,,stand ,,up1 ,,ye ,,dead ,,by ,,norman ,,maclean ,,hodder ,,and ,,stoughton ,,london -- ,,new ,,york -- ,,toronto ,,mcmxvi ,,by ,,the ,,same ,,author ,,dwellers ,,in ,,the ,,mist ,,hills ,,of ,,home ,,can ,,the ,,world ,,be ,,won ,,for ,,christ8 ,,the ,,burnt-,,offering ,,africa ,,in ,,transformation ,,the ,,great ,,discovery v ,,preface ,two years ago the writer published a book called ,the ,great ,discovery4 ,it seemed to him in those days1 when the nation chose the ordeal of battle rather than dishonour1 that the people1 as if waking from sleep1 discovered ,god once more4 ,but1 now1 after an agony unparalleled in the history of the world1 the vision of ,god has faded1 and men are left groping in the darkness of a great bewilderment4 ,the cause may not be far to seek4 ,for every vision of ,god summons men to the girding of themselves that they may bring their lives more into conformity with ,his holy will4 ,and when men decline the venture to which the vision beckons1 then the vision fades4 ,it is there that we have failed4 ,we were called to put an end to social evils vi which are sapping our strength and enfeebling our arm in battle1 but we refused4 ,we wanted victory over the enemy1 but we deemed the price of moral surgery too great even for victory4 ,in the rush and crowding of world-shaking cataclysms1 memory is short4 ,we have already almost forgotten the moral tragedy of ,april #aiae4 ,it was then that the ,white ,paper was issued by the ,government1 and the nation was informed of startling facts which our statesmen knew all the time4 ,at last the nation was told that our armies were wellnigh paralysed for lack of munitions1 while thousands of men were daily away from their work because of drunkenness2 that the repairing of ships was delayed and transports unable to put to sea because of drunkenness2 that goods1 vital to the ,state1 could not be delivered because of drunkenness2 that ,admiral ,jellicoe had warned the ,government that the efficiency of the ,fleet was threatened because of drunkenness2 and that shipbuilders and munition manufacturers had made a strong vii appeal to our rulers to put an end to drunkenness4 ,it was then that the ,king1 by his example1 called upon the people to renounce alcohol1 and the nation waited for its deliverance4 ,but the ,government refused to follow the ,king4 ,there is but one law for nations1 as for individuals1 if they would save their souls3 ',if thy right hand offend thee1 cut it off4' ,but our statesmen could not brace themselves to an act of surgery2 they devised a scheme for putting the offending member into splints4 ,and1 since then1 it looks as if the wheels of the chariot of victory were stuck in the bog of the national drunkenness4 ,the vision of ,god has faded before the eyes of a nation that refused its beckoning4 ,this book deals1 therefore1 with those evils which now hide the face of ,god from us4 ,if drunkenness be the greatest of these evils1 there are others closely allied to it4 ,two ,commissions have recently issued ,reports1 the one on ',the ,declining ,birthrate1' and the other on ',the ,social ,evil1' viii which reveal the perilous condition of degeneration into which the nation is falling4 ,it is difficult for people1 engrossed in the labours and anxieties of these days1 to grasp the meaning of the facts as presented in these ,reports4 ,in these pages an effort is made to look the facts in the face and to make the danger clear1 so that he who runs may read4 ,and the writer has had but one purpose3 to show that there is but one remedy for all our grievous ills1 even a return to ,god4 ,as we think of the millions who have taken all that makes life dear and laid it down that we might live2 who have gone down to an earthly hell that we might not lose our heaven2 who have wrestled with the powers of destruction on sea and land that these isles might continue to be the sanctuary of freedom and the home of righteousness2 who in the midst of their torment never flinched2 and of the fathers1 mothers1 and wives who have laid on the altar the sacrifice of all their love and hope--the question arises1 how can ix we show our love and our gratitude to those who have redeemed us8 ,we can only prove our gratitude by making a new world for those who have saved us--a world in which men and women shall no longer be doomed to live lives of sordidness and misery4 ,when we shall set ourselves to that task1 seeking to meet the sacrifice of heroism by the sacrifice of our service1 deeming no labour too great and no effort too arduous1 then the vision of ,god will again arise upon us and will abide4 ,n4 ,m4 ,october #g1 #aiaf4 xi ,,contents ,,chapter ,i ,,the ,,empty ,,cradle ,,chapter ,,ii ,,the ,,roots ,,of ,,the ,,evil ,,chapter ,,iii ,,the ,,empty ,,countryside ,,chapter ,,iv ,,the ,,man ,,in ,,the ,,slum ,,chapter ,v ,,the ,,lord ,,of ,,the ,,slum ,,chapter ,,vi ,,the ,,great ,,refusal xii ,,chapter ,,vii ,,the ,,slum ,,in ,,the ,,man ,,chapter ,,viii ,,behind ,,you ,,is ,,god #a ,,chapter ,i ,,the ,,empty ,,cradle ,the greatest disaster of these days has befallen in the streets and lanes of our cities at home1 and1 because it has happened in our own midst1 we are blind to it4 ,and1 also1 it has come upon us so gradually and so surreptitiously that1 though we are overwhelmed by it1 we know not that we are overwhelmed4 ,our capital cities are leading the nation in the march to the graveyard4 ,in ,london the birthrate has fallen in ,hampstead from #cj to #ag4ee1 and in the ,city itself to #ag4d2 in ,edinburgh it has fallen in some districts to #aj4 ,in many places there are already more coffins than cradles4 ,what would the city of ,edinburgh say or do if suddenly one half of its children were slain in a night8 ,what a cry of horror would rise to heaven6 #b ,yet1 that is exactly the calamity which has overtaken the city4 ,in the year #ahga there were #cd children born in ,edinburgh for every thousand of the population2 in the year #aiae the number of births per thousand of the population was #ag4 ,edinburgh has1 compared to forty-four years ago1 sacrificed half its children4 ,and because this calamity is the slowly ripening fruit of forty years1 and did not occur with dramatic swiftness in a night1 there is no sound of lamentation in the streets4 ,i ,what has happened in ,london and ,edinburgh is only what has happened over all the ,british ,empire1 with this difference--that these cities are leading the van in the process of desiccating the fountain of the national life4 ,while the birthrate for the whole of ,scotland is #bc4i1 that of ,edinburgh is #ag4h4 ,for the nation as a whole the policy of racial suicide has become a national policy4 ,the marriage-rate increases1 but the #c birth-rate decreases4 ,a birthrate of #ce4f per thousand in #ahgd decreased to #cc4g in #ahhj1 #cb4i in #ahhf1 #cj4d in #ahij1 and to #bc4h in #aiab4 ,if the city of ,edinburgh is sacrificing at the fountain-head half of its possible population1 the rest of the ,english-speaking race is following hard in its wake4 ,the facts which to-day confront us spell doom4 ,in the year #aiaa the legitimate births in ,england and ,wales numbered #hdc1eje1 but if the birthrate had remained as it was in the years #ahgf-hj1 the number would have been #a1bgc1fih4 ',that is to say1 there was a potential loss to the nation of #dcj1jjj in that one year #aiaa4'a ,in the year #aiad the loss is even greater1 for it amounted to #dfg1hcg4 ,the nation as a whole is now sacrificing every year a third of its possible population4 ,this is surely a terrible fact4 ,the ravages of war1 awful though these ravages have been1 are nothing to the ravages which have been self-inflicted4 ,in the years that are past1 the race recovered from the #d greatest calamities of war and pestilence because there was a power mightier than these--that of the child4 ,the abounding birthrate rapidly replaced the wastage of war4 ,through the greatest calamities the nation ever marched forward on the feet of little children4 ,one generation might be overwhelmed1 but ',away down the river1 ,a hundred miles or more1 ,other little children ,shall bring our boats ashore4' ,but alas6 when the greatest of all calamities has overtaken the race2 when the young1 the noble1 and the brave have lain down in death that the nation might live1 the feet of the little children1 on which erstwhile the race marched forward1 are not there4 ,we have offered them up a sacrifice to ,moloch4 ,,ii ,the nation must be wakened to the dire peril in which the steadily falling birthrate has placed the race4 ,militarism #e slays its thousands2 this has strangled its hundreds of thousands4 ,but no warning note has been sounded by our statesmen4 ,they were doubtless waiting to see6 ,the might of every nation depends on the reservoir of its vitality4 ,let that desiccate and the nation desiccates4 ,of this ,france is the proof4 ,that ,france which1 a hundred years ago1 overran ,europe1 fifty years later lay prostrate under the feet of ,germany4 ,twenty years before that national humiliation1 ,france began to sacrifice her children4 ,lord ,acton pointed out the inevitable result2 the wise of their own number warned them--but ,france went on its way down the slope of moral degeneration4 ,its birthrate fell from #cj4h in #ahba to #bf4b in #ahea1 #be4d in #ahga1 #bb4a in #ahia1 #bj4f in #aija1 and to #ai in #aiad4 ,the result was inevitable4 ,in the race of empire ,france fell slowly back4 ,the alien had to be imported to cultivate her own fair fields4 ,she annexed territories1 but she could #f not colonise them4 ,the prophets who prophesied doom have been abundantly justified4 ,to-day ,france1 risen from the dead1 is wrestling for her life2 she is impotent to drive back the foe without the help of ,britain and ,russia--she who dominated ,europe a century ago6 ,when we read of a ,russian army1 after a journey round half the world1 landing at ,marseilles to take their place in the trenches that ,paris may be saved from the devastators of ,belgium and ,poland1 we see the fields ripe for the harvest of that policy which sacrificed the race to the individual4 ,the hope for ,france is that she will rise from the grave of her degeneration1 new-born4 ,what has happened in ,france is what happened in ,rome long before4 ,it was not because of the inrush of barbaric hosts that ,rome perished1 but because ,rome sacrificed its children4 ,in its golden age1 when luxury clouded the heart1 ,rome began to avoid the responsibilities of family life1 and so sounded the death-knell of its empire4 ,here is ever the source of human #g decay4 ,the most perfect intellectual and aesthetic civilisation ever developed on earth was that of the ancient ,greeks4 ',we know and may guess something more of the reason why this marvellously gifted race declined1' says ,francis ,galton4 ',social morality grew exceedingly lax1 marriage became unfashionable and was avoided2 many of the more ambitious and accomplished women were avowed courtesans and consequently infertile1 and the mothers of the incoming population were of a heterogeneous class4' ,and the misery which lay so heavily on the heart of ,hosea was that ,israel was rushing to destruction because children ceased to be born4 ,national licentiousness produced a diminishing population4 ',and there are no more births1' cries the prophet beholding the coming doom4 ,over us the skies are darkening with the portents of the same doom4 ,for we also have given ourselves to the same degeneration4 ,to ,puritanic ,scotland1 a generation ago1 ,france was oft quoted as a solemn #h warning of the depths to which atheism and materialism bring a nation4 ,to-day ,scotland as a whole is only four points behind ,france in the matter of this degeneration1 and the city of ,edinburgh has outstripped even ,france4 ,and though this policy of the silent nursery and the empty cradle is a policy of racial doom1 the land of the ,covenanters and the capital of ,presbyterianism have made it their own4 ,they have out-,heroded ,herod4 ,,iii ,it is only when this disease1 which is threatening the life of the body-politic1 is probed1 that the full extent of its ravages is manifest4 ,for it is the educated1 the cultured1 and the rich who are eluding the responsibility of parentage1 while the poor and the diseased are still continuing to multiply4 ,in inverse ratio to the income and the size of house is the number of the children4 ,it is the same sad story in every city4 ,in ,london1 the birthrate of ,hampstead1 a suburb mainly inhabited #i by the rich1 fell from #cj4ja in #ahha to #ag4ee in #aiaa1 while that of ,shoreditch1 a working-class district1 only fell in the same period from #ca4cb to #cj4af4 ,in his evidence before the ,birthrate ,commission1 ,dr4 ,chalmers1 the ,medical ,officer of ,health for the city of ,glasgow1 contrasted the birthrate in two of the poor districts of the city with that in two of the best districts4 ,in the two worst wards the birthrate was equal to #afa per thousand married women between the ages of #ae and #de years1 whereas in the two well-to-do wards it was only #cd4b ,in the city of ,aberdeen1 the birthrate in the poor and congested district of ,greyfriars is almost double that of ,rubislaw which includes the best housing in the city4 ,in no city is this grim contrast more marked than in the city of ,edinburgh4 ,when the different districts of ,edinburgh are considered1 it is apparent that in the poor districts the birthrate maintains still some vitality1 but among the #aj well-to-do and the rich it is rapidly diminishing4 ,in the ,canongate district there is a birthrate per thousand of #bd2 in ,gorgie1 #bc4i2 in ,st4 ,leonard's1 #bb4d2 in ,merchiston1 #ab4f2 in ,haymarket1 #aa4e2 and in ,morningside1 #aj4i4 ,in the three districts of ,edinburgh where the wealthy1 the cultured1 and the well-to-do abound1 there the birthrate is but half of those districts where the poor1 the miserable1 and the criminal are congregated in noisome slums4 ,in ,morningside and ,haymarket the birthrate is only a third of what it was in ,scotland in #ahga4 ,these districts of the city have sacrificed two-thirds of their children to their ease4 ,it is among the terraces and squares of the ,west ,ends of great cities1 and among the gardened villas of suburbs that this degeneration has evinced the fulness of its power4 ,where children could grow in health and happiness1 thence selfishness has banished them2 where1 amid squalor1 filth1 and vice they are almost doomed from birth1 there they are multiplied4 ,degeneration always #aa begins at the top1 and works downward4 ,at the top only one-fourth are left2 at the bottom1 two-thirds are still left4 ,but the dry-rot is creeping downward4 ,the lower middle class is following its betters2 and the artisan is following hard after4 ,only in the ,canongate is the shouting of children at play still to be heard1 and there the ,state surrounds the last survivors of the race with every temptation to evil and ruin4 ,this is a grim fact when the future of the race is considered2 and of its grimness there can be no doubt4 ,the vital statistics do not lie1 and they are the proof4 ,there are other proofs4 ,the statistics of baptisms are steadily falling4 ,in many ,west ,end congregations the sacrament of baptism has become a rarity6 ,sunday schools are getting smaller and smaller4 ,the records of seven years 7#aijh-ad7 showed the appalling fact that fourteen of the chief ,free ,church denominations of ,britain have lost #beg1ieb scholars4 ,the materials out of which the ,church #ab was formerly built are crumbling away4 ,empty cradles mean empty ,sunday schools1 empty classes1 and1 ere long1 empty pews4 ,the strangest thing is that in face of the forces that threaten destruction the ,churches are silent--as if mesmerised6 ,in these last years even the church-going population of this country was rapidly reverting to the base conditions in which ,christianity found humanity1 and from which the ,cross in a measure rescued it4 ,and the ,church has lost the power of sounding the trumpet and warning the people of coming judgment4 ,,iv ,when we inquire into the causes of this parlous state to which the race has been brought1 we find that the greatest is self-deception4 ,if men and women realised what they were doing1 they would be horrified4 ,but they don't realise it4 ,they are acting on noble principles6 ,they can provide for and educate two children #ac better than six2 therefore1 in the interests of the race1 they will only have two6 ,one parent wrote to the ,press recently that he could only give a public-school education to one boy1 and therefore he had no more6 ,they have the idea that by coddling the few they will usher in the super-race4 ,in short1 they murder the race1 but they do it on noble principles1 in conformity with the sanctions of religion1 and in the name of the most high ,god6 ,their lives are a direct reversal of the elementary canons of morality2 but they themselves imagine that they are the most perfect products of evolution1 and that they are1 by a process of racial suicide1 bringing the race to its perfection--ushering in the super-race and the super-man4 ,what a false education must that be to which the race is thus sacrificed4 ,education is not a matter of money or accomplishments1 but of wonder1 reverence1 imagination1 and awe4 ,heaven and earth are waiting1 without money or price1 to #ad thrill the young heart with glory and loveliness2 but the poor soul must not be born because he cannot go to ,eton4 ,and the great wide world is calling for men2 provinces added yearly to the ,empire demand men2 great plains wait the spade and the plough2 the realms of ,king ,george have as yet only their fringes occupied1 and the race must produce the men who will go in and possess1 or other races1 not yet tired of life1 will enter in4 ,and yet1 in the name of the race1 the race is being sacrificed4 ,the real root of the evil is selfishness4 ,a generation that sought only its own pleasure refused the burden of parentage4 ,they nursed lap-dogs and preferred bridge to babies4 ,they could not have the luxuries they craved and also nurseries ringing with the joyous voices of children2 and they made their choice4 ,there were found those who called them fashionable2 but nobody will ever call them blessed4 ,and because of that choice families whose names were great in the land are to-day #ae extinct4 ,names which in other days raised those who bore them into the fellowship of high ideals and noble service1 have disappeared for ever1 because a generation which knew no altar at which to worship save the altar of self1 sacrificed even the generations to come at that altar4 ,but there is found some saving grace among them4 ,having silenced the voices of children in their own houses1 they organise societies to care for the children in the slums1 and preserve their precarious lives4 ',in communities like ,letchworth or the ,hampstead ,garden ,suburb1 families of more than two children are rare among the educated classes1 but nearly every one is giving time1 energy1 and money to the reform movements which they believe to be urgently needed in the interests of the community4'#c ,they themselves decline to bear the burden of parentage1 but they are ready to teach the poor the best way of bearing the burden4 ,unconscious that they themselves1 the victims of #af race-weariness and of selfishness1 are in direst need of some mission among them that would quicken them to life1 they organise missions to quicken others4 ,the dead in the valley of the ,dry ,bones organise to reform ,jerusalem6 ,not all the earth can present a stranger spectacle than this--the citizens of the ,west ,ends1 who have sacrificed the race to their own ease1 solicitous over keeping alive the children of the miserable in the slums6 ,their own gardens and nurseries are empty2 but they would keep the children alive in airless1 foetid closes4 ,thus would they condone4 ,but it is no boon to the race to keep alive the children of the diseased and of the unfit2 nor is it a kindness to these children to ensure that they shall grow into the consciousness of the misery into which they are born4 ,the generations of the healthy and the clean have been sacrificed on the altar of selfishness1 and no service at any other altar can ever atone4 #ag ,v ,but it might have been worse with the race than it is even to-day1 for this obsession of racial suicide might have possessed the nation sooner than it did2 and if it had1 then we would truly have been poor indeed4 ,for ,sir ,walter ,scott was the seventh child of his parents2 and it is as certain as most human surmisings1 that if the ideal of life which to-day dominates the professional classes in ,scotland1 had1 in the year #agga1 found sway in the ,college ,wynd of ,edinburgh1 ,walter ,scott would never have been born4 ,john ,wesley was one of nineteen children3 fortunately for the race1 the gospel of the salvation of men through racial limitation had not yet gained devotees in that vicarage where the children were taught to cry quietly6 ,alfred ,tennyson was the third of seven sons1 and if yesterday were as to-day1 then ',in ,memoriam' would never have been written4 ,but now1 alas6 the door #ah is shut against the ,walter ,scotts and ,wesleys of the future4 ,it is unnecessary to multiply instances4 ,any one can see how impoverished the race would have been1 and how different the history of the world1 if the door by which mighty souls become incarnate had been shut by the generations of the past4 ,one has but to think of the world with ,luther1 ,knox1 ,carlyle1 and the prophets shut out4 ,in ,france to-day ,napoleon would never have been born6 ,we can already trace the tracks of the withering blight that has seared humanity4 ,in ,germany idealism is dead1 and there is no prophet either of ,christian love or of self-sacrifice4 ,france trampled upon the ,church because the ,church fought resolutely against the policy of racial suicide and used all its power to save the womanhood of ,france from submitting to degeneration4 ,because the ,church persisted1 ,france 'extinguished the light of heaven1' and no man was found who could rouse the nation to realise its sin and to repent4 #ai ,the prophet who could have done so was doubtless shut out4 ,and among ourselves we can mark the slow ebbing of vision1 of genius1 and of prophetic might4 ,two generations ago one voice could rouse the whole nation and kindle the fire of fierce indignation against the tale of ,balkan atrocities4 ,in our day we beheld the ,armenians massacred again and again2 but there was no voice to rouse the nation to indignation or to action4 ,we could not send the fleet to the mountains of ,ararat1 declared our statesmen1 and we acquiesced4 ,one by one the great leaders1 the poets1 the writers passed into the silence1 and the day of the politician and the time-server had come4 ,did a prophet arise1 we no longer stoned him2 we only meted out to him contumely and neglect4 ,in vain did ,lord ,roberts summon a nation sinking on its lees to arise and quit themselves like men4 ,when the judgment throne of ,god blazed forth in the heavens1 and our startled eyes beheld the sword emerge from the mists that hid heaven #bj from our eyes1 we were engaged in preparations for civil war1 and listening to the low murmur of the toiling masses who threatened social chaos4 ,and there was no man found equal to the task of saving us from ourselves4 ,the men who could have saved us were1 doubtless1 shut out4 ,it is manifest that the richest elements must be lost to any race that limits its own growth4 ,if the sixth and seventh children in a family be the healthiest1 as has been established by investigation1#d then there is no place for the strongest in a family limited to two6 ,thus it comes that we are left to-day without a ,wesley who could kindle the passion of righteousness in the nation's soul2 without a ,scott who could glorify our patriotism2 and without a ,tennyson who could set the hearts athrob4 ,we have as yet produced neither a ,pitt nor a ,wellington4 ,they have been shut out4 ,that is our impoverishment4 ,for great souls will no longer come aboard a world such as this4 #ba ,,vi ,and yet there were those who would have given all they had if to them there were given what these others spurned4 ,they knew that the only abiding joy of life is the joy of little children4 ,but that was denied them4 ,they had boundless capacities of love and of