The Passion for Life

And yet I am sure Mr. Lethbridge meant well. He was, as I have before suggested, a strong, capable man, and fully bore out what I had heard concerning him. He could never have been a nonentity, wherever he was placed, and whatever he took in hand he would do with such conscientiousness and thoroughness as to make it succeed. Consequently, it was no wonder that he had risen from a poor lad to be a man of wealth and of eminence in the county. That he was exceedingly ambitious there could be no doubt, and I judged that he was a little bit sore that all his ambitions had not been realized. He seemed composed of contradictory elements. On one hand, he seemed a man of the Napoleonic order, who would make everything and every person yield to his desires. On the other, I judged him to be a man who wanted to be strictly honest and conscientious, a man who would not give up one iota of his convictions, even if by so doing he could gain the things he desired.

Although no plain statement was made at the dinner-table to that effect, I gathered that he had suffered socially because of his adherence to what he termed his Nonconformist principles, and that he would have taken his position among the county families had he not remained true to the Chapel he had attended as a boy. On the other hand, however, that same Chapel, as it seemed to me, was a fetish rather than something which vitally affected his life.

I am spending some time in recording my impressions about this family, because I was brought into close contact with it in later days, and also because the various members of it affected me considerably.

"Yes," said Mr. Lethbridge, as we sat in the smoke-room, "I am an old-fashioned man, Mr. Erskine. I do not believe in giving up my early convictions simply because they are not popular."

"What are your early convictions?" asked Hugh.

"I mean my Nonconformist principles. See what Methodism has done for Cornwall, see what it has done for the whole country for that matter."

"Yes, what has it done?" asked Hugh.

"It has changed Cornwall from being drunken and godless into the most sober and God-fearing part of the country."

"Admitted," replied the son. "But who cares anything about Methodism now?"

"I am surprised and ashamed of you, Hugh, talking like that," said the father. "What is your opinion about it, Mr. Erskine?"

"My opinion about what?" I asked.

"Don't you think a man should stand by his principles?"

"His principles, certainly," was my reply, "especially if, after having tested them, they proved to be vital; but I am rather interested in what your son says. I have been reading John Wesley's Journal, and I cannot help realizing the tremendous influence he wielded over a hundred years ago in this very county; but what troubles me is that it seems to mean comparatively little now."

"I don't understand you," he said, rather brusquely.

"What I want to know," I said, "is this. Does Methodism, or for that matter, does religion of any sort, vitally affect the lives and outlook of people now? If it does, why is it that its hold seems to be weakening day by day? I am told that your Chapel used to be crowded, and that while the people were ignorant, Methodism vitally influenced their lives; but now it seems a kind of corpse. It has a name to live, but is dead. This afternoon, Simpson, my man, brought me a book which belonged to his father. That book describes what the people used to do for their faith. Even the women worked to bring stones to build the chapels, while the men toiled hours after their ordinary work was over, as a labor of love, in order to erect the buildings which their children and their children's children neglect and often despise. Everything seems stereotyped. Most of the people seem to care little or nothing about what their forbears would die for, and those that do care seem to regard it in a half-hearted way, and talk about it as something that has been rather than something that is."

"Yes," said Mr. Lethbridge, with a sigh, "I am afraid you are right. The old fire has gone, faith has largely died out, real earnestness seems a thing of the past; and yet what can one do?"

"I am afraid I am not the one to ask," I replied. "You see, I am a rank outsider so far as that kind of thing is concerned."

"For that matter the Church of England is no better," said Mr. Lethbridge.

"Should that console one?" I asked. "Cornwall, as I understand, used to be the home of religious activity, of unquestioning faith, of devoted fervor; but to-day people are careless, materialistic. Faiths which at one time were held tenaciously, doctrines which were believed in unquestioningly, are now apparently a dead letter."

"I suppose you are a Churchman, Mr. Erskine," said Mr. Lethbridge.

"I am afraid I am nothing," I replied. "For several years I did not put my foot inside a Church of any sort."

"Indeed, how is that?"

