The Beauty of the World. A story of this generation

Front matter

VOL. & Start* as tfo fttntroftnt. BY A. J. DUFFIELD, AUTHOR OF "NEEDLESS MISERY,' "A NEW TRANSLATION OF DON QUIXOTE," "BON QDIXOTE, HIS CRITICS AND COMMENTATORS." " O, wonder ! How many goodly creatures are there here ! How beauteous mankind is ! O brave new world, That has such people in't ! " The Tempest, V. i. " The souls of the living are the beauty of the world." Lord Bacon, Wisdom of tlic Ancients. IX THEEE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON : HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1886. All rights reserved. Richard Clay and Sons, Bungay, and Bread Street Hill, London.

Chapter I. Tobias In Lonoon

Tobias Elejuice sat alone in his room in his London house, Mundo Square, at eleven o'clock in the morning, the hour in every day which he gave to his children. Nothing was allowed to break into this engagement. From eleven to twelve, the year round, in town or country, Tobias devoted to all the young people who happened to be in his house, whether they were his own or other people's ; and his main object, apart from the training of the youngsters, was to enjoy communion with the unformed world, or that part of it which may be likened to ' The milky-way i' the sky, A meeting of gentle lights without a name.' VOL. II. B ■2 THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD. Tobias had a settled form of spending this hour, but the spirit of it depended entirely on the children. We cannot do better, if we care to know what passed, than to take a seat behind the green screen which stands at Tobias's back, and with his permission listen to what goes on.

As the clock struck eleven the door opened, and in came, in disordered order, nine motherless children, varying from nine to twenty-three — Esther being the eldest, Rachel, Dinah, and Anita, called after her mother, comprising all the girls ; the rest were of the other sex. They came in exclaiming in musical tones : ' Oh ! papa, we have such heaps of questions for you. Tobias kept his seat, and took a child between his knees, two more of the children ranged them selves on each side ; Job, the youngest boy, occupied the largest chair in the room, the rest seated themselves on the carpet, and began to embroider, knit, sew, or shape small things in wood. ' Where are these heaps ? ' inquired Tobias with a smile. ' Peter has a lot, so has Moses, and Isaac and Job,' said Abraham. 'Heaps of questions,' said Tobias, 'seems to me to be slang.

I have heard of heaps of cinders, and I know that Samson slew heaps upon heaps of Philistines, but " heaps of questions " sounds to me unseemly and insolent.' ' Oh, papa, Touchstone had " a great heap of knowledge," ' said Rachel. ' Richard III.,' added Job, ' spoke of " heaping cares upon him." ' ' Honours were heaped on Cæsar,' said Anita. 'Romeo,' added Esther, 'wished Juliet's joy to be " heaped like his." Some one in Cymbeline had heaps of years ; and why can't we have heaps of questions? Did not Clifford call Warwick "a heap of wrath ? ' " she said, becoming energetic, and pointing her needle at her father. ' How sweet it is to be corrected,' said Tobias. ' But do you repent of calling heaps of ques tions slang ? ' inquired an aged philologist of eleven, who, observing her father to be very meek, would humble him the more. ' I earnestly repent,' said Tobias, ' and no longer think heaps of questions slang.' ' We want to ask you, papa, how many bishops you have ever known, where you knew them, what they were like, what they did for a living, what you remember about them, and what you thought of them ? ' Tobias, who was not much astonished at this large order, simply answered, ' I have known four B THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD.

Bishops of Lichfield, one of Worcester, two of Oxford, the first and second of Manchester, the first of Liverpool, two of Carlisle, the first of Melbourne, Toronto, Sackscatchewan, Victoria, Jerusalem, New Zealand, North Queensland, two Bishops of Durham, Ripon, Peterborough, three of Exeter, Llandaff, Rochester, Tasmania, Colenso, Brisbane, four Archbishops of Canterbury, one of York, and two of Dublin.' ' Dear papa, what a wonderful world you have lived in. Now please tell us where you met these holy men,' said Rachel. ' Not one in their own homes.