sacrifice1 but the opportunity of development came not to them4 ,few cries can pull at the heartstrings like the cry of the old maid3 ',all day long ,i sit by the window and wait1 ,while the spring winds fling their roses everywhere1 ,and ,i hear the voice of my husband cry at the gate1 ,and the feet of my children tremulous on the stair4 ',hour by hour ,i dream at the window here1 ,while footsteps trip and falter adown the street1 ,and ,i hear my children murmuring1 ,mother1 dear6 ,and the voice of my husband crying1 ,sweet1 oh sweet6' #bb ,but they who had the opportunity went out pursuing the mirage of pleasure1 and they wanted no voices crying ',mother1 mother4' ,and these others were left with their hunger--left to 'clasp air and kiss the wind for ever4' ,for the modest never attained in the days when the vulgar and the blatant received the incense and the crown4 ,it was because the pure were disregarded that the cult of the empty cradle cast the glamour of its degeneration over the land4 ,,vii ,in the so-called dark ages the mother and the child were an object of veneration if not of worship4 ,men thrilled with the sense of the sacredness of life because they feared ,god--the source of life4 ,what the race needs is to go on pilgrimage back to the ,manger--back to the ,child4 ,but1 alas6 the spiritually dead cannot go on pilgrimage4 ,first the dead must be quickened4 ,what we need most of all is to cleanse these self-filled1 soiled hearts in the #bc fountain of self-sacrifice4 ,the soul of the race1 if the race is to be saved1 must go on pilgrimage back to the ,manger--back to the ,mother and the ,child4 ',and he who gives a child a home ,builds palaces in kingdom come4 ,and she who gives a baby birth ,brings ,saviour ,christ again to earth4' ,when1 last winter1 the enemy poured into a trench1 and almost all the defenders were killed1 a ,french sergeant1 grievously wounded1 grasped a rifle and began to shoot1 crying out to his semi-conscious comrades1 ',stand up1 ye dead4' ,at the wild cry the wounded arose1 and the half-dead began to shoot with unsteady hands4 ,by a resurrection from the dead the trench was saved4 ,to a race that has set its face towards decay1 there ringeth from heaven the cry1 ',stand up1 ye dead4' ,it is not yet too late to save the race1 the empire1 and the world4 #a ,the ,declining ,birthrate1 p4 #bdg4 #b ,the ,declining ,birthrate1 p4 #cdc4 #c ,the ,declining ,birthrate1 p4 #ic4 #d ,the ,declining ,birthrate1 p4 #abf4 #bd ,,chapter ,,ii ,,the ,,roots ,,of ,,the ,,evil ,if a disease is to be combated the first thing to be done is to diagnose it4 ,it is only when the destructive powers of an enemy are realised that the full power of a nation is mobilised2 and the moral forces of a nation will only be mobilised for its own salvation when it realises the full sweep of the forces of degeneration which are united for its ethical destruction4 ,hitherto the attitude of society towards the evils which threaten its very existence has been one of assumed ignorance4 ,ostrich-like it buried its head in conventions and was determined not to see4 ,the result has been that the evils grew in an atmosphere of artificial darkness and ignorance1 until to-day the fountains of the national life are at one and #be the same time going through a process of desiccation and of pollution4 ,the elements in society which have in them a promise of strength are limiting their own existence2 the elements which have in them the least promise of vitality are passing on the stream of life diseased alike by inheritance and by infection4 ,it is a disagreeable and distasteful duty to contemplate the foul diseases which prey on the body-politic1 but we must face the duty4 ,we must remove the blinkers which have too long hid from us the sweep of those forces which will inevitably work destruction unless the nation be roused to its peril4 ,i ,it is a startling fact that in the very days when the flower of the manhood of the race is perishing by the hundred thousand on land and sea1 a campaign is being conducted in ,london with the express purpose of preventing the wastage of life being replaced by the advent of life4 ,it is almost incredible that such a #bf thing could be1 but those who carry on the propaganda are not even conscious that they are doing wrong4 ,in this very unconsciousness of evil we see the depths to which the nation is falling4 ,in his evidence submitted to the ,national ,birthrate ,commission1 the secretary of the ,malthusian ,league1 with a frankness which showed that he was thoroughly convinced of the righteousness of the policy he propounded1 gave detailed information regarding the propaganda now being carried on by his society3 ,in the early days of the movement strenuous and1 at first1 successful attempts were made to interest the poorer classes directly4 ,but the opposition which quickly arose rendered the continuance of this policy impracticable1 and it was only at the commencement of #aiac that it was deemed possible to start an open-air campaign in one of the poorest districts of ,south ,london4 ,the response was so gratifying and the demand for practical advice so persistent1 that the ,league #bg determined at an early date thereafter to issue gratuitously a leaflet describing the most hygienic methods of limiting families1 subject to a declaration by applicants that they were over twenty-one years of age1 married or about to be married1 that they were convinced of the justification of family limitation1 and that they held themselves responsible for keeping the leaflet out of the hands of unmarried people under twenty-one years of age4444 ,the applications received show unmistakably that the poor and the debilitated are most anxious to adopt family limitation1 and are deeply grateful for the necessary information4444'#a ,the ,commission naturally asked for a copy of this leaflet4 ',i have some of these practical leaflets here1' answered the witness1 'but ,i have one thing to say about them4 ,that sort of thing has to be done with precautions4 ,it has only been recently issued1 and only those can take it who will sign a #bh declaration that they are either married or about to be married1 and that they consider the artificial limitation of families justifiable4 ,if any of the members here come within that category--that is prejudging the case--they can have it1 otherwise ,i am afraid ,i cannot give it4' ,this is the only touch of comedy in the greatest tragedy of our day4 ,the ,commission of grave and reverend seigneurs were not to be trusted with a leaflet which was circulating gratuitously in ,east ,london4 ,it is manifest that no declaration signed to the contrary will prevent these leaflets passing from hand to hand1 or the information they convey from man to man and woman to woman4 ,there is no limit to the evil wrought by even one such leaflet4 ,down the streets1 by word of mouth1 the secret goes4 ,and wherever it goes1 death begins to reign4 ,and the nation disregards the undermining of its existence4 ,it is not enough that bomb and shell and gas should be laying its manhood low in swathes2 it suffers a campaign #bi in its streets and alleys that wages war on the life that is struggling to be born4 ,if the hands that sway the destiny of the race were not paralysed such a propaganda would not be suffered for a day4 ,the secretary of the ,malthusian ,league made it clear in his evidence that he had a grievance against the educated and leisured classes in this country4 ,it was not the intention of the ,league that its teaching should result in the impoverishment of what is good in humanity4 ,the teaching of eugenics aims at the improvement of the soul of the race by developing the force of heredity and by improving environment4 ,the effect of the ,neo-,malthusian propaganda has been hitherto to discourage worthy parentage1 and to limit the birth of children among the class who would transmit a worthy heredity and could supply a good environment4 ,thus the result has been the very reverse of that aimed at by eugenics4 ,but the ,malthusian ,league is not repentant4 ',notwithstanding the fact that1 in spite #cj of its efforts1 the limitation of families has up to the present been on dysgenic lines1 the ,malthusian ,league cannot profess regret that the limitation has occurred'--thus its secretary4 ,it did not intend that result1 but it does not regret it4 ,it desired to direct its teaching to the poor and enable them to restrict their children1 but the well-to-do classes prevented them4 ',all we could do was continually to direct all our movement to convincing the educated classes of the necessity of so extending it2 but they allowed it to stop at themselves and did not let it go any further4444#b ,i think it would have been far better had they realised that the restriction should have been conveyed to the quarters where it was most needed4' ,the position seems to be this3 ,the upper classes who already had established a monopoly of the good things of this world1 when the teaching of race-limitation came their way1 added this also to their monopoly4 ,having assimilated it1 they kept it to #ca themselves4 ,this was the last fine fruit of their selfishness6 ,but1 now1 the opposition has weakened in a world of greater enlightenment1 and the ,malthusian ,league is determined to resist that selfishness which would keep the good things of this world as the preserve of certain classes4 ,therefore it starts its new campaign in ,south ,london4 ',we know that the want of restriction among the poorest grade is enormously due to ignorance1' says its secretary4 ',it is clear1 therefore1 that if such knowledge is available to them it will conduce to more restriction in those quarters than at present4' ,having achieved what it did not intend--having silenced the voices of children in ,park ,lane and ,belgravia--the ,malthusian ,league is now determined to achieve what it intended--silence the voices of children in ,lambeth and ,poplar6 ,,ii ,when the arguments on which the ,malthusian ,league base their propaganda #cb are considered1 they are at once revealed to be the fruit of false reasoning and of ignorance4 ,neo-,malthusianism is based on the principle that poverty1 disease1 and premature death can only be eliminated by restricting the increase of the population4 ,as disease and premature death are largely due to poverty1 the problem is how to eliminate poverty4 ,it is1 however1 manifest to any one who considers the sources of the world's food supply that these sources could provide food for a population many times greater than that at present inhabiting this planet4 ,the vast territories of the ,british ,empire are at present only occupied along their fringes4 ,the most fertile regions--the vast spaces of ,africa watered by noble rivers--cry out for the spade and the plough4 ,canada is doubling its wheat supply every few years4 ,counties at home1 lying derelict1 are waiting for intensive cultivation4 ,the remedy for poverty is a right distribution of the world's food1 and a right direction of the energies of men towards the production #cc of food4 ,when life is directed to its primary object1 the production of food1 then the greater the wealth of life the greater will be the food supply4 ,the true wealth of a nation is therefore its life4 ,but the ,neo-,malthusians are incapable of regarding life with anything but a jaundiced eye4 ,if anywhere life should be desired it should surely be in ,australia1 where a population only equal to that of ,scotland inhabit a continent4 ,but even there the ,neo-,malthusians will have nothing but restriction4 ,the birthrate in ,australia has descended to #aj per thousand1 but the ,neo-,malthusians regard that with satisfaction4 ',what ,i am absolutely certain of is that no country can1 from year to year1 increase the amount which it produces by enough to hold all the people that can be born1 and ,australia apparently has just got to the point2 its birthrate has just descended to #aj per thousand1 but there has been a correlation between the birthrate and deathrate4444 ,i do admit that1 at the present moment1 it #cd has just got to the point of balance4' ,the hollowness of an argument such as that is apparent when it is remembered that the wheat crop of ,canada in #aiae was more than #ej per cent4 higher than that of #aiaa4 ,canada in five years increased its food supply by half2 it is impossible in five years for the birthrate to increase the population by half4 ,canada has done even more1 for since #aija it has increased its wheat supply by #abe per cent41 and its population is only two per square mile4 ,yet in the vast empty territories of ,australia and ,canada the ,neo-,malthusian would spread his propaganda6 ,what is manifest is that if teaching such as that of the ,neo-,malthusians be the ideal adopted by the people of this ,empire and the ,dominions beyond the sea1 then the ,empire is doomed4 ,australia has laid it down as an unalterable policy that the continent shall be a white-man country4 ,how can that policy hold in ,australia with a birthrate of #aj and in ,new ,zealand with a birthrate of #i #ce per thousand8 ,the abounding birthrate of ,japan and ,china demands an outlet4 ,if the men of ,british race succumb to race-weariness and adhere to the policy of racial suicide1 they must give place to those that are not yet weary of life4 ,it will be impossible for any race in the future to hold territories which they cannot occupy1 and lands which they cannot replenish or cultivate4 ,and1 yet1 in the region of empty spaces1 the ,neo-,malthusian regards racial limitation with satisfaction4 ',when the birthrate stood at that level #ai to #bj per thousand in ,ontario1 was that a desirable level for ,ontario 444 being a young country with plenty of room for expansion8' was one of the questions addressed to the secretary of the ,malthusian ,league4 ',i am quite decided ,ontario should at present have only that birthrate1' was the answer4 ,surely human folly has seldom transcended this4 ,but the ,neo-,malthusian has another argument to support his delusions4 ,it is #cf that the lowering of the birthrate leads to the lowering of the deathrate1 and thus that there is no decrease in the population4 ,it was on this ground that the secretary of the ,malthusian ,league justified the restriction of births even in ,ontario4 ',when ,ontario did increase its birthrate1 its deathrate increased2 it gained no increase of population thereby1 so ,i am absolutely definite in that case4' ,but the ,superintendent of ,statistics1 ,dr4 ,stevenson1 promptly pricked that bubble4 ,the alleged increase of the deathrate in ,ontario was due to a miscalculation4 ,the increase in #aiaa of the population was underestimated4 ,the population in ,ontario increased in #aiaa to #b1ebc1jjj2 the birthrate went up from #ba4aj to #bd4g1 and the deathrate came down #ad4j to #ab4f4 ,so far from the increased birthrate in ,ontario producing an increased deathrate1 it brought with it a diminished deathrate4 ,at the touch of reality the edifice of the ,neo-,malthusian crumbles into sand4 ,he is not deficient in patriotism2 for he says so4 #cg ',we probably should get more colonising and more efficient colonisers if we had a smaller birthrate1' declared the secretary of the ,malthusian ,league4 ,empty cradles are going to populate the ,empire6 ,there is surely no limit to the faculty of human self-deception4 ,,iii ,though the arguments of the ,neo-,malthusians be fallacious1 and the basis of their teaching illusionary1 yet they have gained the allegiance of a vast portion of the population of the ,empire4 ,a birthrate lowered by half in some cities1 and by a third over the whole of the nation1 testifies to the withering blight which has passed over the race4 ,in a little while ,britain will be as ,france--its population stationary4 ,we have yet a little way to go ere we have reduced the birthrate to the level of ,australia1 #aj per thousand2 but we are on the way to it4 ,when that day draws near there will be no more emigrants available for the territories that we hold2 #ch and the door of ,australia must open to the yellow races4 ,a race that chooses death can no longer shape or mould the issues of life4 ,the statistics which abound in the ,report are as the ringing of a passing bell4 ,but far more alarming than the mere statement that the race is now sacrificing a third of its children is the fact that this limitation has not yet come to its full development4 ,the stage which is now attained is that a vast majority of the educated classes sacrifice the race to their self-indulgence4 ,the figures given in a booklet entitled ,the ,small ,family ,system show that 'in the ,fabian ,society in about #ij per cent4 of the more recent marriages they have voluntarily restricted4' ,the super-intelligent of the ,socialists have set their faces towards the drying up of life's sources4 ,the evidence amply proves that everywhere 'the size of the family tends to vary inversely as the social status of the parents4' ,the figures provided by the ,registrar-,general for #ci ,england and ,wales showing the births classified according to the occupation of the father1 are as follows3 ,births per #ajjj married males aged under #ee years1 ,social ,class including retired4 #a4 ,upper and middle class 4 4 4 4 4 #aai #b4 ,intermediate 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 #acb #c4 ,skilled workmen 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 #aec #d4 ,intermediate class 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 #aeh #e4 ,unskilled workmen 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 #bac ,the race is now being carried on mainly by the poorest classes of the population4 ,but1 when the ,neo-,malthusians have carried out to the full that campaign on which they have now entered2 when the faith in life which the poor have not yet lost1 shall at last be undermined2 when it will be true of ,poplar as of ,belgravia1 and of the ,canongate as of the ,west ,end1 that having a family is no longer a ,british ideal--what then is to become of the race and the ,empire8 ,what we must realise is that this process of racial destruction will steadily go on working down the social #dj scale until the race is doomed--unless the conscience of the race be roused and the forces of degeneration routed4 ,nobody has studied the whole problem with more thoroughness than ,dr4 ,j4 ,w4 ,ballantyne of ,edinburgh4 ',if this voluntary restriction has begun in one group of society1' says ,dr4 ,ballantyne1 'it has not expended itself yet upon the other groups 444 it is working its way1 one might almost say1 as a leaven1 it has not yet reached the larger groups of people1 and therefore ,i expect the fall in the birthrate to go on4' ,in the present miasma which has fallen on the race1 when women have become 'less scrupulous1' and doctors advise with greater and greater frequency the restriction of birth1 ,dr4 ,ballantyne can only summon us to 'bring up the reserves and strengthen the recruits4' ,life has ceased to be desired2 its continuance is no longer 'convenient4' ,it is inevitable that1 unless a change comes in the spirit of our day1 the process of decay will go steadily on4 #da ,,iv ,it is a repulsive picture this which grows before our eyes2 but there are blacker shades still--so black that one can only indicate them and pass on4 ,so far we have only considered the restricted birthrate as the result of the teaching of ,neo-,malthusianism2 but there is a further restriction which even the ,neo-,malthusian condemns--the destruction of the unborn life4 ,the best way to indicate this1 the blackest of all the signs of moral decay1 is to quote here and there from the ,report4 ,witness--,the ,,lord ,,bishop ,,of ,,southwark4 ,question--,it is your general experience1 my lord1 that there is among the working-classes1 so far as you can judge1 a larger amount of abortion than the use of anti-conceptions8 ,answer4--,that is what ,i should say4 ,dr4 ,scharlieb4--,they say that there are five abortions to every one live birth4 #db ,the ,lord ,bishop of ,southwark did not hesitate to declare that the destruction of unborn life in ,south ,london 'betrays instincts which are worse than the savage4' ,witness--,sir ,,thomas ,,oliver1 ,m4,d41 ,,ll4,d41 ,b4,sc41 of ,newcastle-upon-,tyne4 ,witness4--,the waste of infant life was enormous owing to the expectant mother miscarrying4444 ,for twopence a woman might purchase sufficient 444 to cause her to miscarry1 while she at the same time might imperil her own life4444 ,witness--,dr4 ,,amand ,,routh1 ,m4,d4 ,witness4--,my main contention was in regard to the enormous antenatal mortality4444 ,the number of abortions is about four times as great as the still-birth4444 ,assuming that the still-births are #c per cent41 and the abortions #ab per cent41 the two together are #ae per cent4 ,of the mass of evidence regarding this terrible aspect of the national life1 these quotations must suffice4 ,the public conscience has1 in this last generation1 become so deadened on the part of masses of the #dc people that life is no longer sacred4 ',it is always a great comfort to me1' says ,dr4 ,amand ,routh1 'that it is criminal as well as wrong--that one can show that the law considers it to be murder4' ,to escape from inconvenience1 to secure freedom from responsibility1 to attain untrammelled devotion to pleasure--the weapon of murder is freely used4 ,one of the witnesses1 ,mrs4 ,burgwin1 told the ,commission an experience4 ',when ,i went to ,moscow1' says ,mrs4 ,burgwin1 ',i went to see the great ,foundling ,hospital 444 and ,i felt very ashamed when ,i came away1 because ,i said to a ,russian doctor there1 ,you know this is very serious2 you have got a couple of thousand illegitimate children1 and by bringing them into a place like this you are only encouraging illegitimacy6 ,and he said to me1 ,well1 ,mrs4 ,burgwin1 is not that better than what you do in ,england8 ,there1 even your married people murder the children4' #dd ,v ,there is another cause of the falling birthrate which ,i will only indicate4 ,however necessary it may be to look facts in the face1 there are facts so ugly that they do not bear even contemplation4 ,one great cause of the fall in the birthrate is the social disease4 ,one or two quotations must suffice4 ',i hold1' says ,dr4 ,ballantyne1 'that in a given family1 if syphilis enters it1 it is the most deadly thing for the future of that family4' ',have you any idea about the proportion of antenatal deaths which are due to syphilis8' ',of course1 one's idea is1' answered ,dr4 ,amand ,routh1 'that it is an enormous proportion--perhaps one-fourth4444' ',dr4 ,willey was of opinion that probably #cb4h per cent4 of the total still-births were due to syphilis4' ',i would hold the view that it is a considerable proportion1' says ,dr4 ,ballantyne1 #de 'founding upon ,fournier's evidence in ,france1 where he speaks broadly of families being swept out of existence before birth by syphilis4' ',we have been recently told that there are #ejj1jjj fresh cases of syphilis yearly in this country and three times that number of cases of gonorrhea4' ,it is the opinion of ,sir ,william ,osler that of all the killing diseases syphilis comes third or fourth4#c ',while we have been unable1' says the ,commission on the subject1 'to arrive at any positive figures1 the evidence we have received leads us to the conclusion that the number of persons who have been infected with syphilis1 acquired or congenital1 cannot fall below #aj per cent4 of the whole population in the large cities1 and the percentage affected with gonorrhea must greatly exceed this proportion4' ,regarding all that1 one can only re-echo the words of ,sir ,thomas ,barlow3 ',i think it is terrible4'#d #df ,it is only when the after-effects of these diseases are considered that the full measure of the peril which they create is realised4 ,they not only lead to an enormous loss of child life1 but they also undermine the health of those on whom they have fastened their fangs1 transmitting the misery even to the third generation4 ,the evidence shows that more than half the cases of blindness among children are the result of these diseases in the parents4 ,out of #aajj children in the ,london ,county ,council ,blind ,schools at least #ee4f per cent4 were clearly attributable to this cause4 ,in adult life this evil is responsible for diseases which often manifest themselves after many years1 such as general