share in the Bangorian con- 
 troversy, his argument with the Deists, his unfortunate 
 attack upon all stage-plays, his many interesting letters and 
 powerful treatises, and restrict ourselves narrowly in the 
 brief space remaining, to the literary production which will 
 ever be associated with his name, even as the " Confessions " 
 are associated with the name of Augustine. Law will in 
 fact be remembered by most Englishmen as the author of 
 the " Serious Call." To give it its full title, we must describe 
 the work as " A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. Adapted 
 to the state and condition of all orders of Christians." It is 
 really a more complete development of a theme already 
 handled in an earlier work, " The Christian Perfection." 
 Its power is unmistakable — whether we altogether agree 
 with its argument or view of life is another matter. Sparkling 
 wit, biting satire, pungent sarcasm, tender admonition, 
 merciless analysis, lofty and moving appeals, affectionate 
 persuasion, style, dignity and passion — all are here. It is 
 intimate and personal to a degree. In these pages an earnest 
 man lays bare his heart in his eagerness to draw the reader 
 from externals of sense, of time, to the living realities of eternal 
 life. In his vehemence to speak and reach the truth, he 
 crashes with his axe of logic through the subtle defence of 
 self-deception, and compels the shrinking conscience to endure 
 the naked light of an absolute self-revelation. There is no 
 make-believe, no compromise. The shams of the world are 
 exposed with pitiless, nay scornful veracity. There are no 
 shadows in which to hide, the fierce rays beat everywhere. 
 The inconsistency of practice with profession, the contrast 
 between the England of Walpole with its fox-hunting parsons, 
 its sensual squires, its shameless vice flaunting in high places, 
 the hypocrisy of the so-called virtuous, the hollowness of 
 conventional church-going, are thrown into startling contrast
 
 WILLIAM LAW. 257 
 
 with the blameless purity and sweet simplicity of Jesus. 
 Not Savonarola thundering in the Duomo to awe-stricken 
 multitudes was more direct, though never was Savonarola 
 more convincing. Let us analyse the argument. In the 
 first chapter Law roundly asserts that the majority of church- 
 goers pray as Christians but live as heathens. You may see 
 them, he says, different from other people so far as to times 
 and places of prayer, but generally like the rest of the world 
 in all other parts of their lives. In the second chapter he 
 shows that the fault lies in the want of any sincere intention 
 to seek the higher hfe, and passes at once to three typical 
 examples — a clergyman, a tradesman and a private gentleman. 
 There must be an intention to please God in aU things, as 
 much in the expenditure of money as in the pattering of 
 prayers. Chapter III. sets forth the folly of spasmodic 
 or partial intention towards good which Law illustrates 
 by the parable of the dying tradesman, who, to outward 
 seeming had lived a prosperous and honourable life, but for 
 want of this real intention had failed to find peace of soul. 
 "For God," says Law, " has made no promises of mercy to 
 the slothful and negligent. His mercy is only offered to 
 our frail and imperfect, but best endeavours to practise all 
 manner of righteousness." In successive chapters he de- 
 velops this thought. All earthly things must be done with a 
 heavenly mind, the intention to the higher life must run out, 
 as it were, into the remotest nooks and crannies of conduct, 
 pervading everything. Nothing private or public, lay or 
 clerical, can be excluded from the obligation of the one 
 necessity for entire consecration of heart and mind. He has 
 no objection to wealth, but his ad\dce is like that of Woolman, 
 All things must be made to flow into the channel of universal 
 love. If we waste it, he says, i.e., wealth, we do not waste 
 a trifle that signifies little, but we waste that which might 
 be made as eyes to the blind, as a husband to the widow, 
 as a father to the orphan. If you do not spend your money 
 in doing good to others, you must spend it to the hurt of 
 
 19
 
 258 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 yourself. You will act like a man that should refuse to 
 give that as a cordial to a sick friend, though he could not 
 drink it himself without inflaming his blood. 
 