Some I met at dinner-parties, others at sea, in Cunard and P. and 0. ships, at concerts, theatres, public break fasts, committee meetings, in Exeter Hall, taverns, clubs, churches, railway-carriages, flower-shows, bazaars, picture-galleries, old book shops, libraries, and the Houses of Parliament.' All these were bishops of the English Church ?' All of them.' ' What --do you most remember about them papa ? ' ' They were all miserable sinners.' ' Oh, papa ! ' was the unanimous and indignant reply, ' how can you know that ? ' 'They all said so,' said Tobias, 'and said it publicly a thousand times the year round.' ' Yes, we know,' said the children ; ' but that is different.' ' Tell me,' said Tobias, ' some of the most miserable sinners you ever knew ? ' There was a chorus of voices shouting, ' Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Richard III., Shylock, Leontes, Angelo in" Measure for Measure, Cardinal Wolsey, Judas, the Bishop of Winchester.' ' Ah ! ' said Tobias, ' you mean Cardinal Beau fort; but don't you know somebody not quite so shadowy as these — some really miserable sinner ? ' Dead silence. 'Job,' inquired his father, 'did you go to church last Sunday ? ' ' Yes, papa.' ' Did you say you were a miserable sinner ? ' 'Yes.' ' Were you miserable ? ' 'No.' ' Why did you say so then ? ' ' Because everybody else said so.' ' Are any of you miserable sinners ? ' ' No, papa dear.' 'This is very remarkable,' said Tobias. 'You tell me that you are not miserable sinners, and next Sunday you will go to the Abbey in kid gloves, pretty hats, boots, and painted frocks, say that you are " miserable sinners," and then como THE BEAUTY OF THE WOELD. home, eat pudding, and enjoy yourselves, just as all hypocrites do, and never think of the lies you have repeated, much less of the awful consequences of so much lying ! ' Dead silence. ' I think,' said Abraham, who began to bite his thumb, 'that we are all sinners in a way.

For one thing, many people are sinners who are never found out.' 'And,' said Rachel, 'many people are sinners without knowing it ; and as you have often told us, papa dear, we are all one family ; when we meet together on our knees we all say that we are miserable sinners, because some are sinners, and very miserable indeed.' ' Confessing the family sins I quite approve of,' said Tobias ; ' but remember, that no amount of general confession will absolve you, nor am I quite sure that any general confession should refer to private sinning.' ' I think,' said Isaac, Avho had a taste for etching, 'that if the bishcps say they are miserable sinners we should believe them, and refuse to admit them to picture-galleries, jeweller's shops, and drawing rooms ; who knows but that many of the robberies which have taken place at noblemen's houses of family jewels and heirlooms of late were com mitted by bishops ? ' ' Well, well,' said some of the impatient, ' we shall never get on at this rate — only look at the clock.

Tell us, papa, what the bishops did for a living ? ' ' Oh,' said Tobias, looking serious, ' those who had sees by rivers were fishermen, and those who lived inland made tents, one or two were carpenters, and some were shepherds, and others physicians.' ' Then, please, what is a see ? ' ' It is an old word for seat. Once the Pope only used that word, now, like everything else, it is common. A man has a seat in the House of Commons ; a nobleman has a seat in the country ; another, not a noble, has a seat in a pew, at the opera, in an omnibus, and every bishop has a seat. But since the see became a seat, and seat has become very common, the bishops made it into a palace ; and since then gin-shops and dancing-booths have been turned into palaces.' 'What do you think, papa,' demanded Job, who was rubbing his chin like a grandfather, ' Hamlet meant when he called Polonius a fishmonger ? ' ' Hamlet,' answered Tobias, ' I think, wished to let Polonius know that he was quite aware for what Polonius was fishing in his impertinent interviews.' 'Indeed, I thought, papa,' said Job, 'that Hamlet was merely chaffing Polonius when he called him a fishmonger, as you were chaffing us when you said the bishops were fishermen.' ' I tell you,' said Tobias, ' that they are fisher men.