paralysis1 affections of the brain and spinal cord1 and epilepsy4 ,it is because the people have been left in ignorance as to the terrible consequences not only to themselves but to their children1 that the welfare and happiness of life are thus sacrificed to sin4 ',it is one of the few diseases which #dg are hereditary1' writes ,sir ,malcolm ,morris1 'and in the hereditary form its effects are even more disastrous than in the acquired variety4444 ,many of its innocent victims die in the first few months of life from meningitis1 hydrocephalus1 convulsions1 and other affections2 if they survive they are liable to recrudescences of the disease up to the twentieth year or even later4 ,growth is checked1 vitality depressed1 intelligence stunted2 hideous deformities may be produced1 sight and hearing may be destroyed1 and the central nervous system may be involved1 with results similar to those which supervene in adults4 ,what a story of mutilation and massacre of the innocents6'#e ,when these results are considered1 there comes a feeling of amazement that a nation should suffer such plagues to afflict its vitality without putting forth every effort to stamp them out4 ,the nation which has become thus afflicted by its own vices must have sunk to a depth which #dh may well fill the observer with consternation4 ,and the remedies which are proposed will only deliver the people from the consequences of their acts--they will not cure the disease itself4 ,the only salvation lies in the ideal of the pure heart once more shining forth before the eyes of man4 ,the law of ,god decrees that sin be punished2 and deliverance for humanity from punishment can only come by conformity to the law of ,god4 ,but this is not how we now regard it4 ,we have set ourselves to combat the social disease not because vice is hateful but that in the future vice may become safe4 ,when we shall have attained our end the shadows shall have gathered in deeper blackness4 ,the few remaining stars shall be blotted out4 ,,vi ,such1 in bold outline1 are the forces which threaten the continuance and the well-being of the race4 ,on the altar of degeneration ,england and ,wales offered #di up in the year #aiad over #fjj1jjj children4#f ,who can compute the laughter and joyousness1 the happiness and the riches thus consumed at the shrine of our self-indulgence8 ,and every sign points to this vast sacrifice of life increasing with the years4 ,for we are emancipated2 and we smile at any restraint emanating from--,god6 ,science has delivered us from that4 ,we know it now--the voice of law is only the echo of outworn superstitions4 ,and science1 which has broken the chain of restraint1 and which has provided the means for gratifying desire without incurring responsibility1 has blessed us also with the high-explosive shell4 ,this great deliverer--science--has put into our hands the power of pruning life at both ends4 ,if the world is to find salvation through the absence of life--then1 salvation is at the gate4 ,in other days it gave #ej our fathers a shudder to read of the moral depravity of ,home ere the scourge of ,god fell on it4 ,the old ,romans can1 alas6 cause us to shudder no longer4 ,we have improved upon them4 ,science has helped us greatly1 and with its aid we can sound depths of depravity the ,roman never reached4 ,the triumphs of science have in our hands become instruments of an immorality which would have made even heathen ,rome shudder4 ,and as yet we are only at the top of the declivity4 ,the momentum of our descent is gathering force with the years4 ,it may be asserted that this view is alarmist1 and that1 however bad our state1 we are better than ,germany4 ,no thought of an enemy from without need1 therefore1 mar our satisfaction in our swift declension into the morass of vice4 ,that comparison may be granted3 we are better than ,germany1 though ,germany has not yet sacrificed her children in such hecatombs as we have done4 ,but what we have to consider is not the birthrate in #ea relation to that of ,germany but in relation to the extent of the earth surface which owns our sway4 ,the end of the war will find ,germany confined within narrow borders with all her colonies gone4 ,the ,germany of to-morrow will have no room for racial expansion4 ,but we own the fourth of the world's surface4 ,that vast territory calls to us for men4 ,and if we individually choose our own selfish ease1 and sacrifice the generations to come1 we shall have failed in our imperial calling4 ,we may win an empire on the battlefield2 we will inevitably lose it in the silent nursery4 ,not in relation to this or that earthly factor has this question to be considered4 ,it is in relation to the ,moral ,order of the universe that we must face it4 ,the unseen ,power that reigns is a ,moral ,power4 ,somewhere in this universe1 ,righteousness is throned4 ,whatever race in the past surrendered to evil and made degeneracy its god--upon that race the judgment of the consuming sword fell4 ,though the #eb judgment often tarried1 it always fell4 ,as one considers the moral condition to which we have come1 the worse condition to which we are hastening1 the destruction which befell those of old in whose footsteps we are now treading1 the dust accumulated on buried cities and vanished races who made their pleasure their god1 and the flaming of the sword wherewith ,god removed in all ages the cankerous growth from the body of humanity1--the question leaps forth3 ,how can we escape the righteous judgment of ,god8 ,will there be found a place of repentance for us who have sacrificed the child of flesh and blood to the calf of gold#g and have surrendered ourselves to the sensuous delights of worshipping at our chosen idol's shrine8 ,unless the nation finds the place of repentance1 it needs no prophet to foretell the end4 ,for we have been living for more than a generation a life 'such as ,god has never suffered man to lead on earth long1 which ,he has always #ec crushed out by calamity or revolution4' ,and the startling fact is this--that when the judgment of ,god befell1 it was on men unconscious that they were being judged4 ,they came to the ,great ,white ,throne and never discerned it2 they reached the end and never knew it to be the end4 ,thus they perished--,babylon and ,rome alike4 ,and we are as they4 ,the judgment-seat is visible in the heavens1 but our eyes never turn to it2 amid the crash of the world's civilisation we hear no voice calling to repentance4 #a ,the ,declining ,birthrate1 p4 #ij4 #b ,p4 #abe4 #c ,report of ,royal ,commission on ,v4 ,d41 p4 #bc4 #d ,ibid41 p4 #ee4 #e ,the ,nineteenth ,century and ,after1 ,april #aiaf4 #f ,the ,declining ,birthrate1 p4 #bdh3-- ,deaths in antenatal period 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 #ach1bdi ,fewer births owing to reduced birthrate 4 4 #dfg1hcg ------- ,total loss for #aiad 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 #fjf1jhf #g ,see pp4 #he-hh4 #ed ,,chapter ,,iii ,,the ,,empty ,,countryside ,in the past the decay of civilisation has been heralded by the decay of the country-side4 ,when the cities had sucked the life of the plains and valleys dry1 then came the end4 ,it was thus with ,israel4 ,out of the villages and farms nestling in valleys the people were driven into cities by the rapacity of men eager to be rich4 ,this was the burden that weighed on the prophets1 ',woe unto them that join house to house1 that lay field to field till there be no room4' ,when in the country places there was no room for the common folk1 then national decay ensued in ,israel4 ,it was so also in ,rome4 ,the day came when one magnate owned the 'territories of whole tribes' and left them 'to be trampled under foot by herds or ravaged by wild beasts1' or garrisoned them 'with slave #ee prisons or citizens held in bondage1' and ,rome sucked dry the rural life of ,italy and of the lands washed by the ,mediterranean4 ,therewith paralysis seized the greatest of the world-empires4 ,in every age overgrown cities have proved themselves the graveyards of civilisation4 ,and the primary cause of the evils which now threaten us is that we have made the countryside waste4 ,counties and parishes have been depleted of life that cities might grow more and more4 ,it has been calculated that nine out of ten families in ,england have migrated to the city in the last three generations4 ,in and around ,glasgow half of the population of ,scotland is concentrated4 ,three-fourths of the whole population of ,scotland has been massed in the industrial belt of country that lies between the ,forth and ,clyde estuaries1 and which includes ,edinburgh and ,glasgow and the towns round which are centred the iron and coal industries4 ,we have driven our manhood and womanhood out of the sunshine #ef and the clean air and the silent spaces into the foetid1 sunless closes of monstrous cities4 ,there the clanging of machinery leaves no place where the soul can be still4 ,and upon us has fallen the woe declared against those who devastate the quiet places1 adding field to field1 until there is no room for the poor4 ,i ,the greatest tragedy of our day is that the ,english race which has conquered the fourth of the world's area has lost its own land4 ,in the course of a hundred years the spoliation of well-nigh the whole nation has been consummated4 ,the villages and rural parishes of ,england which once teemed with life are left to decay4 ,the life and the wealth which reared the parish churches of ,england--those monuments of vanished piety and of forgotten arts--and which produced with skilled handicraft the 'ornaments and church furniture1 bells and candlesticks1 crosses and organs1 and tapestry and banners1' have ebbed away1 leaving behind them only a #eg memory4 ,the world can nowhere show a desolation such as has overtaken rural ,england4 ,elsewhere1 be it ,france or ,germany1 ,serbia or ,bulgaria1 the cottages are scattered over close-tilled land1 and the labour of man is rewarded by the earth yielding its increase4 ,but ,england presents the spectacle of decayed cottages1 of vast spaces 'laid down to grass1' of stately houses with the silence of tree-shaded parks round about them1 and of a land which yields no longer food but sport4 ',as things go now1' writes an observer1 'we shall have empty fields1 except for a few shepherds and herdsmen in all the green of ,england4' ,in his book1 ,the ,condition of ,england1 ,mr4 ,c4 ,f4 ,g4 ,masterman has presented a picture of rural decay which is steeped in tears4 ',a peasantry1 unique in ,europe in its complete divorce from the land1 lacking ownership of cottage or tiniest plot of ground1 finds no longer any attraction in the cheerless toil of the agricultural labourer upon scant weekly wages'--thus ,mr4 ,masterman4 ,if #eh the life-blood of a nation be derived from the clean countryside1 then ',england is bleeding at the arteries1 and it is her reddest blood which is flowing away4' ,it is to the ,moloch of an industrial civilisation that this sacrifice of life has been made4 ,the desolation was wrought because men1 in their haste to become rich1 were blind to the true values of labour4 ,they forgot that the primary work of man is to produce food1 and that upon the production of food the whole structure of the commonwealth depends4 ,cities endure because1 far beyond their ken1 the land yields wheat and fruit and supports wandering herds4 ,all other work is parasitic2 that work alone is essential4 ,but a perverted civilisation sacrificed the primary to the parasitic1 and poured its rewards into the lap of the workers who added nothing to the world's true riches4 ,the road to success and honour lay only through the city4 ,formerly the gentleman was he who tilled the ground2 in our day the man who ploughs and reaps #ei is deemed a boor4 ,clean hands and clean linen are now the badges of a gentleman4 ,the sense of the dignity of making the soil yield its riches has vanished from among us4 ,everything is ordered that the stream of life from the fields and the open sky into the barracks of sooty1 squalid cities may swell into an ever-increasing river4 ,we had only one ideal and that was cheap food4 ,other nations carefully conserved the workers of the soil and protected them from a competition that might deprive them of the reward of their labour4 ,during the last fifty years1 while our population has rapidly increased1 our agricultural population has been diminished by a million workers4 ,a hundred years ago we had #i1jjj1jjj acres producing wheat1 to-day we have only #a1hjj1jjj wheat-growing acres4 ,we have indeed sacrificed our true life4 ,in the whole of the ,british ,empire1 covering a quarter of the globe1 the total white population living on the land is only #ac1jjj1jjj1 whilst that of ,germany alone1 working the land and #fj living by it1 has risen to #bj1jjj1jjj4 ,we had one watchword which stirred our blood--the cheap loaf6 ,the meaning of the watchword was hid from us4 ,for the cheap loaf meant cheap labour1 and cheap labour meant ever-increasing riches to the exploiters of toiling masses in the lamp-lit cities4 ,but the 'cheap loaf' meant for the country places which yielded it1 that the husbandman could not live by his labour4 ,floods of oratory were poured forth2 under the guise of philanthropy the ideal of cheap food was held up in palpitating periods by capitalists who reaped their sure reward in labour correspondingly cheap1 and the fields of ,england were steadily laid down to 'twitch and thistle4' ,a generation wrought this desolation1 unconscious of the desolation that it wrought4 ,the agricultural labourer became at last obsessed by the watchword which wrought his ruin4 ,even ,mr4 ,masterman records with sympathy1 if not with satisfaction1 the attitude of the farm labourer to the new 'fiscal reform4' #fa ',oh dear6' is his comment1 'we want no taxes on food4' ,we destroyed him1 but we did it so skilfully1 and with so splendidly assumed an air of philanthropy1 that the worker on the land did not even recognise the instrument wherewith we destroyed him4 ,he has been the victim of political factions--of politicians who have sacrificed the ,state to party4 ,the ,conservatives not unnaturally made the monopoly in land a tenet of their faith1 and resisted every claim on the part of the poor to call any portion of ,england1 however small1 their own2 the ,liberals made the policy of ,free ,trade an inviolable doctrine1 and though that policy mainly enriched the capitalist1 they assumed in its support the semblance of enthusiasm for humanity1 if not of the passion of religion4 ,but between the two1 as between the upper and nether millstone1 the rural population of ,england has been ground to powder4 ,not for the first time in history the desolation of a kingdom has been wrought by time-serving politicians4 #fb ,and with the devastation which our national policy thus wrought in the countryside there passed away1 slowly but steadily1 the ancient landowners4 ,these men had in their veins the life-blood of ,england2 they built up the ,empire and sent forth their sons to be the 'frontiersmen of all the world4' ,innumerable ties bound them to the people4 ,squire and peasant were at one in love of the land1 and each knew that his welfare was bound up with that of the other4 ,but the lands had to be sold1 and the new-rich came from the cities and replaced the aristocracy of the countryside4 ,they had no ties binding them to the sons of the soil4 ,they knew not the traditions to which the landlord and tenant were loyal4 ,they only sought to transplant a bit of the city into the heart of the country4 ,it was then that the country folk awoke to the insecurity of their lives4 ,at a word they were sent forth homeless wanderers4 ,the hint of a right to be vindicated brought down unemployment and eviction on the head of #fc ,england's freedmen4 ,the cottager in the country could no longer call his soul his own4 ,in the city he could at least call his thoughts his own1 and he could give them utterance in stumbling words without incurring the risk of being made homeless4 ,no wonder the rural labourer escaped for his life4 ,the nation1 as usual1 awoke too late to the realisation of its ebbing life4 ,it began to make provision for the people of ,england acquiring a moiety of the land of ,england4 ,but it is easy to turn a smiling land into a wilderness2 to convert the wilderness back into a garden is the baffling problem4 ',to-day1' writes ,mr4 ,masterman1 'land is being slowly and laboriously offered to the people1 a generation after the people who once hungered for that offer have flung themselves into the cities or beyond the sea4' ,any parvenu can sweep the population of a parish forth into ,poplar and ,lambeth2 it may well pass the wit of man to bring their children back from ,poplar and ,lambeth to the land4 #fd ,,ii ,to-day four-fifths of the population of ,england is crowded in cities1 and there they are left 'to soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime4' ,in ,scotland the same forces have been at work with the same result4 ,parishes of soil as fertile as is in the world are to be found in the occupation of half a dozen farmers1 some of whom hold two or more farms4 ,land which might hold hundreds of families1 if the land were available for the people as in ,france1 is empty save for a handful of farmers and their servants4 ,though great markets are at the door waiting the produce of intensive cultivation1 the small holder is crowded out4 ,denmark pours into our cities the produce which the monopoly in land prevents being supplied at home4 ,holland feeds us in time of peace and our enemies in time of war4 ,that the ,danes and the ,dutch may have stores wherewith to feed our foes1 the fields of ,england are laid waste4 #fe ,the only life now left in the country is the ebb and flow of the overflow from the cities4 ,germany and ,austria have withstood a two years' blockade1 because the land is there kept under cultivation and yields the necessaries of life4 ,our enemies have not been blind to a nation's true riches4 ,did we lose the command of the sea for a few weeks1 there would be no escape from destruction4 ,for we have sacrificed our bread supply to the production of ,brummagem wares4 ,but there has been in ,scotland an additional element of tragedy in the rural situation which has not been manifested in ,england1 at least on so large a scale4 ,whole parishes have in the ,highlands during the last century been laid waste by wholesale ruthless evictions4 ,behind the processes which have made the glens and mountain slopes desolate of men1 and which have massed a million of human beings into a city of restricted area such as ,glasgow1 piling them1 family on the top of family1 in noisome tenements1 there lies #ff perhaps the greatest tragedy of the nineteenth century4 ,and that tragedy is all the more poignant in that it has been wrought in silence1 none paying it any heed4 ,glens filled with men have been transformed into desert places filled with sheep or deer1 and that at the will of one man1 while statesmen paid no heed and the world took no cognisance4#a ,for were not these things done beyond the ,grampians8 ,and what happened there was of no consequence4 ,it is almost incredible that1 during the last century1 glens and countrysides in ,scotland were stripped bare of human beings by wholesale eviction4 ,the thought of these poor thatched houses burning #fg and the people driven away to find refuge where they could--in the slums of ,glasgow or across the seas--is to our minds so intolerable that many will deny such crimes were ever perpetrated4 ,yet they were perpetrated4 ,the hearthstones on which the peat fires unceasingly burned1 which for generations had never grown cold1 were left to the rain and the snow4 ,some parishes were laid wholly waste4 ,in one such parish which ,i know1 out of which sixty-one officers bearing their ,king's commission went forth to fight in the ,napoleonic wars1 there has gone forth hardly one officer to-day4 ,where hundreds were found of old in the day of need1 a mere handful of ghillies or shepherds is found to-day who can take up arms4 ,for that parish which gave ,scotland the greatest family of preachers and leaders in religious and social movements was laid ruthlessly waste1 and the parish minister1 who held all the honours which his ,church and country could bestow on him1 was left in his manse solitary #fh amid the wilderness which greed created1 to die of a broken heart4 ,that most beautiful of islands--the ,isle of ,skye--sent forth #ba generals1 #dh colonels1 #fjj commissioned officers1 #aj1jjj soldiers to fight in the great wars for human freedom against the ,corsican2 to-day the ,isle of ,skye can scarcely muster #ajjj in the greatest crisis of human history4 ,one parish in the western sea-board which sent #bjj men to fight for freedom in the ,napoleonic wars to-day could only muster six2 for the parish fell into the hands of a man who wanted a deer forest for the passing of his leisure hours4 ,these figures are but representative of what has happened all over the ,british ,isles4 ,an old man1 who was carried as a child in the corner of a plaid out of his native glen when the cataclysm of eviction burst on the unbelieving crofters and cottars1 while cottage after cottage was given to the flames1 when asked what he remembered about it1 answered3 ',i can see yet the smoke rising to heaven2 and ,i can hear #fi the sound of weeping down the glen4' ,in my boyhood's days ,i heard an old man speaking of the townships of his youth being laid waste1 and he said3 ',i remember it as one remembers things seen in a dream4' ,there are many books in which those who may desire can inform themselves of the depths to which it is possible for greed and tyrannous power to bring men who have no ideal but the gratification of their desires4 ,the cruelties and the wrongs perpetrated in the ,scottish ,highlands on a loyal and law-abiding people can only be paralleled by the atrocities of the slave traders in ,africa4 ,they would be unbelievable were it not that the ,state suffered the same processes in a gradual and less dramatic form to accomplish the same ends in ,england4 ,the only difference was that the ,scottish evictor concentrated in one day of sword and fire the desolating work which in ,england and in ,lowland ,scotland was diffused over many years4 ,whether the result be that of a day or of #gj a hundred years1 the folly and the guilt are the same4 ,the same fate as overtook rural ,england and ,scotland has in even more fateful degree overtaken ,ireland4 ,the vast majority of the ,irish are now outwith their native isle4 ,in the ,ireland of to-day only the derelicts are left4 ,throughout the length and breadth of the three kingdoms1 the country places in which strong men were reared have been made desolate that cities in which men decay might extend and enlarge their slums4 ,,iii ,in this devastation of the country places the abnormal process of eviction played but a small part compared with the normal processes which worked steadily for the emptying of the country and for the growth of the city4 ,a blinded legislature sacrificed everything to the growth of an industrial civilisation4 ,what the ruling classes wanted was the increased prosperity of ,glasgow and ,birmingham2 it mattered nothing though the #ga country-folk perished4 ,they had1 however1 some consideration for the countrysides4 ,they caused schools to be built everywhere at the expense of landlords and tenants4 ,but in these schools they caused nothing to be taught but the dates of battles and the names of rivers4 ,in them there was nothing taught of the wonder of growing life1 of the miracle of earth pouring food into the lap of men1 of the glory and beauty of the greening earth1 or of the dignity of breaking up the fallow ground4 ,i say1 nothing of worth was taught in these schools--nothing1 except what roused an unhealthy craving for the life that could be lived with unsoiled hands6 ,and for the support of these schools one lady who owned a large estate in the west had to sell her jewels that she might pay the school rate1 and tenants parted with their stock for the same end4 ,for the ,state had decreed that the country places should pay for the support of those processes which were to work their own desolation4 ,landlords were #gb made bankrupt and tenants ruined that bloated cities might grow more and more4 ,every development of the great