 He continually illustrates his points by typical characters, 
 drawn with rare skill and perfection, and with a satirical 
 humour that gives a keen relish. Take for example the two 
 maiden sisters, Flavia and Miranda : — 
 
 " Flavia is very orthodox" (I am quoting Law), "she 
 talks warmly against heretics and schismatics, is generally 
 at church and often at the sacrament. If any one asks Flavia 
 to do something in charity, if she likes the person who makes 
 the proposal, or happens to be in a right temper, she will toss 
 him half a crown or a crown, and tell him if he knew what a 
 long milliner's bill she had just received he would think it a 
 great deal for her to give. . . She would be a miracle of 
 piety if she was half as careful of her soul as she is of her body. 
 . . . She has so great a regard for the holiness of the 
 Sunday that she has turned a poor old widow out of (her 
 house as a profane wretch for having been found once mending 
 her clothes on the Sunday night. . . I shall not take upon 
 me to say that it is impossible for Flavia to be saved, but her 
 whole life is in direct opposition to all those tempers and 
 practices which the Gospel has made necessary to salvation. 
 She may as well say that she has lived with her Saviour when 
 He was upon earth as that she has lived in imitation of 
 Him." 
 
 But I must not quote further. Those who have read 
 it have no need of quotation, those who have not read it 
 should do so as surely as they would read Bunyan's " Progress" 
 or Shakespeare's Plays. It is not a book to accept implicitly. 
 We have seen that Law made his mistakes, and in his " Holy 
 Experiment," a woeful and grievous error. It may fairly 
 be argued that the " Serious Call " takes too narrow, if not 
 too negative a view of life, is too insistent on rules of devotion, 
 too liable to provoke morbid fears and introspection. And 
 yet withal it is a book singularly appropriate to our modern
 
 WILLIAM LAW. 259 
 
 needs. It smites with mighty blows at the cheap compla- 
 cency and easy superficiality which pass too often for religion 
 It is so terribly in earnest that it drives us to our knees. 
 It is the essence of the true religious spirit, the emotion of 
 the heart, linked firmly to the ethics of right conduct, a cry 
 for reality. No language more fitly expresses its deepest 
 purpose than that of the Psalmist, so urgent, so longing, 
 so full of the hunger of the soul : " Create in me a clean heart, 
 O God, and renew a right spirit within me."
 
 PART IV. 
 MISCELLANEOUS.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 [The following Extracts are culled from other writings 
 not republished.] 
 
 Without the inward knowledge of God, as revealed through 
 Christ in nature and in present experience, we shall 
 struggle in vain against the hard material facts of life, shall 
 seek in vain to turn them to our purpose, and to make them 
 serve our highest ends. 
 
 This age wants depth, wants faith, the sense of the Divine 
 Presence in the individual soul. The old evangelicalism held 
 perhaps too narrow a view of salvation, but we look with hope 
 and longing for a social striving penetrated with the lofty 
 fervours of spiritual passion, and compelled by a redeeming 
 love. 
 
 Editorial : " A Plea for the Individual," P.D.P., Mar.,igo2. 
 
 Prayer, to be fruitful of blessing, must seek its keynote 
 in the prayer of Jesus. It must be the expressed hunger of 
 the soul, neither the hunger of pride nor the hunger of self- 
 will ; it must be not of the flesh, but of the spirit. Such 
 prayer uncovers the hidden communion subsisting between 
 man and God, which is shut from our sight by the travail of 
 the world ; it strikes deep root into the Divine Life, and even 
 in the bitterness of death brings down upon us the sweetness 
 of a healing peace. 
 
 The past may be charged with sad memories of waj^ard 
 steps and an erring will, but the prayer that seeks the will of 
 the Father seeks and wins forgiveness. In the conscious- 
 
 363
 
 264 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 ness of restored union it is as though the glow of the 
 Redeeming Love dried up for ever the springs of remorse 
 and despair. 
 
 To the hungry soul, that is to the soul that prays, the 
 bitter past, yea, all bitter things are sweet, and by the witness 
 of the saints of God the words are true. Such hunger is 
 potential peace, for Augustine expressed an experience wider 
 than his own when he exclaimed " O God, Thou hast made 
 us for Thyself, and our souls are restless till they rest in Thee." 
 