They don't catch cod, or pilchards, or soles, of course, as the sons of Zebedee and Simon Peter caught bream ; they are fishers of men, and some are very expert; indeed they are always fishing.' 'But please tell us something more, for we want to know,' said they all. 'They are very learned men in some unim portant things, and very ignorant in things of much moment — so ignorant, indeed, that they may be said to belong to the dangerous classes.' ' The bishops, papa ? ' ' Alas ! I say the bishops,' said Tobias. This was so beside all that the children ex pected, so much at variance with the purpose they had set themselves to pursue, that they were bewildered. That purpose was very simple, although, it is true, that for children even of their uncommon intelligence it was novel, but it was at the same time full of deep human interest.

Tobias had taught his children in a way quite different to any methods of education known to us, and one of his ways was to make them ac quainted with Shakespeare's principal characters, encouraging them to find out, if possible, the counterparts of these characters in later times or in the England of to-day ; by this means he was able to teach them the history of their own country in a way so impressive and attractive that they never tired of their lessons, and what was remarkable, the children soon became their own instructors in this branch of learning. When Tobias therefore received the fire of his children's questions about the dignitaries of the Church, he knew quite well that they had been getting up Shakespeare's ecclesiastical personages with the purpose of comparing them with the like great officers of the Church as we see them in our own time.

Perceiving their drift, therefore, Tobias was bound to speak with clearness, and he continued : — ' The bishops whom I have known ought to be numbered among the dangerous classes because of the dangerous things they say, and other things which they do not say, but ought to say, and the terrible, though thoughtless untruths they tell, by their voluntary suppression of the truth.' ' Oh, papa ! ' ' Don't let us be afraid of the truth,' said Tobias, ' or I shall refuse to teach you.' ' Yes, papa.' ' If,' continued Tobias, ' you reverently pursue after knowledge, I shall have no fear that you will become firebrands, or atheists, or any other disreputable and worthless characters, while, by knowing the truth of things, you may possibly come to know, let us say, " The Beauty of the World," and if you come to know " The Beauty of the World" through knowing the true characters of English bishops, or through knowing anything, I shall be glad.

Now, if the bishops had been all faithful men, the world at this moment would have been different to what it is.' ' Do tell us how, papa.' ' That I will, but I shall demand of you in return an explicit account of Shakespeare's bishops, and all the ecclesiastical or spiritual personages which you find in Shakespeare's plays; the parts they play, and the estimate you make of their characters.' ' We will do our best, papa dear.' ' Then,' said Tobias, ' I go on. The cruelties we have committed in India on the native races had their origin in our officers and Governors- General, missionaries, and others having their minds poisoned on the subject of the religions of India, and the moral character of the people of India. It is absolutely true that if all English gentlemen during the past fifty years had gone to India with the idea that the people were endowed with more gifts than we, that their morals were once purer than ours, their love of truth greater, their literature more ancient, our influence on India had then been such as to change the face of the world ; but the bishops, being ignorant of this, when it was their duty to be very learned therein, have been the cause of the world being more miserable than it need be ; which is a very mild way of saying that they have obscured " The Beauty of the World," and delayed the coming of that Beauty in its splendour.

If the bishops had enforced on the British aristocracy that noble charity which their Divine Master was the first to inculcate on the minds of religious people, we should at this hour have been loved by hundreds of millions of human beings instead of being hated by them. Think of that appalling difference.' 'This I think is too deep for us, papa,' said Esther, the elder. ' I will make it beautifully clear to you, my children. Listen. Many centuries ago, we cannot tell how many, the people of India, with those of the Malay islands, and the people of Egypt, migrated, resting by the way at New Guinea, its numerous and adjacent islands, winding their way thither down Torres Straits, and settling like peaceful birds in the Polynesian isles.

