24 THE WORKING FAITH OF 



This was the truth which, in trying times, Edmund 

 Burke enforced with many strong arguments and illumined 

 with all the splendour of his eloquence. It is a truth 

 generally urged in the interests of social and political con- 

 servatism. I press it^ rather, in the interests of reform. 

 The consciousness of the good embodied in our social life 

 is not so much needed by those who would leave things 

 as they are, as by others who would lay their hands upon 

 its complex relations in order to change them. Burke 

 pled for reverence towards the state. He would deal with 

 its evils as with a father's wounds. And even in the 

 presence of evils that may seem to be accumulating, of 

 a public life that is in danger of forgetting its ethical 

 foundations in the ardour of its pursuit of material good, 

 and of a legislative assembly that seems at times to be 

 spendthrift of its own dignity, I should counsel the same 

 spirit. The reform of the state, and of the social life 

 within it, must be based on loyalty ; loyalty must rest on 

 reverence, and we can revere only that which we believe 

 to be in some ways great and good. 



Now, it may seem a paradox to say that this reverence 

 can be best learnt, not from the writings of great men 

 who have projected ideal states, but from observing the 

 practical life of the world as it is. But such is my experi- 

 ence. Among the deepest impressions left upon me after 

 visiting the worst plague-spots of the great city in which 

 I dwell (where I saw only what has been often described) 

 was their comparatively limited area. Pitiful beyond 

 speech and most repulsive was the scene of their dissolute- 

 ness and vice. But I could not help contrasting it with 

 the vast extent of respectable, decent, commonplace, but 

 well-doing life, which, during the obscure hours when 