 4c 4e * « 
 
 Life is beset with riddles, but experience is a great 
 interpreter. Her lessons may be hard, but they will be learnt 
 at last. Hunger is the witness of life, bitterness the promise 
 of sweetness. To know neither hunger nor bitterness is 
 to suffer spiritual death in the sad satiety of selfishness. 
 " The full soul loatheth an honeycomb." We cannot envy 
 the futile little lives of those who sleep with the " wings 
 of aspiration furled." Kingsley has finely satirised them in 
 his "Water Babies." The brown insect that sat upon little 
 Tom's knee, shed his coat and his domestic responsibilities, 
 and danced for three days. . . singing to drive dull care 
 away, until he fell into the stream and was lost, as has many a 
 human counterpart. Such men, indeed, are as the grass that 
 withereth, they are " carried away as with a flood," the beauty 
 of the Lord their God is not upon them, nor can the work of 
 their hands be established. 
 
 >ic 3|e H: Hi 
 
 To pray " Not my will but Thine," is to open the doors of 
 the soul and admit the unseen life of God. A new potency 
 stirs within us. The soul expands, and as by magic the mean 
 hovel is a palace, fit habitation for the King of Glory who 
 has entered in. To return to our symbol of the river ; it is 
 as though a freshet of heavenly rain upon the hills swept 
 through the channel of our life. Our waters are carried for- 
 ward in the strong sweep of the flood, until at last we come
 
 EXTRACTS. 265 
 
 " To the golden sands and the leaping bar 
 
 And the taintless tide that awaits us afar," 
 
 to the purity and the freedom of that perfect communion, 
 wherein every bitter thing is sweet. 
 Editorial : P.D.P., June, 1902. 
 
 " Religion," says a recent writer, " is not a creed, long 
 or short, nor a ceremonial, complex or simple, nor a life, more 
 or less perfectly conformed to an external law ; it is the life 
 of God in the soul of man." And wherein does this writer 
 differ from Fox ? It is not calling ' Lord, Lord," — it is 
 being and doing. What are meetings for worship, dogmas, 
 theologies and creeds, if there is no being and doing the things 
 He said ? 
 
 What is our message to the world, if it be not the depend- 
 ence on the inward guidance of the Spirit of Christ — the Spirit 
 of God as He showed it to us, — a dependence that is indepen- 
 dent, a dependence that is no mere mystic fancy, but an actual 
 reahsation in ourselves of the spiritual verities of God ? 
 
 An age deeply imbued with the scientific spirit — when 
 artificial props to religion are being knocked away, — when 
 creeds are being sifted and dogmas questioned, — asks and 
 seeks for reality, for a faith deeper than the deepest doubt, 
 for a real communion with the Spirit of God. Not this or 
 that doctrine or creed, not argument, not definition, 
 but that which underlies them all, that of which the creed is 
 but the outward intellectual formula — it is for that we seek 
 and ask. 
 
 A habit of soul, a hunger after righteousness, a turning 
 to the light, a guiding principle of life. 
 
 And it is here that it seems to me we could speak with 
 such force — here that we could lay the foundation of a truly 
 universal church, — here that we may point out the way to 
 simple Christ-likeness, — to direct, immediate communion 
 with the Spirit of God as shown us in Jesus,
 
 366 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 The mild eyes, so often dimmed with sympathetic tears, 
 could not smile down on a field of Sedan ; the voice that 
 preached self-abnegation, that pleaded for the sick and for 
 the fallen, that commanded His disciples to love their enemies, 
 to bless them that cursed, and do good to them that hated, 
 could never utter a command to fire. And the hand so often 
 laid on the burning brow of a fevered sufferer, or the palsied 
 shoulders of a leper, and in blessing on the heads of little 
 children, could never give the death-wrench with a bayonet. 
 
 Why do the churches remain silent ? Why on this great 
 question will they utter no word ? 
 
