I Believe and other essays

“Dear Sir,

“Among the shoals of letters which doubtless you now receive may I place this, so that I may thank you for the invaluable work which you are doing in writing your novels.

“The article in to-day’s Daily Mail shows me that you have grasped the ideal which I have tried to attain since my teens (three years).

“I am one of the lonely digits in ‘diggins,’ who either fall or rise, according to the company they keep. I have thus found that religion is to man what the rudder is to the crew of a ship.

“I have regularly attended church since my exile, and delight to hear the beautiful service of the English Church. Are they not precious words and inspiring. The service effectually clears me of that ugly black cloak of worldliness which clings to me during the working days.

“This, I believe, is the lesson which you are engraving so well on the minds of all people.

“I conclude with the wish that your pen will ever respond to the spirit which now animates you.”

Again from a far country, this time near East Guzna, W. Tarsus, Cilicia: —

“My Dear Sir,

“For weeks I have wanted to write and thank you for your book, When it was Dark, but I have been laid aside with fever. It stirs thousands of us, and you must feel thankful as you look round to see the success which is granted you in drawing people to ponder upon subjects of such weight. You will like to know that I have spread your book right and left in Cyprus, having obtained three copies, one of which I sent to a Judge.

“Your account of the ride to Nablous is a vivid word picture, and you must, I think, be familiar with the East.

“May I say that I find a dignity and vivacity in your book, dealing as you do with so solemn and glorious a subject as our Lord’s Resurrection, which I firmly hold, and have been accustomed to put in the forefront of my teaching as missionary both in Australia and Russia.

“At present my work lies in Cyprus, where I find good opportunities of helping on friendliness with the Greek Church.

“I am now on holiday, and have just given away my last copy of When it was Dark while staying in the Carmelite Monastery at Haiffa, with those charming French Pères, to an American canon who was also there.

“Sir, what I want to do is to suggest that you should have your book translated into French and German. I lent it to a French engineer a month ago, and I feel sure it would do good in those countries. Think this out. You might take the advice of some competent friend.

“I should like to do the translating myself, but I should make so many mistakes, Magna est veritas, et prævalebit.

“Have sent home for A Lost Cause, and am expecting another treat, with some salt of sarcasm.

“With sincere respect and gratitude.”

My kind correspondent’s idea has been carried out, I am glad to say. The book in question has been translated into French and German and several other languages. And in this regard I may perhaps mention the surprise I have felt on learning that the French issue has already gone into three editions. I am in France a good deal each year, and know something of the temper of the reading public there to-day. I had not thought that many people would read the book.

From San Remo, in Italy, this letter comes: —

“Dear Sir,

“I read last week When it was Dark and wish each of my children to have a copy, as it will show them what the Christian Faith means to the world. I still hold to the simple faith of my childhood taught me by my dear parents, which carried each through a peaceful death-bed. Our Heavenly Father, the King of kings and the only Ruler of princes, sacrificed His beloved Son for His people, and allowed His cruel death, knowing that in the future the thought of His terrible sufferings would touch the hearts of most and often keep them from sinning. I have never doubted His Resurrection, neither would I allow any person to suggest that doubt in my presence. And to me the convincing proof that He was indeed the Son of God is, that He rose again from the dead, He ascended to Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of His Father – God only could possess this power. How very lax we are apt to become and take as our due that great sacrifice.

“I send to Mr. Guy Thorne my little testimony and best wishes, as I cannot thank him personally for reminding me so fully how dark it would indeed be for us all had we not our beloved Saviour always ready and willing to intercede with His Holy Father for us poor erring mortals. Some one said to me, of course Guy Thorne makes a good thing out of his book. I replied, certainly, it is his due to be paid for the labour of his brain, and in this case he fully deserves it, as he might have written a book leading many farther away instead of bringing them nearer to the Cross. Also the interesting style of When it was Dark will induce many to read it. Whereas, if it were very dry, none of us would wade half through.”

An old clergyman in Wales writes thus: —

“Rectory, Brecon.

“Dear Sir,

“I am seventy; at seventeen I had read more novels and other literature than nine out of ten lads of my age. For years past I can’t read novels. My daughters sometimes induce me to start one, but after a couple of chapters I throw it on one side feeling strongly inclined to exclaim with Conan Doyle’s school-boy, ‘Rot.’

“After reading the Life of Father Dolling, one of my married daughters brought me When it was Dark, which I promised to read, and enjoyed it very much. My wife devoured it.

