Lord of the World Read online

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  LORD OF THE WORLD

  BY ROBERT HUGH BENSON

  Dedication

  CLAVI DOMUS DAVID

  PREFACE

  I am perfectly aware that this is a terribly sensational book, and opento innumerable criticisms on that account, as well as on many others.But I did not know how else to express the principles I desired (andwhich I passionately believe to be true) except by producing their linesto a sensational point. I have tried, however, not to scream undulyloud, and to retain, so far as possible, reverence and consideration forthe opinions of other people. Whether I have succeeded in that attemptis quite another matter.

  Robert Hugh Benson.

  CAMBRIDGE 1907.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  BOOK I

  THE ADVENT

  BOOK II

  THE ENCOUNTER

  BOOK III

  THE VICTORY

  Persons who do not like tiresome prologues, need not read this one. Itis essential only to the situation, not to the story.

  PROLOGUE

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

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

  It was a very silent room in which the three men sat, furnished with theextreme common sense of the period. It had neither window nor door; forit was now sixty years since the world, recognising that space is notconfined to the surface of the globe, had begun to burrow in earnest.Old Mr. Templeton's house stood some forty feet below the level of theThames embankment, in what was considered a somewhat commodiousposition, for he had only a hundred yards to walk before he reached thestation of the Second Central Motor-circle, and a quarter of a mile tothe volor-station at Blackfriars. He was over ninety years old, however,and seldom left his house now. The room itself was lined throughout withthe delicate green jade-enamel prescribed by the Board of Health, andwas suffused with the artificial sunlight discovered by the great Reuterforty years before; it had the colour-tone of a spring wood, and waswarmed and ventilated through the classical frieze grating to the exacttemperature of 18 degrees Centigrade. Mr. Templeton was a plain man,content to live as his father had lived before him. The furniture, too,was a little old-fashioned in make and design, constructed howeveraccording to the prevailing system of soft asbestos enamel welded overiron, indestructible, pleasant to the touch, and resembling mahogany. Acouple of book-cases well filled ran on either side of the bronzepedestal electric fire before which sat the three men; and in thefurther corners stood the hydraulic lifts that gave entrance, the one tothe bedroom, the other to the corridor fifty feet up which opened on tothe Embankment.

  Father Percy Franklin, the elder of the two priests, was rather aremarkable-looking man, not more than thirty-five years old, but withhair that was white throughout; his grey eyes, under black eyebrows,were peculiarly bright and almost passionate; but his prominent nose andchin and the extreme decisiveness of his mouth reassured the observer asto his will. Strangers usually looked twice at him.

  Father Francis, however, sitting in his upright chair on the other sideof the hearth, brought down the average; for, though his brown eyes werepleasant and pathetic, there was no strength in his face; there was evena tendency to feminine melancholy in the corners of his mouth and themarked droop of his eyelids.

  Mr. Templeton was just a very old man, with a strong face in folds,clean-shaven like the rest of the world, and was now lying back on hiswater-pillows with the quilt over his feet.

  * * * * *

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

  "Well," he said, "it is a great business to remember exactly; but thisis how I put it to myself."

  "In England our party was first seriously alarmed at the LabourParliament of 1917. That showed us how deeply Herveism had impregnatedthe whole social atmosphere. There had been Socialists before, but nonelike Gustave Herve in his old age--at least no one of the same power.He, perhaps you have read, taught absolute Materialism and Socialismdeveloped to their logical issues. Patriotism, he said, was a relic ofbarbarism; and sensual enjoyment was the only certain good. Of course,every one laughed at him. It was said that without religion there couldbe no adequate motive among the masses for even the simplest socialorder. But he was right, it seemed. After the fall of the French Churchat the beginning of the century and the massacres of 1914, thebourgeoisie settled down to organise itself; and that extraordinarymovement began in earnest, pushed through by the middle classes, with nopatriotism, no class distinctions, practically no army. Of course,Freemasonry directed it all. This spread to Germany, where the influenceof Karl Marx had already---"

  "Yes, sir," put in Percy smoothly, "but what of England, if you don'tmind---"

  "Ah, yes; England. Well, in 1917 the Labour party gathered up the reins,and Communism really began. That was long before I can remember, ofcourse, but my father used to date it from then. The only wonder wasthat things did not go forward more quickly; but I suppose there was agood deal of Tory leaven left. Besides, centuries generally run slowerthan is expected, especially after beginning with an impulse. But thenew order began then; and the Communists have never suffered a seriousreverse since, except the little one in '25. Blenkin founded 'The NewPeople' then; and the 'Times' dropped out; but it was not, strangelyenough, till '35 that the House of Lords fell for the last time. TheEstablished Church had gone finally in '29."