 Address on " Militarism," Glasgow, 1893. 
 
 When we pass from indifference to the mental atmosphere 
 of our day we meet with conditions which, save for the 
 striking period of the Renaissance, find no parallel in history. 
 Great was then the expansion of human knowledge, but to 
 us it has been given to apply the invisible forces of nature, 
 and almost to annihilate time and space. And as the Middle 
 Ages learnt the place of the earth in the universe, so we are 
 learning the truth about man, his slow development, his 
 physical affinities with other forms of life. 
 
 God's secrets are often swiftly unveiled. But though 
 the revelation may be sudden, our re-adjustment is slow. 
 Confusion, nevertheless, is not for ever. One moment the 
 Bible seems taken from us, the next it is restored more living 
 than before, and with a new light upon its page. 
 
 The clouds of controversy gather at each great discovery 
 of science, and seem to hide the Christ ; but lo ! the clouds 
 disperse, and the Divine figure stands out in renewed splen- 
 dour. 
 
 Even as now, so at the Renaissance came perplexity 
 and scepticism. But it was of the new learning, with its 
 larger views of God and the universe, that the reformation 
 was born. So do I unfalteringly believe will there spring out
 
 EXTRACTS. 267 
 
 of the present seeming chaos a renewed and more powerful 
 faith, deeper in its basis, clearer in its vision, broader in its 
 charity than ever was the old ; and as warm in its love. 
 
 Christianity is before all things practical. A presentment 
 of truth merely theological is also inadequate. We shall give 
 more force to the preaching of Christ if we illustrate our theology 
 by our practice, and work with a deep sense of our social 
 responsibility. Let working men feel our sympathy as 
 something more than kind patronage, let them feel that we 
 believe in brotherhood, not as a mere catch-word, but as an 
 essential teaching of Christ. Let them see that irresponsible 
 and selfish wealth, blind to its potentialities for good, has 
 our scornful and pitying denunciation, and we shall do some- 
 thing to dispel their justifiable distrust. 
 
 The message of Salvation hereafter is cold comfort to 
 men who are starving here, and it is our place as soldiers of 
 the Cross to bring hope and gladness into barren places, and 
 to carry the glad presence of the living Christ into dark slums 
 and lonely garrets. 
 
 A religion merely intellectual will never warm the heart 
 with the fire of self-sacrificing love. Let us in our message 
 offer that which is beyond all creeds — the evidence in our 
 lives of communion with the spirit of God. 
 
 The Church exists to create for each succeeding generation 
 
 the ideal of the Christ in the thought form of the age, and in 
 
 the adaptability of Christ's teaching lies one secret of its 
 
 power. 
 
 Manchester Conference, 1895. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 To the Christian, pessimism is impossible, for his faith 
 is a belief in the presence of God in the world, and in the 
 coming of His kingdom. And, to earnest faith, complacent 
 optimism is as foreign as pessimism. For faith in God means 
 faith in man's capacity to serve Him. He speaks through 
 human lips and hands. He, for man's own sake, requires 
 man's service. Present dangers may be cheerfully faced in
 
 268 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 the confidence of co-operation with His will, but they cannot 
 and must not be ignored. 
 
 * « ♦ * 
 
 The price of great things is sacrifice. 
 
 * * « « 
 
 We are too apt to look to Paradise as a future state — to 
 project into the future both our ideal, and the realisation of 
 the ideal. The future has its roots in the present, and the 
 present its foundation in the past. No future can be fruitful 
 without effort. 
 
 We must wean ourselves of dependence on the outward 
 things of this life. Heaven is more within us here and now — 
 more an inward peace and rest than a state of future blessedness. 
 
 The kingdom of God is within you. It is in the heart that 
 the battle of life must be fought and won. 
 