From thence they went to America, carrying with them beautiful art and language, and a superior rule, which they gave to millions of beings who were livinowithout human love, or sweet hope, or restful trust; and the Hindoos and Egyptians at different times went everywhere, carrying peace to the people, teaching them, loving them, and leaving the land which they had found a wilderness a garden of fruits and flowers ; building temples to God, and filling them with excellent thino-s, made with their own hands out of silver and gold ; spanning rivers with bridges ; and besides, they made baths, reservoirs, aqueducts, and watercourses, which did wind their way round great and steep mountains, to their summits; they also made roads over great ranges of hills, connecting one place with another, and all places obtained a passage which led to the sea ; but that which surpassed all else they did was the way they made the land to yield corn and wine, and all things which can glad the heart of man, and give him strength. 'All this and much more did the people of India and Egypt do for the islands of the South Pacific, and then for America.

When the Chris tian Spaniards came, three hundred and fifty years ago, they found America very rich, and they proceeded to steal those riches, carrying them home, and to murder the people; indeed, the Christian Spaniards did for America all that we Christian English have done for India.

The Spanish bishops who took part in the " conquest of America " were no more but no less cruel than the English bishops in their influence on India ; indeed, although the Spanish bishops were more ignorant than the English bishops, there is perhaps not a pin to choose between them, for both were equally guilty, being equally wilfully un learned in what those people were, what their moral qualities, their religious faiths, and human feelings, and what was our duty towards them.' 'Did the people who came from Egypt and India ever go back to India and Egypt ? ' in quired Esther. 'That at present we are unable to tell,' said Tobias. ' Do you say, papa,' inquired Abraham, ' that the Spanish bishops ill-treated the ancient Americans on account of their religion ? ' ' Most certainly I say it,' said Tobias, ' and this is what I am anxious for you to remember, that the religion of the ancient Americans was, in so far as its practical effect on life and character was concerned, a better religion than the religion of the Spanish bishops ; but the Spanish bishops, like our bishops, thinking themselves to be in possession of the only religion which had ever been given to man, which was to remain for ever the religion that universal man was to be saved by, treated these ancient Americans as they treated the Jews and Moors and reformers in Spain : some they burnt, while they made their religion an excuse for taking from them their lands and all their wealth. 'After the Spaniards had drained ancient America of its portable riches, and made the people slaves, they began to teach them the Chris tian religion, and the Christian religion as it was taught by Spaniards has been the means of makinothat once great and beautiful land the loathsome pig-stye which it remains to this day.' 'Aud do you say, papa dear, that what the Christian Spanish bishops did for ancient America the English bishops have done for India ? ' inquired Abraham. ' What I have to impress upon you,' answered Abraham's father, ' is, that our bishops misrepre sented the religion of the people of India — mis represented Christ's religion in dealing with other people's religion, which led to our officers and men, and Governors-General, and all official people treating the people of India as inferior beings, and their religion and their morality as the works of Satan, which treatment has led to our being objects of hatred instead of objects of love to hundreds of millions of human beings And that, I say, has proved a dreadful loss to the world.' ' Dear papa,' interposed Esther, ' do you think that if the Spaniards had treated the ancient Americans with a noble and elevating treatment, that the Americans would, in their turn, have become immigrants, carrying their new spirit to other lands, as the ancient Hindoos and Egyptians did ? — and do you say that India, with such progress as we could have given to it, might have revived its old spirit, and again gone on its old track to Java, New Guinea, and

its archipelago, Polynesia, and the South Pacific, peopling and civilizing those lands ?