national machinery designed for the intellectual illumination of the people has wrought more and more desolation in the country places4 ,the last of these has been the worst4 ,in ,scotland the parish school since the days of ,knox was the centre of intellectual activity1 and the parish schoolmasters were able to send their scholars straight to the ,university4 ,but the pundits at last decreed that this must cease4 ,secondary education was banished from the parish schools4 ,the teachers who formerly had scope for1 and joy in1 the higher spheres of teaching were consigned one and all to the withered fields of elementary education4 ,all the secondary teaching was concentrated in the towns where central schools were established1 to which promising children who desired such training were collected4 ,the result has been disastrous4 ,the light of higher education in each rural #gc parish has been quenched4 ,the secondary education has been concentrated in towns1 and only a few parents could face the additional burden of providing lodgings for their children4 ,the pundits made no provision for the proper accommodation for boys and girls at the most critical period of their lives4 ,no hostels were built for them4 ,in insanitary villages they were left to whatever provision decayed houses could provide for them4 ,in these schools religious and moral training was banned4 ,after school hours boys and girls1 removed from the salutary influences of their homes1 were left to the social joys of the street corners4 ,the main industry of many of these towns was that of the hotel and public-house4 ,the result has been that a large proportion of boys and girls who in the shelter of their homes would have grown into a worthy and useful citizenship have been utterly ruined4 ,the system was devised that the few might be pushed up the ladder into the region of the higher #gd knowledge1 leaving all record of ,god and moral duty behind with their elementary textbooks2 and no provision whatever was made to safeguard them1 in the course of the giddy ascent1 from toppling over and falling into the mud4 ,and the great system1 instead of elevating1 crashed them into the mire4 ,and this devastating process still goes on4 ,the rising generation in the country places in ,scotland are made unfit for country life by a false education1 and1 through its neglect of their higher needs1 many of them are ruined4 ,a nation that spends five millions a day on war would not in its education system provide for the social and moral needs of its sons and daughters4 ,it sacrificed everything to the brain4 ,and the result has been desolation in many a family in ,scotland in lonely glens and by the sea4 ,our education machinery has1 in truth1 been ,prussianised1 and in the process the soul has been grievously wounded4 ,the class that provided the ministers of religion in wide stretches of ,scotland1 provides #ge them no more4 ,a generation of boys left to the moral influences of the street corners1 undisciplined and disregarded1 can provide the nation with clerks and not with leaders in the sphere of the soul4 ,,iv ,there is no sign that the nation is waking to the misery wrought by the bureaucrats4 ,all the cry is for a further march along the same road4 ,the ,government have in these last days appointed two ,commissions on ,education1 the one to 'inquire into the position occupied by natural science1' and the other 'into the position occupied by the study of modern languages1' in the educational system1 and they are to consider the matter1 the one in relation to the 'interests of the trades1 industries1 and professions' dependent on science1 and the other in relation to the 'interests of commerce and public service4' ,in this there is no hint that what the nation mostly needs is the development of character1 the re-enforcement of soul4 ,we are to investigate with #gf our eye on commerce2 the material gain is still our goal4 ,the ,germanised minds have won their first victory4 ,the future path of our development is to be the path of the ,teuton1 and we are to tread it like him1 sacrificing our souls to ,mammon4 ,for the sake of commerce we must go on pushing our boys faster up the ladder1 heedless of debris of moral wreckage at its foot6 ,a still more depressing symptom is the policy already adumbrated by the ,government to mitigate the devastation wrought in the country places4 ,our armies now number millions1 but the ,government introduces a bill to settle a few hundred soldiers on the land6 ,millions of acres lie waste1 but the ,government proposes to deal with a few thousand acres here and there4 ,the needs of the future require an exodus from the ,egypt of the slums and from the slavery of that industrialism which adds nothing to the world's true riches1 and the re-establishment of the people in their true heritage1 the land4 ,but the ,government #gg proposes to reinstate a handful4 ,there is no sign that the politician has as yet realised that agriculture is the noblest of industries1 a nation's true wealth4 ,and there is no realisation of the only method by which this can be done4 ,it is the magic of ownership that alone will restore to the people the joy in the land4 ,the rent system is doomed to failure4 ,in the words 'my own' there is a glamour which turns even sand into gold4 ,when to the masses that have been despoiled there is again restored the privilege of designating a little portion of the land of their fathers1 their own1 then1 and only then1 will the country places once more waken to life1 and the desolation of generations be at last removed4 ,a nation for which millions have been found ready to die must surely provide for the living such social conditions as will enable them to live joyous and clean lives4 ,in kingdoms teeming with riches1 no heart must be starved of beauty1 no life starved of bread1 and no soul starved of ,god4 #a ,a hundred years ago there were #e deer forests in ,scotland1 now there are #bjj4 ,since #ahia the acreage in ,scotland under deer and devoted to sport increased from over #b #a_/b millions of acres to over #c #a_/b millions of acres4 ,this process of increasing the area devoted to sport has gone on even since the war began4 ,this land1 to the extent of two millions of acres1 can be reclaimed for human use4 ,scotland has talked of afforestation for a generation--and done nothing6 ,during the last twenty-five years1 while the politicians pursued their game1 the people of ,scotland lost an additional million of acres so far as food production is concerned6 #gh ,,chapter ,,iv ,,the ,,man ,,in ,,the ,,slum ,the countrysides have been laid waste1 but what of the men and women who were thus driven from the wide1 wind-swept spaces to stony streets and airless barracks8 ,what did it mean of happiness and well-being to them8 ,let us try to present the contrast to ourselves4 ,i ,in no sphere is there such an opportunity of happiness as that of work in the open air1 when men have learned to love the sights and the sounds of the wide sky4 ,the pleasantest sight in the world is to watch a ploughman driving straight his long furrow1 or resting at the furrow end crooning to his #gi well-groomed team1 while the fresh air fans his face and the westering sun casts a mantle of loveliness around him4 ,he may be a lover of nature1 this man4 ,he may watch the coming of the birds and the first white flashing of the swallows' wings4 ,if he does not own the land there is no reason why he should not 'own the landscape4' ,at the close of the day he goes home and is met by the welcoming shout of his children1 who1 strong and sturdy1 clamber on his knees4 ,but it was decreed that he be driven into a slum2 and see what has been made of him6 ,walk through the ,east ,end of ,glasgow on a ,saturday night and mark the product of the 'highest civilisation' the world has ever known4 ,out of reeking public-houses men and women reel into the streets4 ,degradation and brutality have marked them for their own4 ,their diseased bodies witness to their lives of sensuality4 ,they were children of the fresh air1 now #acc1jjj of them in #hj ,glasgow live in one-room houses with the very decencies of life denied them2 and #dhf1jjj live in one-room and kitchen houses--a total population of #fai1jjj1 in the one city1 doomed to live under conditions which render all privacy impossible4 ,often a father and mother and three or four children live in a single apartment4 ,when that single apartment is at the top of the rookery1 the pitiful spectacle is seen of little children with bowed or bent legs climbing painfully up the squalid stairs4 ,the mothers of the race can be seen toiling up weary flights of stairs carrying a heavy basket on one arm and a child in the other4 ,once streams of purest water from the hillsides flowed day and night1 singing to them1 cleansing for them2 now it is impossible to keep clean1 for in these rookeries the washhouse is only available once every three weeks6 ,out of a million of a population1 #fj per cent4 live under conditions such as these4 ,the ,medical ,officer of ,health 7an office that can be no #ha sinecure in such a city7 has declared that there are #aj1jjj houses in ,glasgow absolutely unfit for human habitation1 and which it is impossible to make fit4 ,but a doomed population must go on living in them because there is no other accommodation to be found for them4 ,in these places the children perish in the first year of life at a rate of #bjj per thousand2 but in the ,west ,end only #ej children die per thousand4 ,out of every thousand babies born in those parts of the city in which the poor are massed1 #aej at least are destroyed by the social conditions which the highest modern civilisation has created4#a ,after a day of nerve-racking toil the freeborn ,scotsman comes home to his lair1 the one-roomed house which can command the use of a #hb wash-house once in three weeks1 to the foulness and the squalor1 and what is he to do8 ,the ,state has provided4 ,the whisky-shop is there1 at the corner1 with its brightness and its allurements and its forgetfulness of woe4 ,the ,state says to him1 you can escape out of your intolerable surroundings through the door of alcohol4 ,and he escapes4 ,there is no other course left for him1 and only the ,pharisee can blame him4 ,thus it comes that the ,state-regulated alcoholic manufactories of paupers and criminals pass the slum-dwellers through the mill1 and they come forth moral refuse4 ,children with the faces of old men and women cry to each other the undertones of a babel of profanity4 ,for weeks they never see the sun1 moving under a pall of black smoke4 ,they rise to toil in the dark1 and all day they watch and feed clanking machinery1 and they return home in the dark4 ,the ,state has provided for them the narcotic of drunkenness4 ,vigour dies low in them4 ,out of every #hc three one is rejected as physically unfit to bear arms4 ,when stringency is exercised one out of two is rejected4 ,in the process of transplantation and disinheritance the people have lost not only the land but their bodies4 ,for them there has been yielded no profit4 ,they have lost the world1 but they have not gained their souls4 ,for the greatest of all their losses is this1 that they have lost the sense of ,god4 ,in the country they could not fall to those depths4 ,there they were face to face with the ,unseen4 ',who plants a seed beneath the sod ,and waits to see it push away the clod-- ,he trusts in ,god4' ,but in the ,east ,ends of our cities no work of ,god is ever visible4 ,and they were told by many wise men that ,god was superfluous4 ,everything could be explained without any ,god6 ,there was nothing but sensations6 ,ah6 who can blame him because he has sunk so low8 #hd ,they took the earth from him2 they took the sunlight from him2 they took the air from him2 they darkened the moon and the stars for him--until at last they took ,god ,himself from him4 ,and it has all been so cunningly wrought that he is all unconscious that he has been driven out of ,paradise4 ,that is the essence of the grim tragedy4 ,,ii ,in the countryside it was possible for men and women to live clean and decent lives1 and those who are left there continue to do so4 ,in proof of that it may be cited that the north-west districts of ,scotland can still show a birthrate of #cd4h4 ,were it not for the ',celtic ,fringe' and the country places1 the birthrate of ,scotland would be far lower than it is4 ,for the country and the hillsides are the land of far vistas and empty spaces1 so that the apostle of racial limitation could not there plead that there is no room for more4 ,and life is natural2 children1 #he so far from being an endless burden to their parents1 are looked upon as life's true riches1 the helpers and the supporters of their parents4 ,the crofter's house may be poor1 but it rings with the shouting of children at play1 and love spreads its endless feast4 ,in these places1 so unsophisticated and so 'uncivilised1' children are not a burden1 and1 however large the family1 there is room in the heart for more4 ,but far different is it when the family is driven from the countryside into the slum4 ,there the new civilisation decrees that men and women must no longer live natural lives4 ,if they have children they must pay the penalty1 and the penalty is that landlords refuse to accept them as tenants4 ,long1 long ago a ,child was born in a stable 'because there was no room for them in the inn4' ,there was room for tax-gatherers and soldiers and traders1 but there was nobody found to make room for a woman in the hour of her direst need4 ,the ,child was shut #hf out4 ,but that was in a rude age and the door was shut by untutored men4 ,the most startling of all the facts which leap to light as we consider the social and moral condition of our generation is the fact that after nineteen centuries of ,christianity1 in the heart of the most 'perfect' development of civilisation1 the same tragedy is perpetrated--the child is shut out4 ,there is room for everything but not for innocence4 ,there is conclusive evidence to prove that the property owner in ,london has set his face against tenants who happen to be the unhappy parents of little children4#b ,childhood is #hg that which nobody now desires except a few poor people whom the ,malthusians have not yet instructed4 ',a printer told me the other day1' says ,monsignor ,brown1 '444he had five children2 when he went to an agent the other day1 the agent bowed him out and would not listen to him1 though he wanted five rooms and was prepared to pay the rent4'#a ,if a family exceeds four the position becomes acute4 ',if a family consist of four or five children1' declared the ,assistant ,housing ,manager of the ,london ,county ,council1 'they would have a difficulty in obtaining accommodation4#c ,all this is quite natural4 ,the property owner wants his rent1 and he wants it without his property suffering undue dilapidation4 ,and the rent is more certain when there are not more than two or three children4 ,he is not a philanthropist2 he wants his money1 the race must look after itself4 ,profits and not children--that is the rule of #hh his life4 ,in every city it is the same4 ,the owner of house property will not have children in his houses1 even as the ,london ,county ,council will not have married women as teachers--for they might have children6 ,this then is what we have done4 ,we have deprived four-fifths of our population of their birthright in the air and the sunshine and the land1 and we have decreed that they must live unnatural lives--otherwise we will allow them no place wherein to live6 ,we have built up a civilisation in the midst of which childhood is anathema4 ,,iii ,when we look beneath the surface and ask the reasons why the poor cannot find houses in which they can live with comfort1 we discover that it is a matter of finance4 ,the extortionate prices of building sites render it impossible to build on them any dwelling-houses except tenements4 ,here is an example3 #hi ',unless the land were given you1 you could not possibly build cottages1' says the ,secretary of the ,guinness ,trust4 ',our new site1 which was supposed to be sold to us on cheap terms1 cost ,l#aa1jjj an acre1 so that you can see the landrent per tenement will work out at about #bs4 #f;d4 a week1 and as ,i say1 the ,ecclesiastical ,commissioners professed to sell to us at a low rate1 having regard to our objects4 ,it is really not a stiff price for the position4' ,in this bare statement we touch bedrock4 ,the ,guinness ,trust1 founded with the philanthropic purpose of providing decent housing for the poor1 buys an acre for building purposes from the ,ecclesiastical ,commissioners1 who1 from their very name1 must be interested in the poor1 and they get it cheap at ,l#aa1jjj an acre6 ,what does it mean this fabulous cost of land in great cities8 ,a hundred years ago that acre would be bought and sold at its agricultural value of a few score pounds sterling4 ,whence1 then1 this inflated price8 ,the #ij answer is that the people created that value4 ,we deprived them of the land of ,england and drove them to the cities4 ,in the cities they1 by their labour1 made the land valuable2 and the value which they themselves created we turn against them4 ,we exiled the people from the soil2 and in the cities1 where we piled them1 we turned the values1 which they created1 into an instrument for their ultimate destruction4 ,they have made the land so valuable that cottages can no longer be built on it1 and the man with four children searches in vain for a house4 ,it is a staggering product of a perfect civilisation4 ,and still more staggering when one realises that the birthrate of these poor people1 for whom the ,guinness ,trust provides some measure of comfort1 is #cf4ie per thousand1 as compared to #ag4ec in the west4 ,the section of the population still willing to carry on the race must pay ,l#aa1jjj an acre for the sites of their teeming tenements4 ,only after that form can civilisation make room for the child4 #ia ,,iv ,what guerdon has the ,state provided for the massed populations who have the very riches they create thus turned into an instrument for their impoverishment8 ,one looks for that guerdon in vain4 ,the vast majority of them are consigned to a life of privation from birth to death4 ,factories pour heavenward the smoke which lies over our cities as a pall1 and in the gloom men and women toil with bloodless faces producing the goods which1 elaborate and costly1 or cheap and nasty1 crowd the markets of all the world4 ,but ten millions of the toilers go shivering through life ever tottering on the verge of the precipice of want4 ,over one and a half millions of them were rated as paupers in the years before the war4 ,in the old ,roman world half the population were slaves1 but three-fourths of our population are virtually slaves4 ,for the man who marries and has children1 who is forced into a slum1 and is #ib once chained to the chariot of modern machinery1 there is no escape4 ',man is born free1' declared ,rousseau1 'and is everywhere in chains4' ,no chains of slavery were ever more degrading than those forged in our day4 ,systems of indoor sweating found for their antidote the pauper system of outdoor relief4 ,england1 that struck the shackles off the ,african slaves1 forged shackles for her own children4 ,the conditions of the modern slaves are in a sense worse than that of the ,roman serf4 ,for the ,roman slaves often laboured in noble toil1 building temples which have defied the corroding power of time and which still inspire the heart with admiration and awe4 ,but these slaves of to-day build nothing that endures4 ,the cities of their labour might perish to-morrow1 but in their perishing no beauty would disappear from the earth4 ,the very efforts which the toilers have made to improve their state have been movements of blindness and folly4 ,they have organised #ic far-reaching systems by which they seek through the limitation of output to improve their condition4 ,the gate through which they press towards deliverance is the gate of dishonesty4 ,that is the proof of the servitude not of body only1 but of mind and spirit1 to which they have been brought4 ',i do not hesitate to express the opinion1' wrote ,huxley in #ahij1 that if there is no hope of a large improvement in the condition of the greater part of the human family2 if it is true that the increase of knowledge1 the winning of a greater dominion over nature which is its consequence1 and the wealth which follows upon that dominion1 are to make no difference in the extent and the intensity of want with its concomitant physical and moral degradation amongst the masses of the people1 ,i should hail the advent of some kindly comet which would sweep the whole thing away as a desirable consummation4' ,since then1 wealth has enormously increased1 science has triumphed more and #id more over nature1 but the increase of the one and the triumph of the other have only produced an increase of physical and moral degradation on the part of masses of the people4 ,whoever ponders the two ,reports in which for the first time that degeneration is fearlessly and mercilessly exposed1 cannot any longer be blind to that4 ,it is not1 however1 by means of a 'kindly comet' that the arrest comes4 ,for ,god's judgments shut not the door against hope4 ,v ,in the days of old a prophet surveying the decay of ,israel used a phrase which grips the heart3 ',they build up ,zion with blood1 and ,jerusalem with iniquity1'#d and so has visualised our pitiful state also4 ,it is not1 however1 quite the same4 ,for ,zion was the temple1 and stood for the hunger of the soul4 ,we no longer build any temples4 ,we build factories and playhouses and endless miles of grey and colourless #ie streets4 ,to-day the prophet would vary the words1 ',they build up theatres and cinemas with blood and ,london with iniquity4' ,that is near the truth4 ,london has been built up by that iniquity which has made the home-counties of ,england waste2 and the life-blood of islands and fair valleys and hill-sheltered glens has been drained that ,glasgow might grow and its slums be enlarged4 ,the call to repentance which comes to our ears is a call summoning us to right the wrong wrought by blinded politicians1 to restore again to the people the decencies of life and the possibilities of happiness4 ,the call to national repentance is not a call to emotion but a call to action4 ,of old prophets summoned a race fast hurrying to decay to return to ,god4 ,the way of return was the way of action4 ,they were exhorted to people the waste places1 to curb licentiousness1 and to walk in the path of righteousness4 ,and to-day the call of national repentance is the same4 #if ,it is the call to the realisation of an ideal of life in which masses of the people will not be damned from birth by a social organism in whose grip they are powerless4 ,all in vain does a mission1 appealing to the soul1 feeble of help1 wage conflict in a slum with the forces of the ,state1 wielded through a dozen public-houses1 that depress and enslave4 ,as things now are there can be no escape and no salvation for the man in the slum4 #a ,dr4 ,chalmers has pointed out in the ,proceedings of the ,royal ,society of ,medicine1 #aiac1 vol4 vi41 that the mortality of infants varied inversely with the number of rooms occupied up to four4 ,infant mortality in one-apartment houses1 per thousand1 #baj two #afd three #abi four #ajc #b ,the following quotation from a newspaper of this summer is illuminating3-- ',a woman with six children1 who sought advice at ,acton1 said that so as to get a flat she told the landlord that she had only three4 ',he accepted her deposit1 and allowed her to enter the flat1 but on learning of the other three children1 ordered her to leave1 and would not take her rent4 ,he described her as a trespasser1 and threatened to eject her unless she left4 ',if ,i had told him the truth1 said the woman1 he would not have taken me4 ,as soon as ,i say ,i have six children1 people will not listen any longer4 ',the magistrate told applicant that she must make arrangements to leave4' #c ,the ,declining ,birthrate1 p4 #bjb4 #d ,micah iii4 #aj4 #ig ,,chapter ,v ,,the ,,lord ,,of ,,the ,,slum ,he stood at the corner of a terrace that opens off the steep street that leads from the heart of the high-perched city right down to the sea4 ,with his right hand he gripped the paling1 while he swayed gently