Dawn of All | Page 9

be.


CHAPTER II

(I)
"I shall be delighted, Monsignor," said the thin, clever-faced statesman, in his high, dry
voice; "I shall be delighted to sketch out what seem to me the principal points in the
century's development."
A profound silence fell upon all the table.
Really, Monsignor Masterman thought to himself, as he settled down to listen, he had
done very well so far. He had noticed the old priest opposite smiling more than once,
contentedly, as their eyes met.
Father Jervis had come to him as he had promised, for half an hour's good talk before
lunch; and they had spent a very earnest thirty minutes together. First they had discussed
with great care all the persons who would be present at lunch--not more than eight,
besides themselves; the priest had given him a little plan of the table, showing where each
would sit, and had described their personal appearance and recounted a salient fact or two
about every one. These were all priests except Mr. Manners himself and his secretary.
The rest of the time had been occupied in information being given to the man who had
lost his memory, with regard to a few very ordinary subjects of conversation--the
extraordinary fairness of the weather; a new opera produced with unparalleled success by
a "well-known" composer of whom Monsignor had never heard; a recent Eucharistic
congress in Tokio, from which the Cardinal had just returned; and the scheme for
redecorating the interior of Archbishop's House.
There had not been time for more; but these subjects, under the adroit handling of Father
Jervis, had proved sufficient; and up to the preconcerted moment when Monsignor had
uttered the sentence about his study of Mr. Manners' History of Twentieth Century

Development which had drawn from the author the words recorded above, all had gone
perfectly smoothly.
There had been a few minor hitches; for example, the food and the manner of serving it
and the proper method of consuming it had furnished a bad moment or two; and once
Monsignor had been obliged to feign sudden deafness on being asked a question on a
subject of which he knew nothing by a priest whose name he had forgotten, until Father
Jervis slid in adroitly and saved him. Yet these were quite unnoticed, it appeared, and
could easily be attributed to the habit of absent-mindedness for which, Monsignor
Masterman was relieved to learn, he was almost notorious.
And now the crisis was past and Mr. Manners was launched. Monsignor glanced almost
happily round the tall dining-room, from which the servants had already disappeared, and,
with his glass in his hand, settled himself down to listen and remember.
* * * * *
"The crisis, to my mind, in the religious situation," began the statesman, looking more
professional than ever, with his closed eyes, thin, wrinkled face, and high forehead--"the
real crisis is to be sought in the period from 1900 to 1920.
"This was the period, you remember, of tremendous social agitation. There was the
widespread revolution of the Latin countries, beginning with France and Portugal, chiefly
against Authority, and most of all against Monarchy (since Monarchy is the most vivid
and the most concrete embodiment of authority); and in Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon
countries against Capital and Aristocracy. It was in these years that Socialism came most
near to dominating the civilized world; and, indeed, you will remember that for long after
that date it did dominate civilization in certain places.
"Now the real trouble at the bottom of all this was the state in which Religion found itself.
And you will find, gentlemen," said the quasi-lecturer in parenthesis, glancing round the
attentive faces, "that Religion always is and always has been at the root of every
world-movement. In fact it must be so. The deepest instinct in man is his religion, that is,
his attitude to eternal issues; and on that attitude must depend his relation to temporal
things. This is so, largely, even in the case of the individual; it must therefore be
infinitely more so in large bodies or nations; since every crowd is moved by principles
that are the least common multiple of the principles of the units which compose it. Of
course this is universally recognized now; but it was not always so. There was a time,
particularly at this period of which I am now speaking, when men attempted to treat
Religion as if it were one department of life, instead of being the whole foundation of
every and all life. To treat it so is, of course, to proclaim oneself as fundamentally
irreligious--and, indeed, very ignorant and uneducated.
"To resume, however:
"Religion at this period was at a very strange crisis. That it could possibly be treated in
the way I have mentioned