A Generation of Degeneration By "A Mere Soldier*'
Shortly after taking up residence in Eng- land I myself saw in a respectable pub- lic lending-library a book which had been thrown out of a military mess. "5. The Divorce Act, which, as an Oxford clergyman among your corre- spondents says, 'strikes at t h i very root of family life itself (family life—the best asset of a nation!). Yet, even now, an extension of that Act is contemplated in order, as one of our papers said, 'to give the poor man the same "privileges" as the rich!' "6. The want of religious teaching in our schools, and possibly in the homes of many of. our upper and middle classes also. Head masters discuss the plan of a 'Bowdlerized' Bible. Let them read in a recent book, 'Dulce Domum,' how Bishop' Moberly, during all his thirty years as head of Winchester, taught his boys the Church catechism." THE SOLDIER'S "REMEDIES" "1. The bringing back of Christ's re- ligion into the schools and homes of a nation which still calls itself a Christian one. How amazed Mohammedans would be to know that we were actually keep- ing Christianity from our children, and that, for instance, on Good Friday last, it was thought wonderful for 3,000 men to walk through London to St. Paul's to worship God. "2. If the Church catechism were taught in all our schools, boys and girls would be taught to love God and their neighbor, to keep their hands from pick- ing and stealing, and their tongues from evil-speaking (atheism, blasphemy, and impurity), lying, and slandering, to be true and just, and not to covet other men's goods. "3. A real increase in almsgiving and self-denial on behalf of churches, missions, hospitals, and the teaching of religion. "4. Why should not people of all classes (Church of England and Non- conformist) help to form 'study circles' for reading, learning, and discussing the truths of the Bible? (Green, in his 'History of the English People,' speaks of a time when every one in Englahd studied the Bible!) In this way the growth of atheism may be stopped and class drawn to class again. Only re- ligion can do i t !"
"A MERE SOLDIER" returns to have a startling vision of the contrasts be- tween the life of his country of thirty or forty years ago and that of today. We read: "One came home expecting to find the England of thirty or forty years ago— a land if by no means perfect yet still one full of rest, peace, and quietness, In •which class had not been s et against class and people trusted in their rulers. The Church of England was more united than now, and we had some few great writers and poets left—the land de- scribed by Tennyson as: A land of settled government, A land of just and old renown, Where freedom broadens slowly down From precedent to precedent. "What does one find in England to- day? Most noticeable is a sort of al- most universal 'greed' for money ex- isting among all classes—an eagerness to become rich or 'well-to-do' quickly i—not a pleasant quality or one likely to do good to discipline or character. Also a prevailing anxiety about health, amounting almost to a mania in many people—a restless discontent, supersti- tion, belief in palmistry, fortune-telling -—mascots, as they are called (imagine Henry Havelock, Colin Campbell, Nel- son, John Nicholson, or Florence Night- ingale believing in or trusting to a 'mas- cot'!), indifference to> religion, class h'a- tred, selfishness, and pursuit of pleasure. All these tend to destroy what were known as the hereditary virtues of an Englishman^—namely, to be God-fearing, truthful, honest, and upright. These are some of the causes of Socialism. "I would attribute all this to the fol- lowing causes: "1. Neglect of the Bible, family prayers, grace before meals (connecting the daily blessings of men's lives with God in any way, or giving thanks for them), though most men call on God when in peril. 2. The desecration of Sunday. "3. Failure to carry out the com- mands—namely (a) to deny ourselves; (b) to give alms in secret; (c) to love one's neighbor as oneself. "4. The influence of bad books.
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