from side to side4 ,a big1 burly1 swarthy man with a close-cropped black beard1 he sawed the air with his left hand1 while he glanced with bleared eyes down the street4 ,from the bottom of the steep a car came lumbering up1 and a gleam of intelligence came into his eyes4 ,he let go his hold on the paling1 and made for the tram lines4 ,he plainly wanted to board the car1 but his feet moved in contrary directions1 and on the pavement he described an arc4 ,and he #ih lurched back on the paling1 gripping it this time with both hands1 while the car with its freight of passengers went clanking past up the steep4 ,there1 with helpless limbs1 with his head bowed on his breast1 he held on to the paling1 while the sunlight flooded the firth with molten silver--the product of an ancient civilisation and a thousand years of ,christianity4 ,in that remote era which ended in ,august #aiad we would have passed him there without so much as a feeling of surprise4 ,but to-day we are as a man awakened from heavy slumber1 stung by a sudden dart to a new realisation4 ,and we saw not that one solitary man sunk in his sodden degradation1 but the multitude which he represents1 that multitude whose drunkenness means destruction to their brothers wrestling in the trenches with an unbeaten and ruthless foe4 ,two years ago the call went ringing through the ,empire1 and from the far ,north-,west to the long wash of ,australasian seas #ii an indomitable race arose to war for the right4 ,statesmen and preachers summoned them to a holy war1 and they came with transfigured eyes4 ,but1 alas6 a holy war can only be waged by a holy nation4 ,and as the eyes gaze at that figure swaying on the paling1 and on the mind there flashes the realisation of what lies behind him1 the heart can but cry in deepest awe3 ,may ,god have mercy upon us6 ,i ,there can come no moral resurrection for any except to those who realise the evil of which they are partakers4 ,it is not in the spirit of ,pharisaic censoriousness that we must judge that brawny workman swaying on the paling1 and all that he represents4 ,for these men are what we made them4 ,it is the nation in its corporate capacity that shaped and moulded these lives after that pattern4 ,if we had set ourselves expressly to produce this result1 we could #ajj not have taken a surer way of attaining the end4 ,we drove the people into the congested and foul tenements of narrow streets4 ,let the well-to-do classes try to realise the conditions of life to which men such as this have been doomed4 ,let them picture to themselves what life can be like in a one-roomed or two-roomed house in a crowded barracks4 ,imagine a man and wife with an infant and two or more children1 and often a lodger1 living in such a house4 ,for them there is no change of air either day or night2 their bodies cannot be cleaned nor their clothes washed2 they are denied cleanliness in their whole environment2 it is impossible to cook appetising food or to serve it in a pleasing manner2 there is no escape for them from noise and squalor2 they have no privacy either living or dying2 and there is always the spectre of want hovering near4#a ,what recompense has #aja the ,state provided for them in their misery8 ,what provision has been made that men and women may escape for a little to breathe a purer air and feel that they have part in a life richer than this8 ,the ,state has not been wholly unmindful of them4 ,it has provided for them the public-house1 and1 with paternal care1 has multiplied these places of #ajb recreation and happiness where the mass of human misery is greatest4 ,the ,state has been lavish in its provision4 ,in the ,cowgate of ,edinburgh it has provided one public-house for every #bjj of the population1 though in the leisured and rich districts there is only one licence for every #acjj of the population2#b in the ,cowcaddens of ,glasgow it has provided at the rate of thirty public-houses to the half-mile4 ,it surrounds the poor and the miserable with an atmosphere reeking with alcohol4 ,the trade in alcohol enfeebles the will1 saps the resisting power1 and then trades upon that enfeebled will4 #ajc ,this is the door of escape from misery which the ,state provides4 ,who can blame the people for availing themselves of this national remedy for their woe pressed upon them by the ,state at every corner8 ,if the drunkenness of masses of the population be a national weakness and a crying scandal1 it is not their fault4 ,it is the ,state that is responsible1 and as citizens of the ,state we have each to bear our share of the responsibility and of the shame4 ,it is no use decrying publicans and brewers1 for these are only what we ourselves made them4 ,let us take ourselves to task and condemn our own folly and our own sin4 ,it was not enough that we provided the narcotic of drunkenness for the man1 but we set ourselves to alleviate also the lot of the woman4 ,there was a pressure of public opinion which prevented respectable women from frequenting public-houses4 ,provision had to be made for them4 ,this provision was made in the legislation of ,mr4 ,gladstone in #ajd #ahfj and #ahfa whereby grocers were licensed to sell alcohol4 ,it is only fair to say that the purpose of the legislation was not to encourage the consumption of alcohol4 ,in those days people were obsessed with the idea that by multiplying the opportunities for procuring alcohol1 its consumption would decrease6 ,the grocer's licence was to safeguard people from the public-house6 ,the result has been the most disastrous of any legislation passed by sane statesmen4 ,it enabled women to obtain alcohol in a respectable manner1 sanctioned both by legislation and society1 and to use it under conditions of privacy1 unhampered by any restraint4 ,the ,state enormously increased the facilities for drunkenness and strengthened the forces of temptation by the multiplying of tens of thousands of liquor-selling establishments4 ,to these temptations the women in ever-increasing numbers succumbed4 ,when war broke out1 and the men mustered to the defence of their country1 the #aje women were left the comfort of alcohol4 ,the result was an increase in the drunkenness of women1 and a corresponding increase in child mortality4 ,who can blame these women8 ,with their husbands and sons summoned to wrestle with death1 what wonder that 'feelings of faintness' overtook them1 and that for those feelings they resorted to the only unfailing remedy they knew--alcohol6 ,these women live their lives under conditions which make it impossible for them ever to be well4 ,they climb up and down weary stairs endlessly4 ,there is no escape from hopeless toil4 ,the unhealthy conditions of life render them chronic invalids4 ,in the grocer's shop the ,state provides for them the panacea4 ,here is exhilaration amid the worries of their drab existence1 and escape from the anxieties which oppressed them4 ,and in a little while they are slaves to the national remedy provided for them4 ,their husbands often come back on leave to find #ajf their homes ruined--the larder empty1 the fire dying for lack of fuel1 the children unkempt and ill-nourished4 ,in many districts the allowances made by the ,state to the dependants of its fighting men were but a further ,state-endowment of the publican4 ,it was for this that our soldiers bared their breasts to the foe and looked death in the face4 ,this was the reward of their sacrifice1 the guerdon of their wounds4 ,in their absence the ,state provided for their wives the solace and stay of alcohol2 but the ,state heeded not the fact that by so doing it ruined the home and destroyed the children4 ,if there be condemnation1 let the ,state be condemned2 and from that condemnation for us1 as its citizens1 there can be no escape4 ,,ii ,when we consider the results of the trade in alcohol1 the wonder grows how it is that this ,state-regulated monopoly #ajg for the manufacturing of paupers1 lunatics1 and criminals has been suffered to continue so long4 ,to it most of the evils which afflict the body-politic can be traced4 ,it nullifies all efforts at social improvement4 ,philanthropic movements have poured out money like water to improve the condition of the people1 but faster than slums can be cleared away or emptied1 new slums are created and filled by the victims of alcohol4 ,the funds of ,guardians and of ,parish ,councils are mainly used to support those whom alcohol has impoverished4 ,there is the authority of ,mr4 ,john ,burns1 the late ,president of the ,local ,government ,board1 for the statement that out of #ajj1jjj applicants for poor relief at ,wandsworth during a period of twenty years1 only twelve were abstainers4444 ,it not only fills our workhouses1 it also crowds our jails4 ,according to the late ,lord ,alverstone nine-tenths of the crime of this country was due to drink4444 ,insanity finds in it a fruitful source4 #ajh ,twenty per cent4 of all the men and ten per cent4 of all the women in a ,london ,county ,council asylum--the ,claybury ,asylum--have become insane through alcohol4444 ,the social evil is mainly due to alcohol4 ,under its influence women descend to vice4 ,half the infections of the social disease are traceable to the weakening of the will power by drink4444 ,evil though it be in itself1 its evil goes far beyond itself1 for it is the short-cut to all the other vices4444 ,it is one of the great causes of the decline of the race in thus polluting the springs of life1 poisoning and sterilising them2 but1 far more1 it is responsible for an enormous share of the appalling infant mortality which destroys in many districts a fifth of the child life in the first year4444 ,it lowers the vitality and makes the tissues more susceptible to attacks by the germs of disease1 and thus greatly increases the deathrate4444 ,it multiplies coffins and empties cradles4444 ,were this one monopoly abolished #aji and the people delivered from the ,state-licensed temptations which are for ever inviting them to their ruin1 almost all workhouses and jails would be closed and the nation delivered from the burden of pauperism and crime which weighs so heavily upon it4 ,yet the nation in the time of its greatest peril spends ,l#ahj1jjj1jjj a year upon the drink-traffic4 ,this is the price which it pays for the lowering of its own vitality and for the weakening of its striking power4 ,a government which connives at that cannot be a government that is waging war really in earnest4 ,shipping1 food1 coals1 the railways1 roads1 and a host of men are in great measure sacrificed to a trade which weakens the nation in face of the enemy4 ,the favourite argument in support of the liquor trade is the argument that upholds the liberty of the subject4 ,in a free country people must be free to destroy themselves if they so wish1 that others may be free to use alcohol #aaj without abusing it4 ,if we are to aim at freedom1 let us have a freedom worth while4 ,at present the nation is not free to control or eliminate the greatest peril in our midst4 ,we are entrusted with the administration of our schools and roads and gas and poor-rates1 and we elect men who control these4 ,but we elect nobody who controls alcohol4 ,we have as citizens no say as to whether the grocer in the village will get a licence to corrupt our family life with alcohol1 or whether the poor places be crowded with public-houses4 ,that is in the hands of justices1 and justices are created by a mysterious power behind politics4 ,in a free country this power of planting down places for the sale of alcohol independently of the will of the people is an anachronism by which the poor are enslaved4 ,when we speak of freedom let us consider this freedom--freedom for the children of the poor to grow up untempted4 ,let us remember that the race has now to depend mainly upon #aaa the poor for its continuation and for its virility4 ,a nation that will doom the rising generation to the atmosphere of gin and whisky round its cradles1 seals its own doom4 ,the children brought up in its atmosphere will deem alcohol not only inevitable but also desirable4 ,they will be 'happy in the mire because they are not conscious of the slough4' ,the true liberty of the subject cannot mean racial destruction4444 ,recently a woman in a mean street in ,london went to the public-house with a sick baby in her arms4 ',while she was there it died1 but she stayed on drinking and holding the dead baby4'#c ,that dead baby in the arms of its alcoholic mother in a public-house visualises the grim and terrible situation4 ,it is the personification of all the millions of baby lives throttled to death by alcohol--of a race sinking to decay in its grasp4 #aab ,,iii ,we must not1 however1 forget that the ,government of this country1 while the manhood of the race was perishing abroad1 were not wholly indifferent to the welfare of childhood at home4 ,when they found that ship-repairing and shipbuilding and the production of munitions were hampered and delayed by drunkenness1 they adopted restrictions of various kinds4 ,but in most cases these restrictions were worse than useless4 ,the ,government surrendered its powers in the matter of the greatest evil afflicting the nation1 to a ,board of ,control4 ,that authority meant well4 ,it sought to limit the consumption of alcohol by limiting the hours of its sale4 ,this ,board forgot that a man can in five minutes buy enough whisky to keep him comfortably alcoholic for five months4 ,to shut the public-house for certain hours meant for many the laying in of a store of whisky when formerly a few #aac nips sufficed4 ,but no regulations made by man since the day of the ,bourbons equalled in sheer fatuity the decree that a man who wanted a gill of whisky could not get it unless he bought a quart8 ,with a wage that passed his rosiest dreams1 to secure the gill he of course bought the quart4 ,no wonder the consumption of alcohol increased to ,l#aha1iei1jjj in #aiae1 as compared to ,l#afd1dec1jjj in #aiad4 ,this was the fruit of a policy which aimed at producing sobriety4 ,but there are some good results claimed by the ,board of ,control4 ,the number of convictions for drunkenness decreased6 ,but what was the price paid for this improvement in our streets8 ,it was the greater corruption of the home4 ,the drinking was driven out of the public-house into the house2 the drunkard no longer offended the public gaze in the street1 he carried his vice and degradation into the bosom of his family4 ,formerly his drunkenness was limited by certain hours2 now his drunkenness was #aad continuous while his store lasted4 ,and he took care it lasted4 ,if the streets were partially cleansed1 the children were impregnated as never before by the atmosphere of alcohol1 and the women were taught to share in the drunken orgy4 ,to-day the claim is made that1 at last1 the consumption of alcohol is on the decline4 ,when four millions of men are with the colours1 fighting across the seas1 it would be indeed marvellous if there was not a decline in the sale of alcohol at home6 ,,iv ,if some of the steps taken by the ,central ,control ,board cannot commend themselves to temperance reformers1 there have been other policies initiated by them which are undoubtedly in the right direction4 ,the prohibition of the sale of ardent spirits within certain areas has inaugurated a new and beneficial national policy4 ,the time may not be yet come for a total prohibition of alcohol throughout the country4 #aae ,those who know anything of the intolerable conditions under which men and women live in the crowded1 noisome tenements of our great cities1 realise that these people must have some way of escape from their miserable environment4 ,total prohibition is the ideal to be kept steadily in view1 but before that ideal can be realised the people must be prepared for it4 ,the only way to prepare for the ideal is by a reconstruction of the social order4 ,new and sanitary housing for the poor must precede the policy of total prohibition4 ,but the time is fully ripe for a prohibition of ardent spirits during the war and during the period of demobilisation4 ,and it is on this policy that the ,board have launched forth4 ,in the district of ,annan and in wide stretches of the north of ,scotland the sale of spirits is now prohibited4 ,in a recent visit paid to the ,hebrides1 ,i found among the people a spirit of thankfulness that they have at last been delivered from a great evil4 ,drunkenness has vanished among them4 #aaf ,a new era of prosperity has been inaugurated4 ,this policy1 which has been made effective in the places where it has been put in force1 ought to be at once applied generally4 ,it is grotesque to endeavour to promote sobriety in patches1 shut in by geographical boundaries4 ,it has not been applied in the places which need it most4 ,in the common lodging-houses and farmed-out houses of the ,grassmarket and ,west ,port of ,edinburgh there were found1 by a recent census1 a population of #achc persons of whom #eah were engaged in war-work1 ,it is futile to expect that these workers1 living in an atmosphere reeking with alcohol1 can render the ,state the best service they are capable of4 ,and to these places come1 every week-end1 workers from the naval base and soldiers on leave4 ,and these workers and these soldiers pass their brief holiday in that alcoholic atmosphere4 ,the result can only be deleterious to them and to the ,state4 ,there are more sailors and soldiers to be #aag found in the poor places of ,edinburgh and ,glasgow than in all the villages of the ,west of ,scotland put together4 ,why should the few be protected from the sale of ardent spirits and the many left to be victims of temptation8 ,there is only one remedy--the general application to the country of that policy which is now restricted to favoured areas4 ,there must be equal treatment for the whole country and an equal chance given to all who are serving the ,state4 ,the time to make that policy effective is now4 ,while the nation is in the midst of the great conflict for its existence1 the people will gladly welcome any restrictions which will strengthen the ,state in its hour of need4 ,the heart of the nation is prepared for sacrifice4 ,but when the danger is passed1 the mood will change4 ,it will not be so easy then to make drastic changes in the habits of the people4 ,and the time when restrictions will be most necessary will be when the army is demobilised4 ,if restrictions are not #aah imposed now1 it will be impossible to impose them then4 ,there is a growing feeling that the quickest road to the desired end may be found in the nationalisation of the liquor trade4 ,many would shrink from this policy if they thought that the ,state would become a permanent species of glorified publican4 ,but the end in view is the transformation of the liquor trade4 ,only the ,state can achieve that4 ,the ,state1 with full control1 can make the public-houses centres of recreation1 with the temptation of spirits removed4 ,and the way will be clear for mending or ending1 as experience will prove which is the better policy4 ,the true reformer will care far more for the reform than for the means by which it is to be achieved4 ,if the reform can best be realised through ,state-ownership1 then the sooner it comes the better4 ,if the remedy for the evils wrought by drunkenness does not1 and cannot1 lie along the road of supplying more #aai facilities for the sale of alcohol1 we must at the same time never forget that the craving for alcohol is a craving for a fuller life--for life lit up by colour and social joy4 ,those who meet that hunger for a richer life with nothing but a dreary 'don't1' with no remedy save that of the surgical operation1 expose themselves to jibes such as that bitter jibe of ,lord ,macaulay3 ',the ,puritans objected to bear-baiting not because of cruelty to the bear but because it gave pleasure to the spectators4' ,the aim of the social reformer must be the substitution of true joy and happiness for what is spurious4 ,the ,state must make provision for the social instincts of the masses4 ',what are wanted1' writes ,sir ,thomas ,p4 ,whittaker1 a member of the ,royal ,commission on ,licensing1 'are places of the nature of free clubs1 where men may sit and smoke and talk and play games or read the papers4 ,they should be open to the public free1 with small charges for the use of cards and the #abj billiard-tables4444 ,people should be made to feel as much at their ease in them as they are in our public parks4 ,the cost of maintaining such places would not be great1 and the social1 material1 and moral advantages that would result would render them an excellent investment4444' ,it is along this road deliverance must be sought4 ,there is no use sweeping out the house unless the house is to be occupied by fairer and more wholesome tenants than those expelled4 ,v ,there is one last serious aspect of this problem wherewith the spiritual forces of the nation are faced1 and that is the weakening of the nation's soul which the new policy has entailed4 ,whosoever considers the manner in which religion has lost its grip on the masses1 the passing away of all discipline1 the decay of idealism1 and the slow but steady emptying of the churches1 cannot but feel that the greatest need of to-day is a revival of #aba religion4 ,unless the soul controls the body1 man atrophies and perishes4 ,the ,church for many centuries has striven to garrison the nation's soul1 and to bring the body under discipline4 ,but the ,church no longer can bring its power into play1 for the churches are left deserted more or less4 ,the proportion of the industrial population who never enter a church's door is vastly greater than is commonly supposed4 ,professor ,cairns1 a careful and judicious observer1 who would make no statement that could not be verified1 has declared that three out of five soldiers at the front have had no connection with the ,church4 ,the toilers of our cities are rapidly relapsing into that paganism out of which ,christianity rescued the world at the first4 ,what the world needs is ,god4 ,it is only when the face of ,god is unveiled to the awe-filled eyes of men that they can realise the foulness of moral degradation4 ,in the light of that holiness which marshals all the forces in #abb the universe to war against sin1 and in that light alone1 does the soul realise the awfulness of sin4 ,when that realisation comes1 then the history of the world becomes mainly the history of sin--that dread power which saps the vitality of nations1 disintegrates empires1 ruins civilisations1 and which brings upon proud capital cities the flaming judgment of sword and fire4 ,the function of the prophet is to keep clear before the eyes of men the moral issues which are laden with life or death4 ,the mission of the ,church is to replace the spurious and fleeting joys of sin by the true and enduring joy of a life in unison with ,god4 ,but the ,state renders the ,church impotent and makes the revival of religion in our day impossible4 ,that may seem exaggerated1 but it is true4 ,for the ,state has driven alcohol into the homes1 and has consigned not only the husband1 but often the wife also1 to the degrading influence of alcohol not only on ,saturday but on ,sunday4 ,in vain does the call #abc to return to ,god sound in the ears of a population sunk in the torpor of alcohol4 ,no prophet can rouse such a people4 ',if a man1 walking in a spirit of falsehood1 do lie1 saying1 ,i will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink1 he shall even be the prophet of this people4'#d ,the ,church is powerless against thirty public-houses to the half-mile6 ,alcohol bars the door against every movement for the social and spiritual uplift of the nation4 ,if the nation is to be saved1 the nation must act4 ,arise1 ,o ,israel6 ,we must look at our population in a new light and see them not as makers of munitions but as sons of ,god4 ,the horribly cynical attitude of our rulers is that which regards men merely as munition-makers4 ,they survey them only from the low ground of self-interest4 ,it is not in relation to the peril of the hour that this problem has to be faced1 but in relation to man's high calling as #abd the son of ,god4 ,these men and women are our brothers and sisters1 bearing the image of ,god1 and created to be heirs of an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled4 ,can we go on working their ruin1 damning them body and soul8 ,a race that will not cleanse the fountains