  "And the religious effect of that?" asked Percy swiftly, as the old manpaused to cough slightly, lifting his inhaler. The priest was anxious tokeep to the point.

  "It was an effect itself," said the other, "rather than a cause. Yousee, the Ritualists, as they used to call them, after a desperateattempt to get into the Labour swim, came into the Church after theConvocation of '19, when the Nicene Creed dropped out; and there was noreal enthusiasm except among them. But so far as there was an effectfrom the final Disestablishment, I think it was that what was left ofthe State Church melted into the Free Church, and the Free Church was,after all, nothing more than a little sentiment. The Bible wascompletely given up as an authority after the renewed German attacks inthe twenties; and the Divinity of our Lord, some think, had gone all butin name by the beginning of the century. The Kenotic theory had providedfor that. Then there was that strange little movement among the FreeChurchmen even earlier; when ministers who did no more than follow theswim--who were sensitive to draughts, so to speak--broke off from theirold positions. It is curious to read in the history of the time how theywere hailed as independent thinkers. It was just exactly what they werenot.... Where was I? Oh, yes.... Well, that cleared the ground for us,and the Church made extraordinary progress for a while--extraordinary,that is, under the circumstances, because you must remember, things werevery different from twenty, or even ten, years before. I mean that,roughly speaking, the severing of the sheep and the goats had begun. Thereligious people were practically all Catholics and Individualists; theirreligious people rejected the supernatural altogether, and were, to aman, Materialists and Communists. But we made progress because we had afew exceptional men--Delaney the philosopher, McArthur and Largent, thephilanthropists, and so on. It really seemed as if Delaney and hisdisciples might carry everything before them. You remember his'Analogy'? Oh, yes, it is all in the text-books....

  "Well, then, at the close of the Vatican Council, which had been calledin the nineteenth century, and never dissolved, we lost a great numberthrough the final definitions. The 'Exodus of the Intellectuals' theworld called it---"

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

  "That partly; and the whole conflict that began with the rise ofModernism at the beginning of the century but much more the condemnationof Delaney, and
of the New Transcendentalism generally, as it was thenunderstood. He died outside the Church, you know. Then there was thecondemnation of Sciotti's book on Comparative Religion.... After thatthe Communists went on by strides, although by very slow ones. It seemsextraordinary to you, I dare say, but you cannot imagine the excitementwhen the _Necessary Trades Bill_ became law in '60. People thought thatall enterprise would stop when so many professions were nationalised;but, you know, it didn't. Certainly the nation was behind it."

  "What year was the _Two-Thirds Majority Bill_ passed?" asked Percy.

  "Oh! long before--within a year or two of the fall of the House ofLords. It was necessary, I think, or the Individualists would have goneraving mad.... Well, the _Necessary Trades Bill_ was inevitable: peoplehad begun to see that even so far back as the time when the railwayswere municipalised. For a while there was a burst of art; because allthe Individualists who could went in for it (it was then that the Tollerschool was founded); but they soon drifted back into Governmentemployment; after all, the six-per-cent limit for all individualenterprise was not much of a temptation; and Government paid well."

  Percy shook his head.

  "Yes; but I cannot understand the present state of affairs. You saidjust now that things went slowly?"

  "Yes," said the old man, "but you must remember the Poor Laws. Thatestablished the Communists for ever. Certainly Braithwaite knew hisbusiness."

  The younger priest looked up inquiringly.

  "The abolition of the old workhouse system," said Mr. Templeton. "It isall ancient history to you, of course; but I remember as if it wasyesterday. It was that which brought down what was still called theMonarchy and the Universities."

  "Ah," said Percy. "I should like to hear you talk about that, sir."

