THE ACCUSATION 193 



my life to take it away." There are left " seven thousand 

 in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal and 

 every mouth which hath not kissed him." Beneath, 

 beyond, all around the frothy foam of moral scepticism and 

 intellectual sophistry there are the deep waters of the wide, 

 swinging ocean making eternal music beneath the stars. 

 England is not a sceptic. England is not indifferent to 

 the issues of right and wrong. Our country is not hard- 

 ened to all pity, nor is it deaf to the cries of the wronged 

 and oppressed, whether within or without its gates. 



Elijah had to leave the Court of Ahab, to eat and drink 

 and in the strength of the meat to go forty days into the 

 wilderness, unto Horeb, the Mount of God, ere he could 

 hear the ' ' still small voice " speak of the seven thousand 

 who bowed not their knees to Baal. Can it be that our 

 modern prophet has dwelt too long amongst the politicians, 

 the journalists and the financiers, and mistaken the green- 

 room of party politics for the stage on which is veritably 

 acted the great drama of our national life ? 



Since he wrote Great Britain, under deep revulsion of 

 feeling against the political sophistry of which it was weary, 

 has sought a new instrument for its will for good. I know 

 not how to account either for its rejection of the past 

 Government or for its impatience with the pace of the 

 present Government, especially in matters of social justice, 

 if it had become hard of heart, and indifferent to right and 

 \ wrong. Hence I conclude that Mr. Hobhouse has told 

 / truths, but not spoken the truth. Forgetting the role of 

 the philosopher as a spectator of a wide expanse of time 

 and of existence, he has not been careful lest he exaggerate 

 evil, or in his exposure of it, lest he overlook the good. A 

 nation depraved to the extent he describes could not rise 