of its national life1 that will not remove from its midst the forces of degeneration1 that shrinks from that moral surgery which will alone save the body-politic--such a race cannot hope to go on swaying the destinies of the world4 ,but this is our confidence1 that through the horrors of war the nation will waken to the deep issues of life and death1 and that the forces of moral and social renewal will advance a hundred years in one day4 ,we can hear the marshalling of the forces in our midst which will transform and enrich the nation4 ,there is arising the cry of the coming victory3 ',the ,king shall follow ,christ1 and we the ,king4' #a ,in the ,record1 the official organ of the ,united ,free ,church of ,scotland1 there appeared in the ,august number1 #aiaf1 a letter written by a ',special ,constable' which gives a terrible word-picture of a slum family3 ',let me give a personal experience of one of the multitude of family tragedies directly due to drink which come under my notice4 ,a family of eight persons--four of them adults--occupied a single room in a slum area4 ',the eldest son1 aged twenty-one years1 was in the last stage of consumption1 and occupied the only bed in the room4 ,on visiting the house one morning1 ,i found the lad lying on the floor1 in a corner4 ,he had required to vacate the bed for his mother1 and during the night there had been born into these surroundings another of those immortal souls who1 in the words of ,kingsley1 are damned from their birth4 ',the following day the mother was sitting at the fireside1 and was never back in bed till the son died some days later4 ,it is hardly necessary to add that the mother1 the infant1 and another girl followed him at short intervals4 ,on the day of the mother's funeral the husband got drunk and had to be locked up--the twentieth-century method of remedying evils of this kind4' #b ,the distribution of licences in our cities is a crying evil4 ,the following are examples of the provision made in the wards of ,edinburgh3-- ,number of ,population to ,ward4 ,population4 ,licences4 each ,licence ,morningside #bd1cbj #ah #acea ,merchiston #bd1dcf #ba #aafc ,st4 ,giles' #bd1bgg #aah #bje ,st4 ,andrew's #aa1aff #hg #abh ,in proportion to the poverty and misery of the population are the licences increased4 ,in the ,cowgate of ,edinburgh there are #ab licences1 and in the ,canongate1 #ai4 ,the same proportion applies to all our cities4 #c ,the ,drink ,problem of ,to-day1 p4 #ahb4 #d ,micah ii4 #aa4 #abe ,,chapter ,,vi ,,the ,,great ,,refusal ,for the historian of the future who may essay the task of elucidating the moral progress or decay of the ,british ,empire1 one date will stand forth as a landmark--,april #bj1 #aiae4 ,for it was on that day that the ,house of ,commons refused to follow 'the ,king's lead4' ,on the #fth ,april it was announced that ',by the ,king's command no wines1 spirits1 or beer will be consumed in any of ,his ,majesty's houses after to-day4' ,no announcement ever cheered the heart of a nation more than that4 ,it was as if an electric current had suddenly passed through an inert mass1 galvanising it into life4 ,when ,lord ,kitchener and other leaders loyally followed the ,king's example1 the men who fought #abf a weary battle for the emancipation of the nation from the yoke of alcohol1 and whose hearts were oft sickened by long-delayed hopes1 felt that the day of moral victory had dawned at last4 ,the nation1 delivered from the enemy within its gates1 would bring its full power to bear upon the enemy that threatened its destruction from without4 ,in house and mess and restaurant alcohol was banished4 ,but all these fair hopes were rudely shattered when the ,house of ,commons at the end of fourteen days refused to banish alcohol from the precincts of ,westminster4 ,the dawn of hope ended once more in gloom4 ,i ,it is only as yet possible to surmise as to the forces which led to the great refusal4 ,the nation1 with the almost unanimous voice of its wisest and best citizens1 had called for the deliverance of the people from alcohol by its total prohibition4 ,employers of labour1 who #abg had no sympathy originally for the prohibition movement1 were converted to it by the spectacle of the nation's marshalling of its forces being steadily hampered by drunkenness4 ,the leaders of all the ,churches pressed for it2 the ,press began to plead for it2 ,mr4 ,lloyd-,george openly declared that 'drink is doing us more damage than all the ,german submarines put together'2 and there is no doubt but that the ,king and ,lord ,kitchener expected that their example would give an impetus which would carry prohibition to victory4 ,but the ,house of ,commons shattered that hope4 ,the forces of reaction immediately began to raise their head1 and to the tables of the home and the mess alcohol slowly returned to resume its fell sway4 ,the nation that had braced itself for social surgery was presented with soothing medicine in the form of the ,central ,control ,board4 ,though it is impossible to assign causes to these effects with certitude1 yet it is safe to say that this failure was the #abh fruit of the party system4 ,we have seen how the play of political parties one against the other devastated the countryside4 ,the party politicians think primarily of votes1 and anything that would cost them votes is banned4 ,they knew in what peril the nation stood before the war1 but they did not summon the nation to prepare for war and endure hardness4 ,that would have been unpopular--and would have cost votes4 ,they kept the nation in ignorance of its peril1 and cowered before the people whom they kept in the dark1 terrified to use firmness lest the firm hand on the reins should mean their unseating4 ,they went further3 when ,lord ,roberts warned the ,state in prophetic terms1 they held him up to derision4 ,the greatest calamity that ever befell the human race we owe to the party politicians4 ,behind the party politician there is the caucus1 and behind the caucus the party funds4 ,the power of money is proverbial1 and behind the party politician #abi is the exchequer supplied by his supporters4 ,that exchequer is replenished by the sale of honours4 ,when ,oleander1 a ,phrygian and erstwhile slave1 was the minister of the ,emperor ,commodus1 ,rome saw the woeful spectacle of the rank of ,consul1 of ,patrician and of ,senator exposed to public sale4 ,we hold the decencies of life in too high regard to do that4 ,secretly and decorously our senatorships and the ancient orders of our knighthood are assigned4 ,at one end of the social scale national degeneracy makes the trader in alcohol a plutocrat2 at the other end the same national degeneracy makes him a legislator and a pseudo-aristocrat4 ,the alcoholic trade was too wise to be on terms of friendship with one party alone2 it sought relationship with all4 ,nobody can object to the man who pays the piper calling the tune4 ,in ,ireland the publican is even a greater power in politics than he is in ,england4 ,and the power behind the politicians brought all its forces into play4 ,when1 in #ahhg1 ,lord ,iddesleigh1 #acj superseded at last1 fell dead in ,lord ,salisbury's waiting-room1 the latter1 writing to ,lord ,randolph ,churchill1 exclaimed1 ',as ,i looked upon the dead man before me ,i felt that politics was a cursed profession4' ,and ,lord ,salisbury knew4 ,the party politician1 even in the maelstrom of a world's devastation1 pursued his familiar course4 ,before the war he failed to warn the nation and to prepare4 ,in the midst of the war he still strove to keep the nation in the dark4 ,after months of calamities the nation was told that all was going well1 and the people were obsessed with the idea that final victory was at hand4 ,if the people only knew their peril they would have made any sacrifice for their country and their homes4 ,but they were not told4 ,and the party politician shrank from demanding or enforcing a sacrifice which the nation did not realise to be necessary because of its ignorance4 ,the policy of pusillanimity pursued before the war was still regnant4 ,the politicians who shrank #aca from demanding sacrifice in peace1 shrank from demanding it in war4 ,they did not know the heart of the nation4 ,there was no sacrifice the nation would have shrunk from1 if the demand were made4 ,the nation knew that it needed discipline1 and it asked for discipline1 but asked in vain4 ,and to-day the same pusillanimous policy sacrifices prohibition to the fear that the munition-workers might give trouble4 ,they knew not1 and they know not1 the heart of this nation4 ,but the fact remains that to-day the nation is spending #ahj millions or so a year on alcohol1 while the ,government calls on the people to exercise the greatest economy that the war may be waged to the end4 ,it is a sad and strange spectacle4 ,,ii ,it was fortunate for the cause of the world's freedom that there was found in ,europe a great nation which was not under the sway of party politicians4 #acb ,the ,german ,emperor is reported to have said that the next great ,european war would be won by the most sober nation4 ,when the war began and the ,tsar issued his great rescript abolishing vodka the ,emperor is said to have exclaimed1 ',but who could have foreseen this wonderful coup6' ,some day it will doubtless be the accepted fact that the deliverance of the ,russian nation from the degenerating power of alcohol won the war4 ,for through that great act of a statesman's prevision the ,russian ,empire experienced a resurrection from the dead4 ,the statesmen of ,russia knew the evil effects of alcohol4 ,it was to vodka that they mainly owed the defeat and humiliation of the ,japanese war4 ,the manhood of ,russia could not be rapidly mobilised owing to the grip of alcohol on the race2 and the operations were ever hampered by its fell power4 ,when the ,russian ,empire was called upon to fight for its life1 the ,emperor resolved that this time it would fight unfettered4 #acc ,the sale of vodka was temporarily suspended1 and the armies were mobilised with rapidity and precision4 ,misery and poverty were banished from the villages4 ,the doss-houses and jails were emptied4 ,a great nation resolved to fight with all its vigour4 ,though vodka constituted a ,state monopoly1 and though ,russia drew from it an enormous revenue1 yet that revenue was unhesitatingly sacrificed4 ',we cannot1' said the ,tsar before the war1 in a proclamation to his people1 'make our fiscal policy dependent upon the destruction of the spiritual and economic powers of many of my subjects4' ,on ,august #bb1 #aiad1 the ,tsar issued an order that all vodka and other spirit shops should be closed till the end of the war4 ,when the beneficial results of this policy were fully realised the ,tsar made a final decision4 ',i have decided1' he announced1 'to abolish for ever the ,government sale of vodka in ,russia4' ,russia was thus finally delivered from the greatest of its enemies--the enemy #acd that destroyed its homes4 ,and ,russia has accepted its deliverance with a joyful heart4 ,at first ,m4 ,bark1 the ,finance ,minister1 was 'staggered when prohibition was suggested4' ,after six months' experience of its results he declared3 ',if ,i proposed to reopen the vodka shops there would be a revolution4' ,thus was effected the greatest social reform in the history of the world4 ',since ,china proscribed opium1' was the verdict of a ,times editorial1 'the world has seen nothing like it4 ,we have been well reminded that in sternly prohibiting the sale of spirituous liquors1 ,russia has already vanquished a greater foe than ,germany4' ,and so it proved4 ,through vanquishing alcohol ,russia found a power which is now vanquishing ,germany4 ,on eyes cleared from the fumes of vodka there rose the vision of ,god4 ,the ,russian went forth tying his knapsack on his back as one who took up the ,cross4 ,they endured defeats which might have #ace overwhelmed them1 but they were unconquerable4 ,through hardships and privations undreamed of the ,russian soldier retained his health and fighting power4 ,though he often confronted the enemy with no weapon but his bare breast1 he never despaired4 ,wounds which in other campaigns would have been inevitably fatal1 healed1 and life conquered death4 ,though oft deprived of sufficient food1 he endured fatiguing marches1 and in the midst of the nervous strain of defeat and retreat he remained cheerful1 determined1 and confident of victory4 ,at last1 with 'firm faith in the clemency of ,god1' the ,russian hosts turned at bay and stood fast4 ,when the clouds were darkest1 it was as if the sun broke forth when the news was flashed through the world that the ,russians had stormed ,erzerum4 ,to-day ,armenia is freed1 and the great surge of the ,russian hosts is rolling west4 ,for the ,russians knew that a holy war could not be waged by a drunken nation2 #acf and in the power of self-sacrifice they have snatched victory from what seemed irretrievable defeat4 ,while ,britain continued to sacrifice its strength and its wealth at the shrine of alcohol1 while the wives and the children of the men who were fighting and dying were left to the comforting of publicans1 while the munition-workers were hindered and marred by the lure of strong drink1 while the best of the manhood of the ,british race called in vain for deliverance from the yoke of the national bondage1 ,russia in the might of a great renunciation was gathering its forces and advancing to victory4 ,autocracy has delivered ,russia from the bondage of centuries2 democracy has surrendered its power to the party politician1 and the party politician has kept ,britain still enslaved4 ,,iii ,it would be difficult to overestimate the evil consequences for the future of #acg the race which will inevitably ensue from the great refusal4 ,let me endeavour to make clear one of these evil consequences4 ,had the ,house of ,commons on ,april #bjth of last year resolved to follow the ,king's lead1 instead of spurning it2 had it made that lead effective1 what would have been the result8 ,one effect would have been that to-day we would have had an army delivered from the bane of alcohol4 ,the ,king's officers and the men who wear his uniform would have followed the ,king's example4 ,it is the commonplace of much of the speaking from religious platforms that we are to have a new era inaugurated when the men come back from the war4 ,the religious life of the nation is going to be quickened2 its moral forces are to be vastly strengthened2 there is to be a new earth when the war is over--if not a new heaven4 ,these hopes are1 however1 doomed to disappointment4 ,it is not the ranks of those who are striving for temperance that will receive #ach reinforcement when the great army comes home4 ,let any one who thinks that we are on the verge of a great social or religious revival consider the facts4 7,the difficulty is that we fail to face facts and delude ourselves with vain imaginings47 ,the great fact to which we blind ourselves is that the manhood of the nation1 for the first time in its history1 has been brought into the atmosphere of alcohol1 and acclimatised to that atmosphere to the number of between four and five millions4 ,in that remote period before ,august #aiad1 the ,british army was a volunteer force mainly recruited from 'the adventurous and the derelict4' ,the recruiting area was largely the congested wards of our great cities4 ,the men who enlisted did so1 in the great majority1 after they had already acquired a taste for the exhilaration of alcohol4 ,it was in the circumstances expedient that in the canteen provision should be made1 under military supervision1 for their being supplied #aci with a purer alcohol than the public-houses provided4 ,the results were beneficial rather than otherwise4 ,the strange thing1 however1 is that the canteen system which was necessary for the small voluntary army should have also been imposed by the ,army ,authorities upon the full manhood of the nation when they sprang to arms in defence of ,king and country4 ,though no trainer would ever allow the use of alcohol by those preparing for any athletic sport1 though the man who would excel at football or racing or boxing or shooting1 as a first step eschewed all alcohol1 the ,government of this country provided alcohol as an integral part of every camp where the heroic of the race set themselves to endure hardness4 ',the greater endurance of the non-alcoholic soldier or worker is now not a matter on which there can be or is any difference of opinion4'#a ,for the youth of the nation1 #adj wearied with the hardness of unwonted exercise1 away from the influence of mothers and loved ones1 warned by the ,secretary of ,state for ,war against alcohol1 the ,government provided the narcotic of alcohol4 ,millions came within the sphere of its baneful influence who never would have been so exposed in days of peace4 ,and not only so1 but though it has been scientifically established that alcohol lowers the vitality1 a paternal ,government1 in the mud and misery of the trenches in ,flanders1 provided for each soldier the sustenance of rum1 though from such a stimulus no benefit could accrue4 ',small doses of alcohol 444 cause 444 a distinct flushing of the skin due to dilation of the cutaneous capillaries1 the skin becoming first warmer and the blood in the internal organs cooler than before the alcohol was taken4 ,after a time the skin temperature falls1 but there is no corresponding increase of temperature of the blood in the internal organs4 ,this means that the body has #ada lost heat by the skin4 ,the evaporating moisture of wet putties and stockings carries away a further amount of heat1 whilst the contracting wet materials exerting pressure on the lower limbs1 after a time tend to compress vessels in the skin1 and especially to interfere with the return of venous blood and lymph to the larger veins and lymph channels4 ,the lowered temperature and the impaired nutrition due to this obstructed circulation together are accountable for the trench foot4 444 ,a man is not at his best1 whether working or fighting against enemies or diseases1 if he is taking alcohol4 ,lord ,roberts knew this1 and ,his ,majesty the ,king1 ,admiral ,jellicoe1 and ,lord ,kitchener appreciate it4 ,how soon will the nation realise it8'#b ,the ,government supplied the soldiers in the camp and in the trench with the means of decreasing their fighting efficiency4 ,to the 'tot of rum' can be #adb traced a proportion of the cases of unstable nervous equilibrium which the war has produced4 ,men who were total abstainers1 pledged ,rechabites1 and others were swept by a paternal ,government into the ranks of those who derive from alcohol a false exhilaration4 ',the national conscience1' writes ,lieut4-,colonel ,woodhead1 'has not yet been thoroughly aroused to the importance of the issues at stake--that in peace or in war intemperance is the link in the chain of our national life which gives greatest evidence of weakness and most cause for anxiety4' ,against stupidity the gods themselves fight in vain4 ,though every laboratory worker and every physiological chemist tells us1 with the cold precision of science1 that alcohol is not a stimulant but a depresser1 that the elation it produces is simply that of a narcotic1 that it diminishes the energy and dulls the enthusiasm of man1 that it leaves the mind and body more exhausted than before--yet the stupidity entrenched in high places cannot learn #adc the lesson4 ,it trains the armies on alcohol2 it seeks to sustain the embattled hosts with alcohol4 ,,iv ,the great refusal of ,april #bj1 #aiae1 meant that this national organisation for the training of the manhood of the race in the use of alcohol went on unhindered4 ,of all the products of the great war this is the most amazing4 ,let any one consider the situation and judge4 ,in every camp and barracks the visitor will find the ,state-established monopoly of the canteen4 ,the canteen is set up by the ,state1 and the taxpayer provides the building1 rent and rate and tax free1 for the contractor1 who runs the canteen4 ,abroad1 the canteens are almost exclusively in the hands of one co-operative society1 whose board of management is mainly composed of officers in the ,service and some of them recently heads of regimental institutes4 ',clearly there is a great deal of military money invested in it4 #add ,surely it is not a good thing that a society of this kind should have the privilege of making a good deal of money out of supplies to the private soldier4'#c ,whatever be the system of administering the canteen1 whether by the regimental officers or by contractors1 the fact remains that behind the canteen are the resources of the nation4 ,and the contractors of the canteen supply in some cases amusements4 ',i know of a camp where the contractor supplied the singers1 and not very desirable ones either4'#d ,recreation is thus used to encourage the consumption of alcohol by the army4 ,while the taxpayer is thus behind and supporting the canteen1 the counteracting forces are left to the support of the charitable4 ,the ,y4,m4,c4,a4 or ,church huts are there not by right but by favour1 and whatever attractions they provide are provided by means of voluntary contributions4 ,the ,state provides the means #ade of degeneration2 it is left to the voluntary effort of private citizens to provide the means of healthful recreation4 ,it is truly a strange world4 ,do the parents of the youth of this country realise the situation8 ,henceforth every boy when he reaches the age of eighteen is drafted into a camp4 ,and there the ,state makes provision for acclimatising him to the atmosphere of alcohol4 ,to frequent the canteen is manly1 and few will be able to resist4 ,it means that by the million the future citizens of this country will acquire a liking for alcohol4 ,they find there the door of escape from weariness and monotony1 a false joy of life and a meretricious colour lighting up drab and grey days4 ,hitherto the youths of this country were protected by the slow evolution of beneficial restrictions4 ,in ,scotland the public-houses were shut on ,sundays4 ,the young men were protected on at least one day in seven4 ,but when at the age of eighteen they put on the ,king's uniform that protection ceases4 #adf ,the public-house is shut1 but the canteen is open on ,sunday4 ,not even on one day in seven is there protection from temptation for the youths of this country now conscripted4 ,the fathers and mothers who give their sons to their country do not realise the provision a grateful country is making for darkening their souls by the fumes of alcohol4 ,if they realised it1 there would arise a demand before which even those who refused to follow their ,king would bow4 ,without that national demand there will be no escape from the consequences of the great refusal4 ,those who delude themselves with the hope that out of the great war will come a moral and religious revival will have a rude awakening4 ,out of the social conditions now upheld by a beneficent ,government there cannot emerge any ethical revival4 ,the ranks of those who have learned the narcotising benefit of alcohol and who will naturally turn to the same comfort1 will be greatly multiplied4 #adg ,v ,let me conclude with a personal experience4 ,on a car in one of our great cities in this last summer1 a man sitting beside me began a conversation4 ,though he was a stranger to me1 he began to speak out of a heart sore distressed4 ,his son had been home on leave4 ',every night he was at home he was under the influence of drink4 ,before he enlisted he did not know the taste of alcohol4444 ,when he went away back1 he was drunk leaving the station4444 ,a few days later word came that he was killed4444 ,the last we saw of him was his going away drunk4444 ,his mother is in sore distress4444 ,she is old-fashioned in her faith and she cannot get out of her mind the words that drunkards cannot enter the kingdom of ,god4 ,what do you say8' ,thus he spoke in disjointed sentences1 palpitating with emotion4 ,all ,i could say was that hell was not for such as his son1 in my #adh opinion2 but that hell was essential for the due disciplining of those who maintained the conditions which made his son a drunkard4 ,but how many are there to-day in this country like that poor father and mother8 ,they gave their all3 this is their reward4 #a ,lieut4-,colonel ,woodhead1 ,m4,d41 ,,ll4,d1 ,the ,drink ,problem1 p4 #gi4 #b ,lieut4-,colonel ,woodhead1 ,m4,d41 ,,ll4,d41 ,the ,drink ,problem1 p4 #ha4 #c ,a correspondent in ,the ,times1 ,april #bb1 #aiaf4 #d ,ibid4 #adi ,,chapter ,,vii ,,the ,,slum ,,in ,,the ,,man ,the misery which the slow evolution of urban and industrial civilisation has wrought in the crowded areas of our cities is manifest to the least observant eye4 ,the pitiful condition of the man in the slum makes its clamorous appeal to the conscience of the race4 ,but there is a condition even more pitiful4 ,it is that of many of the dwellers in the spacious squares and terraces where the rich and the leisured are segregated4 ,they are far removed from the slum where the miserable are massed2 but they have created a slum in their own souls4 ,and of the two1 the condition of him whose soul is a slum is truly the more grievous4 #aej ,i ,they have everything that life can desire of material good4 ,these houses stretching for miles in their regular uniformity are replete with appliances of luxury and comfort such as a ,roman emperor might have sighed for in vain2 every desire of their heart they have the power and the will to gratify2--and yet life is dreary4 ,the people that ought to be supremely happy are on the whole miserable4 ,they have reduced life to a series of sensations4 ,but the dread spectre of satiety dogs the footsteps of the devotees of sense4 ,if they were mere animals they would be perfectly happy4 ,their misery is that they are endowed with souls4 ,and the starved soul will not let them rest4 ,what has pauperised the rich is this--they have lost the sense of ,god4 ,their fathers were saved from the tyranny of their senses by the fact that they kept open the window towards the #aea ,infinite4 ,but the growth of knowledge and the triumphs of science gradually shut that window1 so that now scarce a glow of light penetrates to the dusty and dark recesses of the soul4 ,the soul no longer thrills with the ,divine2 all the thrill they can know is that of gratifying the body4 ,and that way leads only to the self-loathing of repletion4 ,to escape from themselves they rush in clouds of dust along the roads1 demanding 'speed in the face of the ,lord4' ,but all in vain is a sated body hurled from ,london to ,brighton1 for at the end it is sated still4 ,with the shutting of the window towards the ,infinite1 all restraint vanished4 ,so long as there remained a sense of a moral order in the universe which could only emanate from a ,moral ,governor1 and so long as the soul felt that the way of life lay in conformity to the will of the ,unseen ,ruler1 life was kept under control4 ,the will never wholly relaxed its effort to keep the outgoings of life #aeb in unison with ,god4 ,but1 then1 there came the startling realisation that there was no ,god1 or1 if there was1 that ,he was a mere negligible factor4 ,the processes by which things came to be as they are could be explained2 and because they could be explained1 of course1 ,god had nothing to do with them6 ,god was steadily pushed further and further away4 ,back from a mythical ,eden some five thousand years ago1 ,he was pushed into the recesses of aeons that made the brain reel to contemplate2 away from a heaven which seemed quite near1 ,he was removed far off into the abysses of heavens which had become astronomical4 ,everything could be explained--it was only a question of time when life would yield its secret4 ,as the universe grew wider and wider there was in it no place for ,god4 ,in that world which once ,he was deemed to have created1 now ,he was superfluous4 ,and the restraints which the thought of ,him imposed were thrown to the winds4 #aec ,history once more repeated itself4 ',they treat it1' wrote ,bishop ,butler of religion in his day1 'as if 444 nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule1 as it were1 by way of reprisals for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world4' ,the dawn of the twentieth century found a generation which far outstripped the eighteenth4 ,by its headlong plunge into the vortex of pleasure it was determined to avenge itself for the days when life was disciplined by the thought of the judgment-seat of ,god4 ,alongside of this emancipation from the restraints of religion there was a singular development of interest in religious matters4 ,never were there so many books published regarding the sources of ,christianity and the authenticity of that various literature which composes the ,bible4 ,and votaries went on incessantly tunnelling the great barrier which shuts us in from what lies beyond the visible1 and they even heard1 #aed as it were1 the tapping of those who drove a tunnel to meet them4 ,but all that activity was wholly divorced from that religion which is inherently spirit and life4 ,it was the interest of the antiquarian in the earthen vessel which holds the treasure1 not the interest of the soul in the treasure itself4 ,the frame was the object of endless discussion and speculation1 but the eyes were blind to the picture enclosed by the frame4 ,they thought that they were engaged in the works of religion1 while their work was as remote from religion as the labour of one who would set himself to expound the glory and wonder of art by explaining the texture of canvas and analysing the chemical components of paint4 ,and1 while the ancient documents were studied more and more under the microscope1 the image of the ,son of ,man faded more and more before the eyes of men1 and the ideal of love of duty was left as lumber under accumulating dust3 religion had a place in the social #aee scheme1 but the place was the museum of antiquities4 ,it was no longer a power in life2 it had become a matter of mere historic interest4 ,,ii ,the new atmosphere in which men lived made it impossible to present the ,christian appeal to them as that appeal came home to the heart of humanity for nineteen centuries4 ,for the life-blood of religion was ever the passion of love and gratitude evoked by the forgiveness of sin4 ,but the sense of sin died in the heart1 and a generation that knew not sin could only wonder at the meaning of a gospel which proclaimed the forgiveness of sin4 ,no golden age lay behind when man was sinless2 there was no 'fall' from a high estate1 and consequently no restoration was needed4 ,the spiritual tale of man's first sin was a matter of mockery2 and the teaching of prophet and saint regarding iniquity was but 'an obsolete and fanatical #aef eccentricity4' ,walt ,whitman has given expression to man's new attitude3 ',i could turn and live with animals1 they are so placid and self-contained1 ,i stand and look at them long and long2 ,they do not sweat and whine about their condition2 ,they do not lie awake in the night and weep for their sins4' ,nothing was1 in fact1 further from the thought of the latter-day generation than to lie awake weeping for their sins4 ',as a matter of fact1' writes ,sir ,oliver ,lodge1 'the higher man of to-day is not worrying about his sins at all1 still less about their punishment2 his mission1 if he be good for anything1 is to be up and doing4' ,that is an absolutely correct diagnosis4 ,so little does the 'higher man of to-day' worry about his sins that he sinks into the slough of animalism undisturbed by any thought of wrong4 ,having sacrificed every canon of ,christian morality1 he goes forth out of his house where the peace is unbroken by the clamorous voices of children1 and #aeg he pursues his mission of being 'up and doing'--directing his energies in ,whitechapel to keeping alive the children of the diseased and the miserable4 ,this is the fine fruit of our 'higher man'3 having destroyed in his home that race whose product he is1 unrepentant of his crime1 he devotes himself to saving the race in the slum4 ,his mission to be 'up and doing' savours of the slime--but he knows it not4 ,his whole life is the proof that he has forgotten the meaning of iniquity1 and that he is incapable of worrying about his sins4 ,in all the books wherein the life of to-day is portrayed there move men and women whose consciences are no longer troubled by the thought of any wrong4 ,with a photographic accuracy ,arnold ,bennett has set forth the lives of men and women emerging from the gutter into ease and riches1 but the world to which they attain is a world where the thought of ,god ceases to inspire or disturb4 ,he indeed pauses in a moment of grim #aeh satire to visualise a soul in the throes of realising sin4 ,the heroine of three books1 ,hilda ,lessways1 shuts her ears to the call summoning her to her mother's bedside1 only to find her dead when selfishness suffers her to arrive4 ,from the house where her dead mother lies she goes to the station to meet a relative and comes face to face with a well-dressed epileptic4 ,she watches him1 almost shuddering4 ,he stares at her with his epileptic eyes 444 and she rushes home a nervous wreck4 ',she knew profoundly and fatally1' expounds ,mr4 ,bennett1 'the evil principle which had conquered her so completely that she had no power left with which to fight it4 ,this evil principle was sin itself4 ,she was the sinner convicted and self-convicted4 ,one of the last intelligent victims of a malady which has now almost passed away from the civilised earth1 she existed in the chill and stricken desolation of incommutable doom4' ,our author knows his world1 and in that world only the sight of an epileptic #aei convinces of sin4 ,and the realisation1 as might be expected1 only throws the victim more surely into the grip of sin4 ,for that world knows no longer any ,god who saves from sin4 ,there is no ground left on which religion can appeal to the conscience of such a generation4 ,in the eighteenth century ,wesley and ,whitefield sent through the decaying masses of ,england a vitalising breath as they proclaimed the joyful gospel of deliverance from sin1 and men arose from the mire with lives transfigured4 ,in our day religion can find no such approach and no such triumph4 ,for like the whispering of an idle breeze is a proclamation of sin's forgiveness to those who know no sin4 ,for us it is but a childish malady which we have long outgrown4 ,the passion of sin forgiven will no longer thrill our souls4 ,,iii ,and this life which our modern writers describe is one of appalling dreariness4 #afj ,as the new generation grow in knowledge every ideal vanishes2 as they move upward in the social scale they shut out ,god4 ,the ,chapel loses its power2 men wear ,wesley's clothes but know not his spirit4 ,arnold ,bennett makes us see the dying epoch4 ,he describes the whole town assembled in the market-square to celebrate the centenary of ,sunday schools4 ,the vast crowd sing ',rock of ,ages' and ',there is a ,fountain filled with ,blood4' ,the volume of sound is overwhelming4 ',look at it1' says ,edwin ,clayhanger to ,hilda ,lessways2 'it only wants the ,ganges at the bottom of the square4' ',even if we don't believe1' she replies1 'we needn't make fun4' ,and amid the singing crowd1 mocked at and jostled1 struggles ,mr4 ,shushions1 the oldest ,sunday-school teacher in the ,five ,towns1 who long ago had rescued the ,clayhangers from the workhouse1 but now had 'lived too long' and 'survived his dignity4' ',the impression given was that the flesh would be unpleasant and uncanny to the touch4' ,it is a grim #afa picture of an effete life still moving1 mummified and repulsive1 among men4 ,the old ideal was dead2 but there was no ideal new-born4 ,life was dreary1 but happiness was still pursued4 ,when the family would move to the new house where science surrounded them with all the appliances of comfort and luxury1 then ,edwin ,clayhanger was convinced he would find happiness4 ,the day comes and they move to the new house4 ,but that very morning there is a quarrel with his father4 ,he had been ingenuous enough to believe that the new house somehow would mean the rebirth of himself and his family4 ',strange delusion6 ,the bath-splashings and the other things gave him no pleasure1 because he was saying to himself all the time1 ,there is going to be a row this morning4 ,there is going to be a regular shindy this morning4' ,they come to the new house but they cannot sit down to dinner together4 ',father thinks ,i've been stealing his #afb damned money1' snaps out the son in a barking voice1 and refuses to meet him at table4 ,and the father takes his dinner alone4 ,the end of the ghastly quarrel is that the son gets an increase of half a crown to his weekly wage6 ,that is the measure of the 'new birth' which he had so fondly anticipated4 ,he does not realise that after being emptied from vessel to vessel1 however much larger and more beautiful the vessels become1 filthy water remains filthy water still4 ,what is there left to those for whom the vision of ,god thus fades8 ,the fathers amassed money1 and they had the joy of conflict1 and a sense of duty4 ,but the sons have not the joy of conflict4 ,they inherit houses built for them1 and money for which they have not toiled4 ,what are they to do8 ,their fathers found endless interest in ,church and ,chapel1 and they gave of their wealth4 ,the sons no longer believe in ,church and ,chapel4 ,they have no traditions of social service4 ,they regard the class from #afc which their fathers sprang with aversion and with fear4 ,their favourite topic of conversation is the shortcomings of the working-classes4 ,one whole winter they denounced the iniquity of the ,state making any provision1 however pitifully small1 for the decayed veterans who fall out of the ranks of toil2 another winter they declaimed with bitterness against the crime of the ,state making provision through insurance for the ill-health of their servants and employees6 ,they have little taste for books1 and money cannot buy the sense by which beauty floods the heart4 ,there is nothing left them but self-indulgence4 ,to that they sacrifice everything4 ,food and clothes and physical pleasure fill up the circuit of the days4 ,then weariness seizes them4 ,they become the captives of boredom4 ,they rush hither and thither4 ,they carry to the ,highlands a life which is intolerable hi ,london2 they bring back to ,london a life which is intolerable in the ,highlands4 ,they live lives isolated from the #afd joy and innocence of childhood--for that is the ideal they have made their own4 ,they rush after anything which will promise the 'easier and quicker passing of the impracticable hours4' ,they still maintain some connection with the ,church1 but their attitude is that of patronage and not of allegiance4 ,the preacher must be an echo of their voices or they will have none of him4 ,there must be no preaching of stern duty or of judgment to come--that is antiquated6 ,when they come to church there must be the gospel of soothing rest--fulsomely administered in a saccharine form6 ,religion must be a narcotic2 its end that they may forget4 ,but even then it must be in the smallest doses and at long intervals4 ,thus their places in church are getting emptier and emptier1 and the day of worship saw their cars stand in serried rows by wayside inns4 ,they have created for themselves a grey1 dull world4 ',if they do abolish ,god from their poor bewildered hearts1 all or most #afe of them1' wrote ,carlyle1 'then will be seen for some length of time1 perhaps for some centuries1 such a world as few are dreaming of4' ,and that is what they were fast doing when the thunder of the guns echoed doom4 ,they were without ,god and without hope in the world4 ,to some this may appear an exaggerated and distorted picture4 ,it may in fact be pointed out that in these last years there was a greater activity of social service directed towards the help of the poor and miserable than ever before4 ,that is true4 ,but it is true also that it was wholly ineffective4 ,it was the activity mainly of ignorance4 ,it was the throwing of half-crowns to the starving2 it was not the giving of love4 ,they gave charity2 they did not give themselves4 ,they acquiesced with hardly a protest in the social organisation which inevitably swelled the ranks of the poor and increased the burden of their misery4 ,by that social organisation many of them profited4 ,they gave doles2 but it was #aff to pacify their poor consciences4 ,they instituted 'charity organisation societies1' making charity as it were a deal on the ,stock ,exchange4 ,if only they had thought of it they would have instituted a ',divine ,spirit ,organisation ,society4' ,the one would not be more irreverent than the other2 for charity is the fruit of the ,spirit4 ,they were to have charity without the ,spirit--so they adopted the methods of the market-place4 ,by means of ledgers and visitors they were to separate the deserving poor from the undeserving4 ,their charity was to be directed towards the deserving4 ,they forgot that there could not be such a thing as charity for the deserving--only justice6 ,there was the noise of much machinery1 but the noise was made by a handful4 ,the rest gave only of their lucre4 ,and all the time1 while they studied the social problem and organised charity1 the measure of human misery went on increasing4 ,the rich grew richer and the poor grew poorer1 amid the greatest activity of social #afg reformers4 ,it was all futile because it was uninstructed4 ,it only palliated the pain2 it never sought to dry up the fountains of human misery4 ,the professional charity organisers saw the human wrecks being borne on the flood to doom1 and from the banks1 in security1 they threw them life-belts4 ,but they never thought of plunging themselves into the wild waters and breasting the flood at the risk of their own lives that they might save4 ,man cannot save man without blood1 and there was only water in their veins4 ,,iv ,that life manifested the slum at its core in sundry unmistakable forms4 ,its literature was largely the record of man wallowing in the mud2 and that ,art which aforetime made humanity kneel at the shrine of the ,mother and the ,child became the handmaid of vice4 ,in the name of ,art the new generation demanded freedom1 but the freedom was a #afh freedom divorced from modesty and reverence4 ,only the play or the song that evoked the unclean laugh now crowded the theatre4 ,but most striking of all was the manner in which they sought to escape from the ennui which afflicted their souls4 ,weird and vulgar dances had their day2 grotesque attire claimed its devotees2 but the chief way of escape was that which led to the feet of charlatans4 ,a whole group of new religions sprang up2 mysteries from the ,ganges vied with mysteries imported from ,chicago1 and both found multitudes to seek after them4 ,the growth of centuries1 the slow evolution of truth handed down by the saintly and the wise--that was as nothing weighed against the dictum of a woman in ,america or a ,hindu in ,benares6 ,on a grey winter afternoon1 some three years ago1 ,i happened to arrive at one of our most beautiful cities--a city that justly prides itself on its culture4 ,as ,i walked along the world's most beautiful street ,i was struck by the sight of a long #afi line of motors that overflowed up a roadway leading to the turreted hill4 ,i asked a motor-man what was happening that day4 ',there is a black prophet1' said he1 pointing his thumb over his shoulder1 'preaching in the ,assembly ,hall4' ,i needed no further explanation4 ,i know nothing about the said prophet except that he isn't a ,christian4 ,that was of course the secret of his power4 ,because he wasn't1 the leisured and the cultured sat in serried ranks at his feet4 ,perhaps he would give them what they had lost--peace6 ,and there came the memory of another civilisation sinking into decay when the mysteries of the ,nile and the ,orontes established themselves on the banks of the ,tiber1 and the weary citizens of ,rome1 sated by a world's luxury1 deemed no charlatan emerging from the ,east too gross for acceptance or his mystery too incredible for belief4 ,in the dawn of its decay ,rome bestowed 'the freedom of the city on all the gods of mankind4' ,in #agj our day ,london and ,edinburgh have followed along the same road4 ,the ,god all-holy and loving1 the ,all-,father--we have cast ,him off4 ,but no superstition is too mean for us to kneel at its shrine4 ,history is truly a monotonous record4 ,nations and empires have all gone the same road to perdition4 ,and they never knew they were treading it4 ,v ,such was the condition of the nation when the trumpet of judgment sounded and civilisation went reeling into the furnace4 ,the slum-dwellers and the slum-infected were alike shaking back into paganism and the beast4 ,for the time we have emerged from the greater horror of sin into the horror of war4 ,but what is to happen after8 ,saved as by fire1 are we to hug our slums again8 ,surely it cannot be for the perpetuation on earth of life after this order1 that five millions of men have arisen #aga and faced death4 ,if we are to be worthy of the price that has been paid for our deliverance1 by a resurrection from the dead we must cleanse our souls and transform our slums4 ,it is not for us as we are1 or for our cities as they now are built1 or for a ,state that denies to its children the decencies of life1 or for the continued reign of that plutocracy that has darkened the windows of the soul--not for the continuance of these have our brothers died right joyfully in the glory of their youth4 ,it was for another ,england1 another ,scotland--the kingdom of the heart's desire wherein shall be found no more either the slum-dweller or the slum-lover--that they fought and died4 ,when we think of them we know what the early ,christians felt when they said one to the other1 ',we are bought with a price2 we are no longer our own to do as we like2 we are ,his4' ,and we--we are theirs4 ,we must be worthy of them4 ,we dare not any longer leave their children in noisome slums2 we dare not #agb any longer suffer our own lungs to inhale the vapours of the spiritual slum4 ,to show that we are in some little measure worthy of the price paid for our life1 paid for the ,britain that shall be1 we will arise and straightway rebuild--until our cities shall be the cities of ,god1 and our straths and valleys shall be filled with the songs of happiness and love and praise4 ,they will not then have died in vain6 #agc ,,chapter ,,viii ,,behind ,,you ,,is ,,god ,the greatest need of our day is the reinforcement of the soul4 ,our mistake has been that we thought the supreme good was the development of the brain4 ,we went on steadily increasing our power over the forces of nature1 but we neglected to develop the soul-power which could control and direct the material power thus created4 ,the result has been the greatest catastrophe in history4 ,the industrial civilisation which we reared through the painful toil of a century1 is passing in the smoke of the howitzer shells4 ,and the end is not yet4 ,unless man becomes master of himself1 it can bring nought but misery that he should master nature4 ,the war of the future will be war in the air4 ,from the #agd experience of one or two air-craft raining destruction on a city one can imagine that dread future when thousands of air-ships and aeroplanes will rain bombs like hail on doomed cities4 ,the old security of this sea-girt isle has vanished for ever4 ,in the air there are no frontiers which can be fortified or guarded4 ,every fresh triumph of science will be only a new engine of destruction1 a new weapon of devilry4 ,humanity will be driven underground1 burrowing like rats4 ,it is quite conceivable not only that civilisation should perish but that the world itself might be destroyed4 ,the development of power1 without the development of soul to control it1 means ruin to mankind4 ,the amazing thing is that men should to-day declare with passionate conviction that the future safety of ,england depends on the increase of that knowledge which has given us the poison clouds of chlorine gas1 without ever a word to indicate that salvation can only come through the #age development of self-mastery and self-control--even through the soul4 ,we have stood for two years in the centre of the maelstrom of human history1 and have heard the hurricane of judgment sweeping through the world1 but as yet we have not heard the still1 small voice of ,god4 ,i ,the lesson we have to learn is that the power of the soul must be enforced4 ,and that can only come by laying hold upon ,god4 ,the power that ever lay behind human progress1 that worked out law