I cannot say all I want to express, but perhaps you know what I mean better than I do myself.' ' My darling,' said Tobias with great tenderness and a radiant joy, ' what you have said is precisely what I want you to think about. In the very same year that the Don Quixote of Miguel de Cervantes was first printed in Madrid, which I think was in 1605, there went an expedition from America to Polynesia, and for fifteen years the Spanish Americans tried to establish themselves in the South Sea Islands, but failed, owing entirely to their inhuman treatment of the natives, their rapacity, their kidnappings, and guilty sense of superiority. All that Spanish America did for Polynesia which remains was to name some of the islands after their own saints. Had young Alvaro Mendana de Meyra, Hernando Gallego, Pedro de Ortega, Pedro Hernandez de Quiros, and the Franciscan friars, Juan Leal and Alvaro de Saavedra, who were leaders in that immigration, been filled with love to mankind instead of a low ambition to find the gold of Ophir, or the Solomon islands, from which King Solomon was supposed to have got his gold and ivory, his apes and peacocks, the world at this time of day might have been sweeter to live in than it is.

With regard to India, and you may add China, the people have now these twenty years begun to move on their ancient track. India is really occupying some of our own colonies ; China is peopling the west coast of the Pacific, and gradually laying hold of Australia. If, when China and India received the English first, the English could have given India and China some of their great and noble spirit instead of their worst spirit, the world would be now twenty thousand times sweeter to live in than it is.' ' We are now,' said Rachel, ' beginning, I think, to get at what may mean " The Beauty of the World." ' ' I think so too,' said Isaac ; ' but we still want to know something more about our own bishops.' ' I should like to ask papa,' said Job, ' if he has known other bishops besides our own ? ' ' I knew the Archbishops of Lima, Charcas, Granada, and Santa Fe de Bogota, the bishops of Panama, Arequipa, Cathagena, and Caracas ; and I have met French and Italian bishops, as well as several cardinals and many priests.' ' And do you say, papa, that all these were ignorant men ? ' inquired Peter. 'All of them,' said Tobias, ' were just as wilfully and dangerously ignorant as the others, with this difference, that I never knew an English bishop who was not outwardly decent in his morals, and nearly all the others lived inwardly and outwardly very improper lives indeed.' ' But, papa, as you have known so many bishops, some of them must have been good,' said Rachel, the tender-hearted. ' They were as good and no better than the Lord Mayor, the aldermen, the members of Parlia ment, the great butchers and bakers and candle stick-makers who bow down to them.

I don't think you can call any man good who is not ready to lay down his life in doing what is just, and the bishops live longer than anybody else,' said Tobias, in a dry voice. ' Then, papa dear, do you say that our bishops, I mean the bishops of our time, like some of old VOL. II. c time, are not good in doing what they have to do ? They must have something to do ; do they not do it, and do it well ?' inquired Esther. ' Every bishop,' said Tobias, ' does what is right in his own eyes, says what he likes, just exactly as he eats and drinks what he likes; the only exception is, that they all dress exactly alike — their hats are all made at the same shop, so are their breeches and aprons.' ' Then,' said Job, ' we want to know what they do for a living ? ' 'Exactly what Gratiano did — they talk an infinite deal of nothing,' was the answer. ' And who makes bishops ? ' asked Abraham, Tobias here broke into a merry laugh, chiefly on account of the way he perceived that his children had been at work on Shakespeare's bishops, and he said, ' Bishops are made as their hats and breeches are made, and they are all made at one Government shop, where are also made the Lords in Waiting, Colonial Governors, Grooms of the Stole, Mistress of the Robes, and Master of the Horse.