  "Presently, father.... Well, this is what Braithwaite did. By the oldsystem all paupers were treated alike, and resented it. By the newsystem there were the three grades that we have now, and theenfranchisement of the two higher grades. Only the absolutely worthlesswere assigned to the third grade, and treated more or less ascriminals--of course after careful examination. Then there was thereorganisation of the Old Age Pensions. Well, don't you see how strongthat made the Communists? The Individualists--they were still calledTories when I was a boy--the Individualists have had no chance since.They are no more than a worn-out drag now. The whole of the workingclasses--and that meant ninety-nine of a hundred--were all againstthem."

  Percy looked up; but the other went on.

  "Then there was the Prison Reform Bill under Macpherson, and theabolition of capital punishment; there was the final Education Act of'59, whereby dogmatic secularism was established; the practicalabolition of inheritance under the reformation of the Death Duties---"

  "I forget what the old system was," said Percy.

  "Why, it seems incredible, but the old system was that all paid alike.First came the Heirloom Act, and then the change by which inheritedwealth paid three times the duty of earned wealth, leading up to theacceptance of Karl Marx's doctrines in '89--but the former came in'77.... Well, all these things kept England up to the level of theContinent; she had only been just in time to join in with the finalscheme of Western Free Trade. That was the first effect, you remember,of the Socialists' victory in Germany."

  "And how did we keep out of the Eastern War?" asked Percy anxiously.

  "Oh! that's a long story; but, in a word, America stopped us; so we lostIndia and Australia. I think that was the nearest to the downfall of theCommunists since '25. But Braithwaite got out of it very cleverly bygetting us the protectorate of South Africa once and for all. He was anold man then, too."

  Mr. Templeton stopped to cough again. Father Francis sighed and shiftedin his chair.

  "And America?" asked Percy.

  "Ah! all that is very complicated. But she knew her strength and annexedCanada the same year. That was when we were at our weakest."

  Percy stood up.

  "Have you a Comparative Atlas, sir?" he asked.

  The old man pointed to a shelf.

  "There," he said.

  * * * * *

  Percy looked at the sheets a minute or two in silence, spreading them onhis knees.

  "It is all much simpler, certainly," he murmured, glancing first at theold complicated colouring of the beginning of the twentieth century, andthen at the three great washes of the twenty-first.

  He moved his finger along Asia. The words EASTERN EMPIRE ran across thepale yellow, from the Ural Mountains on the left to the Behring Straitson the right, curling round in giant letters through India, Australia,and New Zealand. He glanced at the red; it was considerably smaller, butstill important enough, considering that it covered not only Europeproper, but all Russia up to the Ural Mountains, and Africa to thesouth. The blue-labelled AMERICAN REPUBLIC swept over the whole of thatcontinent, and disappeared right round to the left of the WesternHemisphere in a shower of blue sparks on the white sea.

  "Yes, it's simpler," said the old man drily.

  Percy shut the book and set it by his chair.

  "And what next, sir? What will happen?"

  The old Tory statesman smiled.

  "God knows," he said. "If the Eastern Empire chooses to move, we can donothing. I don't know why they have not moved. I suppose it is becauseof religious differences."

  "Europe will not split?" asked the priest.

  "No, no. We know our danger now. And America would certainly help us.But, all the same, God help us--or you, I should rather say--if theEmpire does move! She knows her strength at last."

  There was silence for a moment or two. A faint vibration trembledthrough the deep-sunk room as some huge machine went past on the broadboulevard overhead.

  "Prophesy, sir," said Percy suddenly. "I mean about religion."

  Mr. Templeton inhaled another long breath from his instrument. Thenagain he took up his discourse.