 Heaven is less a place of golden streets than a heart puri- 
 fied from selfishness, and a life radiant with the love of God. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Christianity is so strong that it will bear many encum- 
 brances on its back. But we need to remember that encum- 
 brances are things to be got rid of, and that we cannot afford 
 to waste any energy, however little, in our combat with evil. 
 We can never hope to overcome Agnosticism if we do not 
 squarely face realities, and do not manfully accept the es- 
 tablished facts of science and of criticism. Yet how often 
 those who do accept the revelations of science are disheartened 
 by the want of progressiveness and robust faith in the Church 
 at large, where, seeking inspiration, they find only too often 
 ignorance and fear ! 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Why should it be thought unscientific to accept with 
 thankfulness the 14th chapter of John ? Is it then incredible 
 that God should reveal Himself to men in the Christ ? How 
 else are we to know God except on His human side ? We 
 being finite, cannot know Him in his infinity. But neither
 
 EXTRACTS. 269 
 
 do we see Him in His infinity in Christ. For " My Father 
 is greater than I." But if God should pour so much of 
 Himself into a human vessel as it can contain, we shall 
 know of the Father through this revelation of Him, just as a 
 vessel filled with its water would enable us to know some- 
 thing of the ocean. We shoiild not know of its vastness, 
 but we should know that it would all resemble the little we 
 had in our possession. 
 
 Surely it is not the believers in Christ's divinity who are 
 unscientific, rather it is they who lightly condemn Christianity 
 for being " Anthropomorphic." For, being human, we have 
 to reach God through human character, and in the boundless 
 love of Christ, His self-sacrifice. His gentleness, His humility, 
 His hatred, not of the Sinner but of sin, we read the linea- 
 ments of the great All-Father's face. No otherwise could 
 we read it. We need a personal hold on God — it is a scientific 
 because it is a human necessity, and this need God has supplied. 
 
 Religion and Science.
 
 "BEHOLD I STAND AT THE DOOR 
 AND KNOCK." 
 
 Charles Booth has lately bought the painting of the 
 " Light of the World," by Holman Hunt, copied by the artist, 
 or largely copied, from his earlier rendering of the same 
 subject. 
 
 The earlier picture has been for some time the property 
 of Keble College, Oxford, and though inaccessible to the 
 multitude, it has grown familiar through the published en- 
 graving. Both copy and original share this interest, that 
 they interpret, in the language of the painter's heart, a message 
 that, conceived in the ardour of youth, has been confirmed 
 in the ripeness of years. 
 
 Now, through the generous provision of the social 
 reformer, responding to the painter's wish, thousands in 
 England, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and America will 
 see the real picture instead of its cotmterfeit. 
 
 The Crowned Figure still knocks and waits at the ob- 
 durate, weed-encumbered door. The soft shining of the 
 harvest moon glimmers on grass and autumn leaves, adorned 
 with the rare jeweUing of the frost ; but to all the well- 
 remembered details there is given that touch of power which 
 flows only from the wizardry of a master's brush. 
 
 The painted picture speaks with an intensity that an 
 engraving cannot reach. The thousands who look upon the 
 glowing canvas will hear in the awe of an inward stillness, 
 not the message of the artist, but the vibrating speech of 
 the Lover of their souJs : — " Behold I stand at the door and 
 knock." Indeed the quality of the picture hes not in its 
 technical achievement, great or hmited as that may be, 
 
 970
 
 " BEHOLD I STAND AT THE DOOR AND KNOCK." 371 
 
 but rather in its fidelity to a deep and universal truth. It 
 touches a common chord. It throws into relief the pitiful 
 failure, the sourness, nay, the aching loneliness of sin, and 
 all the unquenched longing of the human heart. 
 Think of those who will see it ! 
 
 The City man, turning aside for a moment to look at 
 something that has been talked about, is arrested as it were 
 in mid-career. His days given to stocks and shares, his 
 evenings to billiards and the newspaper, his odds and ends 
 of leisure to his family or his garden, his Sundays to the 
 " river," a motor-car, or a novel and a pipe ; he literally 
 has no time for eternity ! Bent upon the things that matter 
 from minute to minute, he postpones and yet again postpones 
 the things that matter for ever. The City has case-hardened 
 him. 
 
