Dawn of All

Dawn of All

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dawn of All, by Robert Hugh Benson This eBook is for
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Title: Dawn of All
Author: Robert Hugh Benson
Release Date: March 18, 2004 [EBook #11626]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Made and Printed in Great Britain at _The Mayflower Press, Plymouth_. William
Brendan & Son, Ltd.

PREFACE
IN a former book, called Lord of the World, I attempted to sketch the kind of
developments a hundred years hence which, I thought, might reasonably be expected if
the present lines of what is called "modern thought" were only prolonged far enough; and
I was informed repeatedly that the effect of the book was exceedingly depressing and
discouraging to optimistic Christians. In the present book I am attempting--also in
parable form--not in the least to withdraw anything that I said in the former, but to follow
up the other lines instead, and to sketch--again in parable--the kind of developments,
about sixty years hence which, I think, may reasonably be expected should the opposite
process begin, and ancient thought (which has stood the test of centuries, and is, in a very
remarkable manner, being "rediscovered" by persons even more modern than modernists)
be prolonged instead. We are told occasionally by moralists that we live in very critical
times, by which they mean that they are not sure whether their own side will win or not.
In that sense no times can ever be critical to Catholics, since Catholics are never in any
kind of doubt as to whether or no their side will win. But from another point of view
every period is a critical period, since every period has within itself the conflict of two
irreconcilable forces. It has been for the sake of tracing out the kind of effects that, it
seemed to me, each side would experience in turn, should the other, at any rate for a

while, become dominant, that I have written these two books.
Finally if I may be allowed, I should wish to draw attention to my endeavours to treat of
the subject of "religious persecution," since I strongly believe that in some such theory is
to be found the explanation of such phenomena as those of Mary Tudor's reign in
England, and of the Spanish Inquisition. In practically every such case, I think, it was the
State and not the Church which was responsible for so unhappy a policy; and that the
policy was directed not against unorthodoxy, as such, but against an unorthodoxy which,
under the circumstances of those days, was thought to threaten the civil stability of
society in general, and which was punished as amounting to treasonable, rather than to
heretical, opinions.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON.
ROME Lent 1911

THE DAWN OF ALL

PROLOGUE
Gradually memory and consciousness once more reasserted themselves, and he became
aware that he was lying in bed. But this was a slow process of intense mental effort, and
was as laboriously and logically built up of premises and deductions as were his
theological theses learned twenty years before in his seminary. There was the sheet below
his chin; there was a red coverlet (seen at first as a blood-coloured landscape of hills and
valleys); there was a ceiling, overhead, at first as remote as the vault of heaven. Then,
little by little, the confused roaring in his ears sank to a murmur. It had been just now as
the sound of brazen hammers clanging in reverberating caves, the rolling of wheels, the
tramp of countless myriads of men. But it had become now a soothing murmur, not
unlike the coming in of a tide at the foot of high cliffs--just one gentle continuous note,
overlaid with light, shrill sounds. This too required long argument and reasoning before
any conclusion could be reached; but it was attained at last, and he became certain that he
lay somewhere within sound of busy streets. Then rashly he leapt to the belief that he
must be in his own lodgings in Bloomsbury; but another long slow stare upwards showed
him that the white ceiling was too far away.
The effort of thought seemed too much for him; it gave him a sense of inexplicable
discomfort. He determined to think no more, for fear that the noises should revert again
to the crash of hammers in his hollow head. . . .
He was next conscious of a pressure on his lip, and a kind of shadow