Part 10
It was Huxley and Herbert Spencer and Bradlaugh who brought me back to orthodox theology. They sowed in my mind my first wild doubts of doubt. Our grandmothers were quite right when they said that Tom Paine and the Freethinkers unsettled the mind. They do. They unsettled mine horribly. The rationalists made me question whether reason was of any use whatever; and when I had finished Herbert Spencer I had got as far as doubting (for the first time) whether evolution had occurred at all. As I laid down the last of Colonel Ingersoll's atheistic lectures, the dreadful thought broke into my mind, 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.'
_'Orthodoxy.'_
DECEMBER 22nd
Pure and exalted atheists talk themselves into believing that the working classes are turning with indignant scorn from the churches. The working classes are not indignant against the churches in the least. The things the working classes really are indignant against are the hospitals. The people has no definite disbelief in the temples of theology. The people has a very fiery and practical disbelief in the temples of physical science.
_'Charles Dickens.'_
DECEMBER 23rd
A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, He has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the enigma has rather increased than diminished.
_'All Things Considered.'_
DECEMBER 24th _CHRISTMAS EVE_
THE TRUCE OF CHRISTMAS
Passionate peace is in the sky-- And in the snow in silver sealed The beasts are perfect in the field, And men seem men so suddenly-- (But take ten swords and ten times ten And blow the bugle in praising men; For we are for all men under the sun, And they are against us every one; And misers haggle and madmen clutch And there is peril in praising much, And we have the terrible tongues uncurled That praise the world to the sons of the world).
The idle humble hill and wood Are bowed about the sacred birth, And for one little hour the earth Is lazy with the love of good-- (But ready are you, and ready am I, If the battle blow and the guns go by; For we are for all men under the sun, And they are against us every one; And the men that hate herd all together, To pride and gold, and the great white feather, And the thing is graven in star and stone That the men who love are all alone).
Hunger is hard and time is tough, But bless the beggars and kiss the kings, For hope has broken the heart of things, And nothing was ever praised enough. (But hold the shield for a sudden swing And point the sword when you praise a thing, For we are for all men under the sun, And they are against us every one, And mime and merchant, thane and thrall Hate us because we love them all, Only till Christmastide go by Passionate peace is in the sky).
_'The Commonwealth.'_
DECEMBER 25th _CHRISTMAS DAY_
There fared a mother driven forth Out of an inn to roam; In the place where she was homeless All men are at home. The crazy stable close at hand, With shaking timber and shifting sand, Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand Than the square stones of Rome.
For men are homesick in their homes, And strangers under the sun, And they lay their heads in a foreign land Whenever the day is done. Here we have battle and blazing eyes, And chance and honour and high surprise, But our homes are under miraculous skies Where the Yule tale was begun.
A Child in a foul stable, Where the beasts feed and foam, Only where He was homeless Are you and I at home: We have hands that fashion and heads that know, But our hearts we lost--how long ago! In a place no chart nor ship can show Under the sky's dome.
This world is wild as an old wives' tale, And strange the plain things are, The earth is enough and the air is enough For our wonder and our war; But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings And our peace is put in impossible things Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings Round an incredible star.
To an open house in the evening Home shall all men come, To an older place than Eden And a taller town than Rome. To the end of the way of the wandering star, To the things that cannot be and that are, To the place where God was homeless And all men are at home.
_The House of Christmas: 'Daily News.'_
DECEMBER 26th _BOXING DAY_
There are innumerable persons with eyeglasses and green garments who pray for the return of the maypole or the Olympian Games. But there is about these people a haunting and alarming something which suggests that it is just possible that they do not keep Christmas. If so, where is the sense of all their dreams of festive traditions? Here is a solid and ancient festive tradition still plying a roaring trade in the streets, and they think it vulgar. If this is so, let them be very certain of this: that they are the kind of people who in the time of the maypole would have thought the maypole vulgar; who in the time of the Canterbury pilgrimage would have thought the Canterbury pilgrimage vulgar; who in the time of the Olympian Games would have thought the Olympian Games vulgar. Nor can there be any reasonable doubt that they were vulgar. Let no man deceive himself; if by vulgarity we mean coarseness of speech, rowdiness of behaviour, gossip, horseplay, and some heavy drinking: vulgarity there always was, wherever there was joy, wherever there was faith in the gods.