 But here is an appeal that pierces the self-deception of 
 habit and convention, that searches forgotten recesses of 
 the heart, that rankles in the Conscience. " Behold I stand 
 at the door and knock." And suddenly the scales fall. 
 His successful career, his prosperity, shrivel to something 
 very mean and httle. Their substance is gone. He realises 
 that in spite of his name in the city, and his villa in the 
 suburbs, he has nothing of which death cannot rob him. 
 He has in fact nothing real. He has dropped the bone for 
 the shadow. He knows that if disease, old-age, failure, 
 sorrow, come upon him, he is helpless, because he knows 
 that the Love of God is not in his heart. He has been burning 
 his incense at an unworthy shrine and before an impotent 
 god. 
 
 " . . . If any man hear my voice and open the door, 
 
 I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." 
 
 But how sup in an empty heart, how open the door upon 
 
 its unswept poverty ? And even now, as the minutes pass 
 
 before this picture, the affairs of the market are pressing. 
 
 " He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down 
 with Me in My throne, as I also overcame." As / also !
 
 272 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE. 
 
 The vision of the tempter from the mountain peak ! the 
 scourging pillar and the cross deliberately chosen with their 
 suffering and shame. Must I too give up the world ? " Be- 
 hold I, who suffered, stand at the door of thy heart and knock." 
 
 We bring another to the picture. 
 
 He is young, but he has sinned — ^sinned to the flesh. 
 The first purity is tarnished, the bhght of sin — ^satiety — has 
 fallen upon him. Life is all awry, its path encumbered 
 with abandoned hopes, disappointed ambitions. It is not 
 worth while to begin any thing new, for there is no getting 
 back behind the ugly memories of the past, no starting afresh 
 without them. It is all a mockery, this life that tempts and 
 then taunts and taunts for ever with savage cruelty. " Be- 
 hold I stand at the door and knock." Is it true ? Is there 
 a love like that ? Yes ! like that. Do you not see — ^you 
 are young, but the ruined hut in the picture is the heart of 
 an old man. The harvest moon is in the sky, the frost on 
 the grass tells of winter, yet the Crowned Figure is knocking 
 still. Must your life be like that life, a ruin in old age, with 
 selfishness strong-rooted in the soil of habit, binding fsist the 
 he art's one door ? Or shall He enter and sup with you, 
 sweeten with the wonder of His passion the bitterness of 
 the irredeemable years, and plant roses at your doorstep, 
 which shall bloom at His second Coming — ^bloom when, 
 as Death, He comes to take you home ? 
 
 But there is another who approaches unbidden to the 
 picture. She is the sufferer in a pathetic tragedy, a widow 
 long before her time. She has little ones to cherish, but the 
 years roll out before her with the undeviating monotony of a 
 dusty road. 
 
 Her heart is heavy, the sunshine chills her, the home with 
 its silence and its memories terrifies her ; it is an impulse, 
 scarcely an interest, that draws her here. " Behold I stand 
 at the door and knock — ^let me come into thy aching heart, 
 into thy lonely life, and sup with thee. Thou hast suffered ? 
 See My chaplet of thorns, the wounds in My hands, and side.
 
 " BEHOLD I STAND AT THE DOOR AND KNOCK." 273 
 
 Thou art lonely ? I was in Gethsemane. God has forsaken 
 thee ? I was upon the Cross. Daughter, I love thee and 
 my love is eternal. I and the Father are one. Cling close 
 and trust thy human heart to Me." 
 
 Hackneyed illustrations, say you ? That may be, but 
 indifference, sin and sorrow make up, in no small measure, 
 the travail of souls. 
 
 I incline to believe that Charles Booth has put the crown 
 upon his many services in exhibiting this picture by Holman 
 Hunt. He has reminded us, and we needed the reminder, 
 that environment is not everything. Selfishness can grow 
 even in a Garden City, and though the gospel should teach 
 us to build beautiful streets instead of slums, its real work 
 is deeper. It was once pointed out to the artist that the door 
 of the ruined hut has no handle. " No ! " said Holman Hunt, 
 " that door has no handle on the outside." Something must 
 break within us, something hard and restrictive. Self-will 
 must yield to Love, and the door must be opened from within ; 
 our strength must become weakness, and our earthly pride 
 divine humility, before He who knocks can bless our inward 
 life with the sanctity of His holy presence. 
 
