THE CHURCH AND THK ARMY. 



195 



defended it as ably as any church in Christendom, and her learned 

 books are excellent things in their way. Only people do not read 

 them, any more than they read the works of the enemies whom 

 our scholars attack. 



Nor does it seem to me much good saying that the want of 

 definite Church teaching in schools and pulpits is responsible for 

 the position of men like my friend. As a matter of fact that par- 

 ticular boy had been " Church taught quite carefully. He knew 

 his Creed and at one time had known his Catechism. He had been 

 prepared for Confirmation. He carried about with him a little 

 book of Eucharistic Meditations which actually glowed with 

 Church teaching of tiie most definite kind. Yet after all he 

 wanted to know whether there was any kind of life after death. 

 The vast mass of people living in a Christian land like this are 

 taught, as plainly and distinctly as possible, that there is a life 

 after death. The want of definite Church teaching may account 

 for men not believing things about sacraments and absolution 

 because very often those things are not taught. But the fact 

 that we live beyond the grave is taught. And if people do not 

 believe it, it is not for want of hearing it asserted. 



There is, indeed, this much behind the common demand for 

 more definite teaching. There has always been a certain hesitancy 

 in the manner in which the Church of England has taught anything. 

 She has valued, and still values, freedom more highly than dis- 

 cipline, and has shrunk from the attempt to compel belief by 

 presenting dogma at the point of the bayonet. She has never 

 quite said : " It is my duty to tell you what is true and your 

 duty simply to believe what I tell you." 



Yet — whatever authority a teacher claims — it is impossible 

 to think that men will believe, believe in such a way that their 

 belief will be any real use to them, merely because they are told to, 

 unless indeed they undergo a process of hypnotism which destroys 

 their minds. They may submit and profess, to save trouble, but 

 a.t the last resort they are liable to turn on their teacher and say, 

 " Look here, I quite realize your position ; but, as a matter of 

 fact, is there really anything in it 1 



It might, I think, be fairly urged against the Church of England 

 — and I suppose against every other church — that along with the 

 really important things, she has been teaching with equal emphasis 

 a whole lot of other things which are not nearly so important, 

 which do not strike the ordinary man as of any importance at all. 

 There are, when all is said, very few things in the Christian faith 



o 2 