I should say from what I have known, that the only people who are ever surprised at their own creation are the bishops themselves. So you have Tory bishops, bishops on the other side, pious bishops, bishops who are not pious, grammatic bishops, fashionable bishops, worldly bishops, lucky bishops, and voting bishops — that is, bishops who were made bishops for the votes they could give in the House of Lords. Lord Mel bourne made voting bishops ; so did Lord John Russell; so did Lord Derby. Lord Palmerston made bishops to please pious ladies for whom he did not care, but whose social influence he wanted to secure ; so did Lord Beaconsfield ; Mr. Gladstone has made many bishops, and nearly all these were boys who were good at school. It is a great help to a man becoming bishop if he has any kinsfolk in the House of Lords, or among the landed gentry.' ' Now, papa, is all this true ? ' inquired one, ' Did I ever deceive you ? ' said Tobias affec tionately. 'Yes,' exclaimed the youthful Job, 'you said the bishops were tent-makers ; suppose I had gone to the Bishop of London and given him an order to make me a tent, I should have got into a pretty mess.' ' Oh no, my dear boy,' said Tobias ; ' he would have smiled and given you a sugar-plum, called nolle prosequi ; besides, Job, you were not de ceived, I never deceive you.' ' But,' observed Esther, ' you do say some things that require a good deal of finding out, papa dear.' C ' Or you, my children, would never know any thing,' said Tobias. ' Now, papa, one more question,' said Abraham : 'tell us who was the greatest ecclesiastical or preaching man you ever knew ? ' ' Sammy Flick,' was the answer, ' Now, papa, tell us why ? ' was the unanimous demand.

Tobias pondered much on the answer he would make, because he knew that it would give rise to many more questions, and he half dreaded giving a reply because of the fear he had that by his answer his children should lose their innocency and freedom. Tobias had often said that he would no more trust his children with precious pearls out of his own house than he would trust them with poisons, simply because they could not defend their pearls from thieves, or themselves from the poison's power ; how then should he trust them with opinions which, even if they could understand, they would not be able to defend ? At length, with wrestling affection, Tobias said : ' Sammy Flick was a great preacher because he was in heart a little child. God, he believed, was his Father, and Sammy loved God, honoured, feared, and trusted Him as much as you love and trust me.

If I were to send you with a bottle of wine to dear old Mrs. Flick, you would ■21 TOBIAS IN LONDON. take it. You would not drink any of it by the way, and then fill up the bottle with water ; and you would deliver it with tenderness and love. If I sent you to a man who had done me a grievous wrong to tell him that I forgave him, you would go, even at the risk of personal insult, and deliver that message. This is what Sammy Flick did. He believed — he said himself that he knew — -God had sent him with wine and forgive ness and compassion to poor sinful people who were dying in misery, after having lived in sin. He never doubted it. He never had any fear. He was, as I have said, a real child, and many men and women became as little children through him, and remained children all their days, and died in childlike trust and peace, just as you go to bed and fall asleep, having no fear about rising the next morning.

This,' continued Tobias, ' was not the only real thing about Sammy Flick ; he had a deep sense of the value of time ; believing what he did, he looked upon each day as if it were to be the last on which he might be able to preach, or pray, or exhort, and so he preached, and prayed, and exhorted as a dying man to dying sinners ; in other words, he was in earnest, he was a real man, and he died like a real soldier at his post .' 'Well now, papa dear,' said Rachel, 'do the bishops enter into no promise, or come under no engagement as to what they will do ? ' They take an oath, and make great promises in public ; one of their promises is that they will be merciful to poor and needy people, and to all strangers destitute of help,' said Tobias, ' and they are expected to " hold up the weak, heal the sick, bind up the broken, bring again the outcasts, seek the lost." ' ' And do the bishops not do these things, papa dear ? ' inquired Esther affectionately. ' One of these days,' said Tobias, ' I will take you to where the bibles and p>rayer-books are printed, and you shall see how poor and needy people are lodged, housed, and fed in the see of London, especially that part of it which lies on both sides of the Strand and Fleet Street, and when you have seen some of the courts, alleys, streets, lanes, squares, and passages where all the newspapers are printed, you shall ask if the bishop ever goes there, if any one knows where he lives, or has ever seen him, or knows his name.' Here a musical clock mercifully struck the hour of twelve, and at each stroke the good father Tobias, his face lighted up with love, exclaimed, — 'Enough for to-day, but stick to your bishops, — they are worthy studies.' TOBIAS IN LONDON.