  "Briefly," he said, "there are three forces--Catholicism,Humanitarianism, and the Eastern religions. About the third I cannotprophesy, though I think the Sufis will be victorious. Anything mayhappen; Esotericism is making enormous strides--and that meansPantheism; and the blending of the Chinese and Japanese dynasties throwsout all our calculations. But in Europe and America, there is no doubtthat the struggle lies between the other two. We can neglect everythingelse. And, I think, if you wish me to say what I think, that, humanlyspeaking, Catholicism will decrease rapidly now. It is perfectly truethat Protestantism is dead. Men do recognise at last that a supernaturalReligion involves an absolute authority, and that Private Judgment inmatters of faith is nothing else than the beginning of disintegration.And it is also true that since the Catholic Church is the onlyinstitution that even claims supernatural authority, with all itsmerciless logic, she has again the allegiance of practically allChristians who have any supernatural belief left. There are a fewfaddists left, especially in America and here; but they are negligible.That is all very well; but, on the other hand, you must remember thatHumanitarianism, contrary to all persons' expectations, is becoming anactual religion itself, though anti-supernatural. It is Pantheism; it isdeveloping a ritual under Freemasonry; it has a creed, 'God is Man,' andthe rest. It has therefore a real food of a sort to offer to religiouscravings; it idealises, and yet it makes no demand upon the spiritualfaculties. Then, they have the use of all the churches except ours, andall the Cathedrals; and they are beginning at last to encouragesentiment. Then, they may display their symbols and we may not: I thinkthat they will be established legally in another ten years at thelatest.

  "Now, we Catholics, remember, are losing; we have lost steadily for morethan fifty years. I suppose that we have, nominally, about one-fortiethof America now--and that is the result of the Catholic movement of theearly twenties. In France and Spain we are nowhere; in Germany we areless. We hold our position in the East, certainly; but even there wehave not more than one in two hundred--so the statistics say--and we arescattered. In Italy? Well, we have Rome again to ourselves, but not
hingelse; here, we have Ireland altogether and perhaps one in sixty ofEngland, Wales and Scotland; but we had one in forty seventy years ago.Then there is the enormous progress of psychology--all clean against usfor at least a century. First, you see, there was Materialism, pure andsimple that failed more or less--it was too crude--until psychology cameto the rescue. Now psychology claims all the rest of the ground; and thesupernatural sense seems accounted for. That's the claim. No, father, weare losing; and we shall go on losing, and I think we must even be readyfor a catastrophe at any moment."

  "But---" began Percy.

  "You think that weak for an old man on the edge of the grave. Well, itis what I think. I see no hope. In fact, it seems to me that even nowsomething may come on us quickly. No; I see no hope until---"

  Percy looked up sharply.

  "Until our Lord comes back," said the old statesman.

  Father Francis sighed once more, and there fell a silence.

  * * * * *

  "And the fall of the Universities?" said Percy at last.

  "My dear father, it was exactly like the fall of the Monasteries underHenry VIII--the same results, the same arguments, the same incidents.They were the strongholds of Individualism, as the Monasteries were thestrongholds of Papalism; and they were regarded with the same kind ofawe and envy. Then the usual sort of remarks began about the amount ofport wine drunk; and suddenly people said that they had done their work,that the inmates were mistaking means for ends; and there was a greatdeal more reason for saying it. After all, granted the supernatural,Religious Houses are an obvious consequence; but the object of seculareducation is presumably the production of something visible--eithercharacter or competence; and it became quite impossible to prove thatthe Universities produced either--which was worth having. Thedistinction between [Greek: ou] and [Greek: me] is not an end in itself;and the kind of person produced by its study was not one which appealedto England in the twentieth century. I am not sure that it appealed evento me much (and I was always a strong Individualist)--except by way ofpathos---"

  "Yes?" said Percy.

  "Oh, it was pathetic enough. The Science Schools of Cambridge and theColonial Department of Oxford were the last hope; and then those went.The old dons crept about with their books, but nobody wanted them--theywere too purely theoretical; some drifted into the poorhouses, first orsecond grade; some were taken care of by charitable clergymen; there wasthat attempt to concentrate in Dublin; but it failed, and people soonforgot them. The buildings, as you know, were used for all kinds ofthings. Oxford became an engineering establishment for a while, andCambridge a kind of Government laboratory. I was at King's College, youknow. Of course it was all as horrible as it could be--though I am gladthey kept the chapel open even as a museum. It was not nice to see thechantries filled with anatomical specimens. However, I don't think itwas much worse than keeping stoves and surplices in them."

  "What happened to you?"

  "Oh! I was in Parliament very soon; and I had a little money of my own,too. But it was very hard on some of them; they had little pensions, atleast all who were past work. And yet, I don't know: I suppose it hadto come. They were very little more than picturesque survivals, youknow; and had not even the grace of a religious faith about them."