_'Heretics.'_
DECEMBER 27th _ST. JOHN'S DAY_
Christ did not love humanity, He never said He loved humanity; He loved men. Neither He nor anyone else can love humanity; it is like loving a gigantic centipede. And the reason that the Tolstoians can even endure to think of an equally distributed love is that their love of humanity is a logical love, a love into which they are coerced by their own theories, a love which would be an insult to a tom-cat.
_'Twelve Types.'_
DECEMBER 28th _HOLY INNOCENTS' DAY_
That little urchin with the gold-red hair (whom I have just watched toddling past my house), she shall not be lopped and lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut short like a convict's. No; all the kingdoms of the earth shall be hacked about and mutilated to suit her. The winds of the world shall be tempered to that lamb unshorn. All crowns that cannot fit her head shall be broken; all raiment and building that does not harmonize with her glory shall waste away. Her mother may bid her bind her hair, for that is natural authority; but the Emperor of the Planet shall not bid her cut it off. She is the human and sacred image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall; the pillars of society shall be shaken and the roofs of ages come rushing down; and not one hair of her head shall be harmed.
_'What's Wrong with the World.'_
DECEMBER 29th _ST. THOMAS À BECKET_
When four knights scattered the blood and brains of St. Thomas of Canterbury it was not only a sign of anger but a sort of black admiration. They wished for his blood, but they wished even more for his brains. Such a blow will remain for ever unintelligible unless we realize what the brains of St. Thomas were thinking about just before they were distributed over the floor. They were thinking about the great medieval conception that the Church is the judge of the world. Becket objected to a priest being tried even by the Lord Chief Justice. And his reason was simple: because the Lord Chief Justice was being tried by the priest. The judiciary was itself _sub judice_. The kings were themselves in the dock. The idea was to create an invisible kingdom without armies or prisons, but with complete freedom to condemn publicly all the kingdoms of the earth.
_'What's Wrong with the World.'_
DECEMBER 30th
Progress is not an illegitimate word, but it is logically evident that it is illegitimate for us. It is a sacred word, a word that could only rightly be used by rigid believers and in the ages of faith.
_'Heretics.'_
DECEMBER 31st
With all the multiplicity of knowledge there is one thing happily that no man knows: whether the world is old or young.
_'The Defendant.'_
THE MOVEABLE FEASTS
ADVENT SUNDAY
People, if you have any prayers, Say prayers for me; And lay me under a Christian stone In this lost land I thought my own, To wait till the holy horn be blown And all poor men are free.
_'Ballad of Alfred.'_
SHROVE TUESDAY
Why should I care for the Ages Because they are old and grey? To me like sudden laughter The stars are fresh and gay; The world is a daring fancy And finished yesterday.
Why should I bow to the Ages Because they are drear and dry? Slow trees and ripening meadows For me go roaring by, A living charge, a struggle To escalade the sky.
The eternal suns and systems, Solid and silent all, To me are stars of an instant, Only the fires that fall From God's good rocket rising On this night of carnival.
_'A Novelty' ('The Wild Knight')._
ASH WEDNESDAY
Nor shall all iron doors make dumb Men wondering ceaselessly, If it be not better to fast for joy Than feast for misery?
_'Ballad of Alfred.'_
PALM SUNDAY
When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born.
With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The devil's walking parody On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth, Of ancient crooked will, Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, I keep my secret still.
Fools, for I also had my hour, One far fierce hour and sweet, There was a shout about my ears And palms before my feet.
_'The Donkey' ('The Wild Knight')._
MAUNDAY THURSDAY
Jesus Christ made wine, not a medicine, but a sacrament. But Omar makes it, not a sacrament, but a medicine. He feasts because life is not joyful; he revels because he is not glad. 'Drink,' he says, 'for you know not whence you come nor why. Drink, for you know not when you go nor where. Drink, because the stars are cruel and the world as idle as a humming-top. Drink, because there is nothing worth trusting, nothing worth fighting for. Drink, because all things are lapsed in a base equality and an evil peace.' So he stands offering us the cup in his hands. And in the high altar of Christianity stands another figure in whose hand also is the cup of the vine. 'Drink,' he says, 'for the whole world is as red as this wine with the crimson of the love and wrath of God. Drink, for the trumpets are blowing for battle, and this is the stirrup cup. Drink, for this is my blood of the New Testament that is shed for you. Drink, for I know whence you come and why. Drink, for I know when you go and where.'