“This won’t interest you very much, but the following fact may. A few days after finishing your book our rural post-messenger – an old army man – we live quite in the country – came to me, quite confidentially, and said he had a book he was quite sure I should enjoy; he produced it – it was When it was Dark! Poor fellow! he seemed so disappointed when he found I had read it. A fortnight ago an Irish lady and her daughter stayed with us. They were good church women. They left me a book for perusal. It is A Lost Cause. I have read it and enjoyed it. It reminds me of Father Dolling and Kensit and Son.

“I hope you will give us many more. We want Catholic truth placed before people in an attractive dress. We want to break down the great wall of Protestant ignorance and prejudice. Your books are doing this.

“Don’t heed letters in the Daily Press. I saw a letter in the Daily Mail. These letters are only a proof that your books are telling. Go straight forward and may every success and blessing attend your efforts. This is the earnest wish of

“Yours truly.”

I was intensely interested to receive this letter from India: —

“ – Mission, “Madras, “South India.

“Dear Sir,

“As you are not unwilling to receive letters from strangers, perhaps this from a distant land might not be unacceptable to you. I am a missionary and have not read two novels during the last five years (but thousands before then), but a friend of mine having read your When it was Dark persuaded me to read it.

“I was greatly interested in the first few pages describing the scenes of my birth and young manhood. I suppose Walktown is meant for – , if so, I was born in that part of Salford, and although I belonged to St. – Church, I attended very frequently St. – as the senior church of the district.

“I enclose an account of my conversion which will no doubt interest you. I have thought many a time that it would be an admirable theme for a novel. There are many other incidents in my life that would lend interest, especially my association with some of the most notorious anarchists of England and the Continent, and America, I was also a journalist on the Clarion, and a bosom friend of Robert Blatchford for fourteen years, John Burns, the new Cabinet Minister, slept at my house when he was an unemployed mechanic in 1885. I was personally acquainted with Mrs. Annie Besant for many years, and now she is here in Madras, the head-quarters of the Theosophical Society. I have renewed my acquaintance with her.

“I have come to think that much good might be done by treating of sacred subjects in the form that you have done, as you can by this means reach the minds and souls of those millions whom the Church cannot reach.

“The University here is turning out educated Hindus who, having parted with their heathenism have taken up Western scepticism in its place, and our Christian Missionaries are helpless to avert it, the youth here are swamped by the cheap Rationalist reprints. Could we but supply them with novels of Western life showing up the folly of Haeckel, Blatchford, Spencer and Co., in the manner you have done, it would be a powerful counter-attraction.

“Yours in Him we love.

“P.S. – The British people also need a novel that will show up ‘Blatchfordism,’ and you now have the ear of the reading public.”

It is curious that in many of the letters I receive Mr. Robert Blatchford’s name is mentioned. With some minds his writings have great power and influence, probably I imagine because of their real sincerity of purpose. It is the more cheering to know that an honest effort to render the Incarnation increasingly credible to the man in the street is not without reward. It is as difficult for me to disbelieve in the fact that Christ was God as it is difficult for Mr. Blatchford to believe it. Where one man sees a landscape the other sees only a map. But there are, nevertheless, a great many people who deny the Catholic Faith because, while they desire to retain the name of Christians, they are unwilling to accept the obligations of Christianity. And while looking about for something to believe, a necessity of the human soul, they either find it in Mrs. Eddy and other false prophets, or finally join issue with the editor of the Clarion.

An author’s letter-bag is always full of surprises, and such a correspondence as I am privileged to receive often entails a vast amount of extra work. But it is almost impossible not to reply to at least two-thirds of the letters that reach one, and though reply sometimes leads to a lengthy interchange of letters all are helpful and encourage one to continue, while some are full of the most illuminating suggestions.

Of this the following letter from one of the Canons of Durham Cathedral is a typical example: —

“Dear Sir,

“In your coming story I hope you will lay stress on the fact that our ‘higher’ education is practically a Pagan one. All University honours, fellowships, scholarships, prizes are for proficients in Pagan literature; interesting (for some people). Beautiful in language as this literature is, it lacks the spirit and power of the Christian Faith. The common rooms smell of Plato and Aristotle. There is no cross in a Don’s life, as such, though a few rise above the normal standard.

“This system filters through the public schools down to the smallest private schools, in most of which the daily bread, the upholding of Christ as Saviour, teacher, master, example and king is left out.

“At Eton, where I was myself, religious teaching did not exist. We had Sunday questions of which one specimen will suffice, given to my nephew the other day.

“‘Of what judge is a curious incident recorded and what was the incident?’ The result of this is far-reaching and deplorable.