 [Published in British Friend, ?.Iay, 1904.] 
 
 20
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL MEMORANDA. 
 
 John Wilhelm Rowntree born at York - - Sept. 4th, 1868 
 
 (Parents : Joseph Rowntree and E. Antoinette Rowntree, nie Seebohm). 
 
 Went to the Friends' School, Bootham, York 
 
 Went to Oliver's Mount School, Scarborough 
 
 Returned to Bootham School 
 
 Left Bootham - - - . . 
 
 Entered business life at the Cocoa Works, York 
 
 Warned of coming blindness 
 
 Marriage with Constance M. Naish, of Bristol 
 
 Founded Acomb Adult School 
 
 Pamphlet to Young Friends - - . 
 
 " History of Adult School Movement " 
 
 Publishes " Present Day Papers " - 
 
 Journey to Egypt, Syria, etc. 
 
 Takes part in Manchester Conference . . - 
 
 Opening of Acomb Adult School Buildings and Institute - 
 
 Scarborough Summer School . . . . 
 
 First journey to the West Indies, Mexico and the West - 
 
 Consultation with Oculist at Chicago 
 
 Went to live at Scalby, on being ordered to give up town 
 life and daily business - - - - - 
 
 Birmingham Summer School 
 
 Windermere Summer School . . . . 
 
 Scarborough Settlement for Biblical Study - 
 
 275 
 
 Aug., 1880 
 
 Aug., 1883 
 
 Jan., 1885 
 
 June, 1886 
 
 1886 
 
 1891 
 
 July 28th, 1892 
 
 June, 1893 
 
 - 1893 
 1893 
 
 1894- 1 902 
 
 - 1895 
 
 - 1895 
 1896 
 1897 
 1898 
 1899 
 
 1899 
 1899 
 1900 
 1901
 
 276 CHRONOLOGICAL MEMORANDA. 
 
 Appeal to the Yearly Meeting of Friends, resulting in issue 
 
 of " Plea for a Peaceable Spirit " - - - 1901 
 
 Presentation of Woodbrooke for permanent Settlement by 
 
 George Cadbury ------ igo2 
 
 Visits to Oculist at Chicago - - - 1900, 1901, 1903 
 
 Opening of Summer School at Woodbrooke - - 1903 
 
 Plans a History of Quakerism . - _ . 1^03 
 
 Plans a new home at Scalby ----- 1904 
 
 Plans a Guest House, to be under a Committee of the 
 Yorkshire Adult Schools, in grounds adjoining his new 
 
 home -.-.--- 1904 
 
 Six lectures on Art and Religion delivered at Woodbrooke 1904 
 
 Kirbymoorside Week-end Summer School - - - 1904 
 
 Arrangements for Friends' Yearly Meeting to be held in 
 
 Leeds after two and a quarter centuries in London - 1904 
 
 Death of Ernest Grace of Bristol (his brother-in-law) - 1904 
 
 Preparation of lectures on Religion and Modern Life 
 
 delivered at Scarborough .... 1904 
 
 Consultation with Oculist at Chicago found needful - 1905 
 
 Arrangements for Conference on the Ministry at Scarboro' 1905 
 
 Lays Foundation Stone of Burton Lane Adult School, 
 
 followed by last Sunday at York - - Feb. 19th, 1905 
 
 Sailed for United States with his wife - - Feb. 25th, 1905 
 
 Seized with pneumonia on the voyage ; met at New York 
 
 by Rufus M. Jones - - - March 5th, 1905 
 
 Died in New York Hospital - - March 9th, 1905
 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN U S A.
 
 UC SOUTHERN RfGIONAL 
 
 AA 000 624 94 
 
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