and order and security1 has in all ages been the power of religion--of ,god4 ,but religion has been in our day a matter of contempt4 ,it was merely a 'grotesque1 fungoid growth which clustered round the primeval thread of ancestor worship1' more or less a 'pathological phenomenon closely allied with neurosis and hysteria4' ,there are few things more pitiful in human weakness #agf than the contempt expressed by the scientist and the learned for that power of the soul which created the civilisation of which the contemners are the fine fruit6 ,though religion has been contemned1 yet it cannot be denied that those forces which create abiding races and powerful empires are the very forces which have never been found to exist apart from the sanctions of religion4 ,the development of the ,roman ,empire was profoundly influenced by its religion4 ,to religion virtue owed its power1 and from it patriotism drew its inspiration4 ,and that religion claimed a supernatural origin--the source of its might was in the ,unseen4 ,when religion became a matter of public ridicule and the gods an 'object of secret contempt among the polished and enlightened1' and the philosophers 'concealed the sentiments of an atheist under their sacerdotal robes1' then the restraints of morality were flung aside and ,rome went headlong to ruin4 ,it was the same in ,greece2 #agg the same everywhere4 ,all religions have issued their commands3 ',and ,god spake all these words1 saying444' ,and so long as men felt the supernatural behind the mandate1 they trembled and obeyed2 when behind the mandate they discerned only superstition1 they surrendered to their base desires4 ,morality can only be based on the ,divine4 ,its commands are operative when these commands are recognised as those of the ,moral ,governor of the universe4 ,if these commands do not affect issues beyond the grave1 if they have no sanction in the eternal order1 then there is no value in obeying them1 and no crime in disregarding them4 ,rather is there a merit in flouting them--the mere products of ignorance and superstition4 ,to despise them and disregard them was the mark of an emancipated and superior mind6 ,thus it ever came that first the supernatural vanished and afterwards morality vanished4 ,and thus has it been also in our day4 ,the amazing thing is that men should #agh ever have been blind to this--that1 however much ,god may hide ,himself at the end of other avenues of approach1 at the end of this ,he stands forth clear before our eyes4 ,there is nothing predicated regarding ,god which we cannot doubt and deny save this1 that there is operative in the world a moral order conformity to which means life and disobedience death4 ,it is thus with individuals and thus with nations4 ,let a man surrender to evil1 and instantly nature begins to marshal its forces against him and digs for him the grave4 ,the road by which humanity has marched is marked by the ruins of empires and civilisations upon which destruction came through the very same laws that we see working to-day1 if we choose to look4 ,whatever race or empire surrendered to the base1 sacrificed purity to sensuality1 the good of the common weal to its own selfish ends1 made selfishness and pleasure its aim1 upon that race or empire1 sooner or later1 fell the consuming sword and the #agi devouring flame4 ,there is no sentence in all literature more pregnant than that which tells how the stars in their courses fought against ,sisera4 ,so it has been and ever will be4 ,the whole forces of the universe are arrayed against evil1 and carry on a ceaseless war against it4 ,it is because of this divine surgery that humanity has been saved from a corruption which would have entailed the world's destruction4 ,all history is the proof that there is a mandate which means life or death for individuals and nations4 ,along this road we can touch the hand of ,god and see the sword of ,his divine justice4 ,righteousness is the law of the world1 the will of the ,supreme ,ruler who orders the universe that righteousness must at last prevail4 ,the source of morality and all righteousness is--,god4 ,,ii ,it is manifest1 then1 that there is but one safety for individual or race1 and #ahj that lies in getting into line with the ,moral ,order of the world--with ,god4 ,but the startling thing is that though we have come through a discipline such as no generation ever experienced before1 at the end of two years of it there is no sign that we have learned our lesson4 ,the measure of our blindness is that politicians summon the nation to cultivate its brains that it may be saved1 without ever a hint that salvation lies along the road of character and morality--the road that leads to ,god4 7,if salvation lay in the brain1 the ,greeks would have saved the world1 for theirs was the greatest brain-power ever developed on the earth47 ,and even the ,church is uncertain1 and fails to summon the nation with clear and uncertain sound back to ,god4 ,for it is manifest that there can be no penitence where there is no consciousness of transgression4 ,there can be no return except for those who realise that they have strayed4 ,the first step1 then1 back to ,god must spring from the soul wakened to the #aha realisation that it has sinned and that ,god is fighting against sin4 ,but so far from the nation realising its true state1 the amazing fact is that the nation is hypnotised with the sense of its own righteousness4 ,it is only conscious of its own shining virtues4 ,it has drawn the sword for freedom and in defence of little nations4 ,it is waging a 'holy war4' ,self-blinded1 unable to believe that virtues such as shine on its face could suffer repulse1 in days of humiliation and of defeat it has shouted ',victory4' ,and from pulpit after pulpit the doctrine is propounded that this war is not a judgment of our sins2 that to speak of war as a judgment of sin is 'antiquated4' ,the ,church has thus cut itself adrift from the teaching of prophet and seer1 and the ,bible1 which is aflame with the judgments of ,god upon sin1 is but the antiquated record of unenlightened ages4 ,thus the conscience of the nation is narcotised4 ,and it is manifest that a nation whose conscience is chloroformed can hear no #ahb call summoning to repentance4 ,when the ,church is blind to the sword of ,god flaming in the heavens1 how can any expect the nation to behold it1 and1 beholding1 to repent8 ,this obsession that we are not living in a great day of divine judgment is all the stranger when we consider that every day of our lives is a day of divine judgment1 and that we are ever standing at the bar of the great assize4 ,no sooner does a man sin than judgment begins to operate4 ,let him surrender to intemperance1 and the judgment of disordered nerves and enfeebled frame is immediately declared4 ,and so with every violation of the divine order4 ,and the judgment ever operative against the individual is also ever operative against the nation4 ,it requires but little thought to see how the national sins brought on the nation the judgment of these dread days4 ,for what was it that brought down upon us the cataclysm of war8 ,it was the degeneration into which the nation #ahc had fallen4 ,like all empires we had risen from poverty1 through hardship and discipline1 to riches1 and in days of luxury we lost our soul4 ,we gave ourselves to pleasure and self-indulgence4 ,we worshipped at one shrine--that of ,mammon4 ,we refused to bend the back to discipline or to exercise ourselves in enduring hardship4 ,we annexed a fourth of the world's surface1 but we were determined that we would have the world without paying the price4 ,with an army equal in size to that of ,switzerland we were holding against the rest of mankind an ,empire which included most of the world's riches4 ,our rulers knew of our danger1 but they dared not summon the people to arms1 because whoever did so would risk office4 ,those who were on the watch-towers saw the enemy mustering1 but they gave no warning1 for the spoils of office were dear4 ,prophets arose to warn us1 but we meted out contempt to them4 ,that was our fashion of stoning them4 7,we have1 #ahd however1 improved upon the chosen race1 for the very men who stoned them are already rearing statues in their honour67 ,crowds of thirty thousand would assemble to shout and gamble over football matches1 but the few days requisite for the training of our ,territorial forces were not to be endured6 ,we ceased to produce the population that could possess the vast territories we held4 ,we could think of nothing but the vapourings of politicians who sacrificed the ,state to their faction4 ,when ,europe was an armed camp and ,germany was piling up armaments1 we were preparing for civil war in ,ireland4 ,vision and genius were dying among us4 ,for the devotees of ,aphrodite and ,mammon are blinded to the stars4 ,a nation which sinks into degeneration1 and which1 holding the world's wealth1 refuses even to prepare to guard its riches1 is loudly inviting the robber4 ,germany concluded that we were degenerate and a negligible factor4 ,does any one think that1 if we had begun to prepare after #ahe ,agadir1 there would have been war8 ,if ,germany had for one moment thought that the ,british fleet would have been arrayed against it1 and that ,britain would have marshalled five millions of men to fight to the death1 there never would have been a war4 ,it is not enough to say that in that case the war would only have been postponed1 for a war averted is not necessarily a war postponed4 ,pendjeh and ,fashoda might at least teach us that4 ,do not let us blind ourselves to the facts4 ,one source of this war is in ourselves4 ,we bewail the horrors of war2 what we ought to bewail is the horror of sin4 ,for war is only a symptom of the hidden disease1 as raving is the symptom of fever4 ,and one of the sources of the blood and tears that overwhelm the earth is our sin4 ,the horror of the battlefield pales before the horror of sin in our streets1 sweeping souls to death4 ,our surrender to pleasure1 our pursuit of vanity1 our sacrifice of the ,state to party1 of the race to our ease1 our refusal to #ahf make the sacrifice that would make the ,empire secure--these are the conditions which made war inevitable and which evoked it4 ,as alcohol and the drunkard's palsied limbs are cause and effect1 sin and judgment2 so the national sin and the horrors of war are cause and effect1 sin and judgment4 ,only the self-blinded are unable to discern that they are living in a great day of judgment3 judgment on ,germany for its greed and lust and covetousness3 judgment on ,britain for wasting at the shrine of self-indulgence that wealth committed to it for the serving and the uplifting of the world4 ,and if the ,church cannot see the divine judgment1 then it cannot call the nation to repentance4 ,for the nation1 unconscious of wrong1 will but say along with the ,church3 ',i am rich and increased in goods and have need of nothing4' ,after the war it will rush down the slope faster than ever before4 ,the real fact is that the vision of ,god is hid from us by the mists of our sin4 ,we cannot #ahg imagine the sword of the divine judgment unsheathed over the world1 for a sword hanging from heaven must be gripped by some hand4 ,and if there be no hand of ,god1 how can there be a sword of ,his justice8 ,,iii ,the one way of salvation for the human race is that of conformity to the righteous will of ,god4 ,on the side of those who seek to walk along that road all the forces of nature fight2 against those who resist the will of ,god all the forces of the universe are marshalled4 ,those who would conquer must walk with ,god4 ,to return to ,god is the only hope4 ,let us try and realise the truth of this4 ,the greatest danger threatening the race is1 as we have seen1 that of racial suicide4 ,the mentally developed have made the devitalising of life a code of conduct4 ,unconscious of sin1 they have made sin a science4 ,for the race that sets its face towards this goal there awaits #ahh nought but ruin4 ,the problem is how to save the race from the coffin4 ,a great many remedies have been proposed1 but almost all of them are not only futile but pernicious4 ,a system of bounties to parents for each child would be no inducement to the classes which have already surrendered to this degeneration4 ,such a policy would only encourage the further multiplying of the poor and the unfit4 ,and the remedy is not to be found in the multiplication of agencies for the preservation of child life4 ,the conservation of the child in the slum will not compensate for the destruction of the child in the mansion-house4 ,a policy which aims at the survival of the unfit cannot enrich the race4 ,such methods are to be commended1 but they are mere palliatives4 ,when the bone needs to be scraped1 it is futile to go on applying poultices4 ,the true remedy is in the realisation of ,god and in the return of the nation to ,him4 ,it is when the soul is awakened #ahi to ,god that men realise the heinousness of sacrificing life to selfishness4 ,for ,god is the fountain of life2 and it is not merely the physical life that is atrophied by racial limitation4 ,the blow is in reality aimed not at the race but at ,god4 ,for from ,god all life proceeds1 and the whole universe is the process of ,his self-realisation4 ,the glory of earth and sea and sky are the glory of the outgoing of the divine energy4 ,but the highest of all the processes of the divine self-realisation is in man4 ,in the world there is nothing great but man2 and the world is enriched for ,god by ,his children4 ,there is no limit to ,his creative energy1 no failure in ,his imagination1 for each new life is different1 and each fresh and new4 ,in ,his children ,god realises ,himself as love and tenderness4 ,they are the only things that can love and laugh and cling4 ,the music of their joyous merriment is ,god's best anthems4 ,each new human life is a temple of the ,holy #aij ,ghost4 ,through them the divine life grows more and more4 ,and to each is committed some separate element of the divine treasure1 for each is as different from others as if it alone were created4 ,when men1 then1 set themselves to suppress human life1 they are setting themselves to suppress ,god4 ,it is the great tide of the creative life that they set themselves to dam4 ,the joyousness of the creative genius that ever creates but never repeats itself1 they bring to nought4 ,they deny to ,god on earth the temples for ,his indwelling4 ,only when the soul realises ,god thus brooding over the face of the world1 thus waiting for the fulness of the divine enrichment1 will men realise the heinousness of life-suppression4 ,lives based on the code of morals which prefers coffins to cradles are lives which fight against ,god1 and as such are doomed to be ground to powder by ,his judgment4 ,when ,god1 the source of all life1 is once realised1 then the soul of the life-destroyer must shrink back in horror and dismay4 #aia ',woe is me1 for ,i am undone1' will be the cry of his lips4 ,men can conquer their fellows1 but there is only the devouring of hell for those who fight against ,god4 ,when ,god ceased to be a reality1 the destruction of life was but a natural sacrifice to our ease4 ,there being nothing higher than ourselves1 then to ourselves let us sacrifice even life4 ,when ,god in ,his divine majesty will again shine forth before the soul1 and the eyes behold the ,divine ,life everywhere waiting its realisation1 then human life again shall become precious and desired1 and the race will measure its felicity by the multitude of its children4 ,the silent terraces will again ring with joyous voices4 ,the race1 with its fountains of life overflowing1 will again go forth to vivify the earth4 ,if only the world were realised as of ,god1 all our difficulties would vanish4 ,think what it would mean to the man who has devoted a whole parish to his own recreation4 ,the green places where #aib little children called to each other are covered with pheasant coops6 ,the places where children could grow in health are given over to birds4 ,let such a man once see that the world was created that love might increase and be multiplied1 that on it ,god might realise ,his creative energy in the highest form1 and he will be stricken with shame and convicted of sin4 ,childhood and innocence he has vanished from his land that his ears might hear the whirr of the flying of grouse1 and that he might have the joy of killing4 ,when the vision of ,god arises upon him he will abhor his selfishness and set himself to repair the desolation that has been wrought4 ,he will have no rest until the green places again are filled with the glory and the radiance of life4 ,the slums will be emptied and the now silent places peopled anew1 when the nation realises again that ,god created the world to be the home of ,his children4 ,in this return to ,god is the solution to be found of all our difficulties4 ,for #aic in this return is the discovery of our common sonship1 and of the law of love4 ,we are at present divided into classes with warring interests waiting for peace to begin the strife again4 ,the body-politic is fissiparous and there is nothing to bind it together in the unity and consistency of steel4 ,here is the element through which the disintegrated elements can be united into a weapon that can win victories4 ,at the feet of ,god there comes the knowledge that all we are brethren1 and that the one law is love4 ,it is love that unites4 ,it is love that bridges chasms and throws down dividing walls4 ,love does not throw doles to the perishing1 it gives itself4 ,love never says1 ',you carry my burden1' but rather1 ',let me carry your burden4' ,to the eye of love1 man is no longer a mere crank in the great machinery of labour1 a unit in the vast mass designated the 'lower classes'--he is a brother4 ,and love will not give a brother over to be the prey of vice1 #aid or surrender him as a victim to monopolies that destroy him4 ,love will sacrifice and fight for the brother's life4 ,the remedy for all our ills lies here--in our return to ,god4 ,,iv ,to many the preaching of repentance is the dreariest of all things4 ,it is but the voice summoning them to the impossible--to mourn for sins of which they are unconscious4 ,they cry out for life--and they are offered tears4 ,but far from being compact of all weariness and sorrow1 repentance is the most thrilling of all that the soul can experience4 ,it is the essence of all romance4 ,for what is it but this--the turning back to ,god4 ,and in turning to ,god comes the vision of the glory of life4 ,the eyes are illumined with radiance when they behold no longer processes and laws--but ,god4 ,who can compute that enrichment when suddenly the veil is rent and from some hill-top the eyes behold #aie no longer meadow and moorland and the gleam of waters afar1 but the ,life behind them all--,god2 and everything created1 the green sward and the clouds swimming in glory1 the mist-caressed mountains and the great sea heaving in all its waves1 become but one vast transparency through which ,god flashes ,his splendour on the enraptured soul4 ,and in this return to ,god the soul is ever led on from glory to glory4 ,that is the alluring power of ,christianity4 ,the ,shepherd of souls leads us ever on until we come to the ,cross and realise that the ,god of heaven and earth is the ,god of sacrifice2 that ,his love stoops to agony that ,he may save4 ,and onward from the ,cross ,he leads until on our enraptured hearts there rises the vision of the ,cross abiding still in the heart of ,god1 and our eyes behold over all the universe the sheen of that love which still stoops to death that it may save4 ,as we tread the way back1 and go on ever nearer to the hidden fire1 we feel the flame of ,his love filling all our #aif being4 ,and beauties undreamed of leap into light at each bend of the road4 ,to come to ,god is to journey from death to life4 ,the world has nothing great comparable to this4 ,v ,but to return to ,god means not only a transfigured soul in a transfigured world1 it means also a transfigured life4 ,to turn the face ,godward is to change one's ideal1 and the change of ideal eventuates in a change of life4 ,when the new light illumines the secret places1 the soul1 quickened by the fellowship of ,god1 sees the unclean with new eyes1 and sets itself to conquer whatsoever is unworthy of ,god4 ,national repentance with us will realise itself in peopling the waste places1 in emptying the slums into the country1 in destroying the vested interests in the vice of the people1 in making a healthy and beautiful life the birthright of every citizen4 ,for the ,church that will give itself to the realisation of this #aig repentance there will never be the stagnation of monotony4 ,life will be electric with conflict1 triumphant at last with victory4 ,it is the thrill and romance of life--this experience of the soul to which we are summoned4 ,it heralds every great day of ,god4 ',repent1 for the kingdom of heaven is at hand1' is the herald of every dawn4 ,it is a message to be preached with yearning and wonder and love1 and not with clenched fists4 ,it can be preached with fierceness1 but that will little avail4 ,the prophet can call to the people3 ',return1 for the precipice is in front of you and destruction yawneth at your feet--return4' ,but terror is feeble to move the heart4 ,better far is it to call to the people as ,hosea called to ,israel3 ',return1 for ,god is behind you2 your own ,god who saved you again and again when there was none to help1 who bore you and carried you through the terrible wilderness4444 ,return1 ,god is waiting for you1 just behind you4' ,the gospel of repentance is the gospel of the love of #aih ,god4 ,when the soul realises the love and the tenderness and the glory of ,god waiting to enrich and save--then the soul will return4 ,the greatest adventure in life is just this3 the way of repentance leading back to ,god4 ,if only the ,church would voyage forth anew on this enchanted sea1 the day of its power would again dawn4 ,,vi ,if there be1 thus1 the wonder of riches untold1 the gleam of virgin peaks summoning our feet to climb1 a glimpse of the land afar1 and the clear shining of ,god's face in the call to repent1 let us not forget that there is also something very terrible bound up with it4 ,and the terrible thing is that it is possible so to disregard it that at last it becomes impossible to obey it4 ,in vain did the prophet call1 ',o ,israel1 return unto the ,lord thy ,god1' for their paralysed wills had become incapable of effort4 ',their deeds will not let them return1' was at last the prophet's #aii mournful verdict4 ,to every nation there comes1 after long decline1 the stage when recovery is impossible4 ,when the warnings of the wise have been flouted and disregarded2 when the prophets have not been stoned but treated with mere contempt2 when there is no discernment because there is no longer any consciousness of sin2 when no call of the divine is audible any longer even when ,god speaks by terrible things and the heavens are shaken2 when the hearts steeped in self and surrendered to the flesh can see no longer the beauty of purity1--then the call to repentance is heard as one hears voices in sleep4 ,their deeds will not let them return4 ,it is not very far away from us that last irrevocable stage when national repentance becomes impossible4 ,a nation such as this1 that spends over half a million pounds sterling a day on alcohol when the greatest crisis in the world's history requires all its strength and all its resources2 that turns grain into a #bjj waste when food is so dear that the poor can scarcely buy2 that cries out for economy and offers daily at the shrine of ,bacchus the ransom of a province2 that suffers vice to wound and slay its children1 narcotising its conscience the while2 that in ,god's terrible day empties its churches and crowds its music-halls2 that sacrifices its children to the ,moloch of its pleasure1 or to the greed of its property exploiters2 that suffers its people to be massed in slums until the body-politic becomes a gangrene1--for such a people the last stage1 where no return is possible1 cannot be far removed4 ,arise1 ,o ,israel1 and return to the ,lord your ,god1 ere the day of repentance sinks into night6 ,printed in ,great ,britain by ,t4 and ,a4 ,,constable1 ,printers to ,his ,majesty at the ,edinburgh ,university ,press