"I suppose I had no interest," I said. "That was why going to Church on Sunday was something new to me. I felt like a man witnessing a strange thing, and trying to understand something which was unfamiliar."

"Yes, and how did it impress you?"

"Everything was so unconvincing," I replied. "The note of reality was never struck at all."

"But surely," said Mr. Lethbridge, "you are not an atheist?"

"I am nothing," was my answer. "I wish I were. I suppose you know why I came here?"

"Yes, I have heard," he replied, "and I am very, very sorry for you, and you such a young man too, and life opening up all sorts of possibilities. Perhaps, however, it is not as bad as you think; the doctor may have made a mistake."

"I am afraid there is no hope of that," was my reply. "The man who examined me has the reputation of being the most eminent diagnostician in his profession; but if you religious people are right, it does not matter. If John Wesley, whose diary I have been reading, is right, what we call life, that is, life here, is a very small matter; it is only a fragment of life. Death, according to him, is only an episode; but the worst of it is that here, in a county where he is so largely represented, and in a village where he has visited, his power is gone. The old words are used, but the old convictions are gone – that is why such a man as I am left stranded. But really, I am ashamed of myself, talking like this. Believe me, I am not in the habit of boring people with my ailments and foolish speculations."

We joined the ladies shortly after, and our conversation, I am afraid, was of a very uninteresting nature. I noticed all the time we were talking, too, that Mr. Lethbridge was paying no attention whatever. He seemed to be thinking deeply about something else. Presently, while his wife was engaged in a long harangue about the inferiority of girls, comparing them with what she used to be when she was a girl, Mr. Lethbridge broke in suddenly.

"Yes, Mr. Erskine," he said, "you may be right in what you were saying – that is, up to a point – but you don't go deep enough."

"I am afraid I never do go very deep," was my reply. "The deeper one goes, as a rule, the greater the muddle."

"Not in this case," and he spoke quite eagerly. "Why, the whole life of the county is what John Wesley and Methodism have made it. People, as a whole, may seem to have discarded his teachings, but they are in the very air we breathe; the people's thoughts, the people's lives, are what they are to-day because of the work he did."

"I dare say," I replied, for, to tell the truth, I was anxious to avoid anything like a theological discussion.

"Yes, don't you see? In the background of people's minds there is the impress of his work; his influence is felt everywhere. Even the people who never enter a place of worship have been shaped and moulded by Methodism."

"In what way?" asked Hugh.

"Well, take such a question as war," replied Mr. Lethbridge. "John Wesley killed the very possibility of war."

"I wish I could see it," I could not help exclaiming.

"It is plain enough," he replied. "Methodism and war cannot go together. The love of peace has entered into the very essence of people's lives. Is not that something to be thankful for?"

"I am not so sure," replied Isabella Lethbridge. "May not war be a very good thing?"

"A good thing!" cried her father – "a good thing! Why, it's hellish! I would rather see a son of mine dead than a soldier! And that is the feeling Methodism has created throughout the county. You scarcely ever find a conscientious Methodist becoming a soldier. A soldier in this county is looked upon as a kind of legalized murderer."

"Surely," I said, "it is not so bad as that?"

"It amounts to that," was his reply. "For my own part, I have an utter abhorrence of anything which savors of militarism, and I know it is because of the impressions I received as a boy."

"But supposing war were to break out?" I said.

"War break out!" he interrupted. "How can it break out, unless some of our so-called statesmen make asses of themselves? No one wants war."

"No," I said – "that is, as far as the general feeling in the country is concerned; but supposing war were thrust upon us?"

"Who would thrust it upon us?" he asked, almost angrily.

"Germany, for example," was my reply.

"Impossible!"

"Not so impossible, I am afraid," I could not help replying. "Why, during the last few years we have twice been on the brink of war with Germany, and, unless I am mistaken, a war with that country is bound to come, sooner or later." This, I am afraid, I said rather for the sake of argument than because I really believed it. "Take that Agadir incident. We were within an ace of war then. Indeed, had Germany been as ready as she is now it would doubtless have come off."