_'Heretics.'_
GOOD FRIDAY
And well may God with the serving folk Cast in His dreadful lot. Is not He too a servant, And is not He forgot?
Wherefore was God in Golgotha Slain as a serf is slain; And hate He had of prince and peer, And love He had and made good cheer, Of them that, like this woman here, Go powerfully in pain.
_'Ballad of Alfred.'_
HOLY SATURDAY
The Cross cannot be defeated for it is defeat.
_'The Ball and the Cross.'_
EASTER DAY
I said to my companion the Dickensian, 'Do you see that angel over there? I think it must be meant for the Angel at the Sepulchre.' He saw that I was somewhat singularly moved, and he raised his eyebrows.
'I daresay,' he said. 'What is there odd about that?'
After a pause I answered, 'Do you remember what the Angel at the Sepulchre said?'
'Not particularly,' ha replied; 'but where are you off to in such a hurry?'
'I am going,' I said, 'to put pennies into automatic machines on the beach. I am going to listen to the niggers. I am going to have my photograph taken. I will buy some picture postcards. I do want a boat. I am ready to listen to a concertina, and but for the defects of my education should be ready to play it. I am willing to ride on a donkey; that is, if the donkey is willing. For all this was commanded me by the angel in the stained glass window.'
'I really think,' said the Dickensian, 'that I had better put you in charge of your relations.'
'Sir,' I answered, 'there are certain writers to whom humanity owes much, whose talent is yet of so shy and delicate or retrospective a type that we do well to link it with certain quaint places or certain perishing associations. It would not be unnatural to look for the spirit of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, or even for the shade of Thackeray in old Kensington. But let us have no antiquarianism about Dickens for Dickens is not an antiquity. Dickens looks not backward but forward; he might look at our modern mobs with satire, or with fury, but he would love to look at them. He might lash our democracy, but it would be because, like a democrat, he asked much from it. We will not have all his books bound up under the title 'The Old Curiosity Shop.' Rather we will have them all bound up under the title of 'Great Expectations.' Wherever humanity is he would have us face it and make something of it, swallow it with a holy cannibalism and assimilate it with the digestion of a giant. We must take these trippers as he would have taken them and tear out of them their tragedy and their farce. Do you remember now what the Angel said at the Sepulchre? 'Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here; He is risen.'
_'Tremendous Trifles.'_
ASCENSION DAY
What is the difference between Christ and Satan?
It is quite simple. Christ descended into hell; Satan fell into it. One of them wanted to go up and went down; the other wanted to go down and went up.
_'The Ball and the Cross.'_
WHITSUNDAY
I have a far more solid and central ground for submitting to Christianity as a faith, instead of merely picking up hints from it as a scheme. And that is this; that the Christian Church in its practical relation to my soul is a living teacher, not a dead one. It not only certainly taught me yesterday, but will almost certainly teach me to-morrow. Once I saw suddenly the meaning of the shape of the cross; some day I may see suddenly the meaning of the shape of the mitre. One fine morning I saw why windows were pointed; some fine morning I may see why priests were shaven. Plato has told you a truth; but Plato is dead. Shakespeare has startled you with an image; but Shakespeare will not startle you with any more. But imagine what it would be to live with such men still living. To know that Plato might break out with an original lecture to-morrow, or that at any moment Shakespeare might shatter everything with a single song. The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare to-morrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before.
_'Orthodoxy.'_
TRINITY SUNDAY
The meanest man in grey fields gone Behind the set of sun, Heareth between star and other star, Through the door of the darkness fallen ajar, The Council eldest of things that are, The talk of the Three in One.
_'Ballad of Alfred.'_
CORPUS CHRISTI
All great spiritual Scriptures are full of the invitation not to test but to taste; not to examine but to eat. Their phrases are full of living water and heavenly bread, mysterious manna and dreadful wine. Worldliness and the polite society of the world has despised this instinct of eating, but religion has never despised it.
_'Daily News.'_
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End of Project Gutenberg's A Chesterton Calendar, by G. K. Chesterton