  Percy sighed again, looking at the humorously reminiscent face of theold man. Then he suddenly changed the subject again.

  "What about this European parliament?" he said.

  The old man started.

  "Oh!... I think it will pass," he said, "if a man can be found to pushit. All this last century has been leading up to it, as you see.Patriotism has been dying fast; but it ought to have died, like slaveryand so forth, under the influence of the Catholic Church. As it is, thework has been done without the Church; and the result is that the worldis beginning to range itself against us: it is an organised antagonism--a kind of Catholic anti-Church. Democracy has done what the DivineMonarchy should have done. If the proposal passes I think we may expectsomething like persecution once more.... But, again, the Easterninvasion may save us, if it comes off.... I do not know...."

  Percy sat still yet a moment; then he stood up suddenly.

  "I must go, sir," he said, relapsing into Esperanto. "It is pastnineteen o'clock. Thank you so much. Are you coming, father?"

  Father Francis stood up also, in the dark grey suit permitted topriests, and took up his hat.

  "Well, father," said the old man again, "come again some day, if Ihaven't been too discursive. I suppose you have to write your letteryet?"

  Percy nodded.

  "I did half of it this morning," he said, "but I felt I wanted anotherbird's-eye view before I could understand properly: I am so grateful toyou for giving it me. It is really a great labour, this daily letter tothe Cardinal-Protector. I am thinking of resigning if I am allowed."

  "My dear father, don't do that. If I may say so to your face, I thinkyou have a very shrewd mind; and unless Rome has balanced informationshe can do nothing. I don't suppose your colleagues are as careful asyourself."

  Percy smiled, lifting his dark eyebrows deprecatingly.

  "Come, father," he said.

  * * * * *

  The two priests parted at the steps of the corridor, and Percy stood fora minute or two staring out at the familiar autumn scene, trying tounderstand what it all meant. What he had heard downstairs seemedstrangely to illuminate that vision of splendid prosperity that laybefore him.

  The air was as bright as day; artificial sunlight had carried all beforeit, and London now knew no difference between dark and light. He stoodin a kind of glazed cloister, heavily floored with a preparation ofrubber on which footsteps made no sound. Beneath him, at the foot of thestairs, poured an endless double line of persons severed by a partition,going to right and left, noiselessly, except for the murmur of Esperantotalking that sounded ceaselessly as they went. Through the clear,hardened glass of the public passage showed a broad sleek black roadway,ribbed from side to side, and puckered in the centre, significantlyempty, but even as he stood there a note sounded far away from OldWestminster, like the hum of a giant hive, rising as it came, and aninstant later a transparent thing shot past, flashing from every angle,and the note died to a hum again and a silence as the great Governmentmotor from the south whirled eastwards with the mails. This was aprivileged roadway; nothing but state-vehicles were allowed to use it,and those at a speed not exceeding one hundred miles an hour.

  Other noises were subdued in this city of rubber; the passenger-circleswere a hundred yards away, and the subterranean traffic lay too deep foranything but a vibration to make itself felt. It was to remove thisvibration, and silence the hum of the ordinary vehicles, that theGovernment experts had been working for the last twenty years.

  Once again before he moved there came a long cry from overhead,startlingly beautiful and piercing, and, as he lifted his eyes from theglimpse of the steady river which alone had refused to be transformed,he saw high above him against the heavy illuminated clouds, a longslender object, glowing with soft light, slide northwards and vanish onoutstretched wings. That musical cry, he told himself, was the voice ofone of the European line of volors announcing its arrival in the capitalof Great Britain.

  "Until our Lord comes back," he thought to himself; and for an instantthe old misery stabbed at his heart. How difficult it was to hold theeyes focussed on that far horizon when this world lay in the foregroundso compelling in its splendour and its strength! Oh, he had argued withFather Francis an hour ago that size was not the same as greatness, andthat an insistent external could not exclude a subtle internal; and hehad believed what he had then said; but the doubt yet remained till hesilenced it by a fierce effort, crying in his heart to the Poor Man ofNazareth to keep his heart as the heart of a little child.

  Then he set his lips, wondering how long Father Francis would bear thepressure, and went down the steps.