4. I Became an Arch.Heretic

-ri I neededno literary help. He recommendedthe manuscript to the best publ]sher in London (Smith Elder), and it soon appeared.- In Maibland's life there is no'r'eference to Stefhen's breach at this date with his old friend Dr. H. D. Traill, editor of the chief literary weekly and writer of distinction. It was because Traill. who feared tb offend Catholics (I inferred), refused to admit Stephenis review of my 4. I BECAMEAN ARCH.HERETIC book. In his sense of justice and loyalty to me S-tephenshed one oi his oldest'Iriendships and a profitable cbnnection. A frienctly correspondent recently surprised me by saying that I priest than a Freethinker," and, it is not I had the vanity in those days of paying for press cuttings-for seemed still t-o be "m6re of a 20 or 30 years I have many months since a representative of the Catholic Welfare organiza- not crossed a room to read a review-and-t tett honor confirming a rurncr, cur- the first flush of success. I had stepped out, and I met many tion asked me if he might have the of well- rent in American Cathblic circles, that I was about to return to the known folk. Somehow-I forget how-I made the acquaintanbe of a pro- lady who had 20 years Church. This latter amazing experience inspired me to write a earlier set'fire to Americd with her bold femin- l{aldeman-Julius published. The ism. Mrs. Biddulph Martin, as I knew her, was now fession of faith which my friend the widow of a reproach that I still seem to be much of a priest recalled to my mind rich British banker and so mellowed that the Parable of the Virie and plying the Elm was painted on marble an experienceI had on a New Zealand boat between-Auckland over the mantel in her drawing room. Opera troupe were abroad, and I was told She had one oI the richest houses in Hyde Park Gate, a few doors and Sydney. The Australian f;o.* Stephen, that one of the leading actors,a Freethinker, was looking for me on the {ny {tleld who almost shuddered at the'proximity, as good half-intoxicated \ilhen I met him Coit also did, becauseshe and his sister Lady Cook had once advoCdted crowded boat. He was half-a something like free love. I became in the evening, and he insulted me. Penitent but still cloudy next curiously intimate with her and her I pressed him to say wtty he had daughter, both rigorous puritans, and roamed at will over thelr beautiful morning he apologized; but when house. mistaken me fbr a clergyman (which, to his mind, fully explained the insult), he said or muttered: "Well, you see, you have that silly sort Sir John Robinson, editor of the Daily lfezos,Sent 'for me, but it came perfect he just of mrig they have." Possibly in an hour of sobrieiy would to nothing. He had read my book and he paid me the.sterile com- have said "that spiritual expression." pliment of saying, 'j{ was expecting a man." PassmoreEdwards, the making a profit philanthropist, Once a London theatrical manager, despairing o'f was kind and gave me work on his paper, tlit Ech,o,bit out of G. K. Chesterton'splay "Miracles," got mo, with the economist he sold it before I reached the staff. Donrville, a reiired lawyer,'who professor , J. A. Hobsonas support,to hold a debatein his theater with Chesterton talked of having ine l,ra;trcdfor the'bar, introducedme to ' (a mountain of flesh). and Hilaire Belloc (a hiU of flesh)-trIobson Westlakeand ot;icls. Sir Waltel Fiesairt sa!v ror. ior a tinre-ai his snE- papers (a was even leaner than I. In one of the next morning a reporter ..1e:;LionI wrotc a second book cira,dfailure) on nroltastic life-bit observedthat the labels on the performers seemedto have been con- whe:: he saw that I ciabbledin l?utionalism he wrote: fused: that the materialists were too spiritual and the spiritists too ma- "Drop that or drop literature. We have to tolerate it from a &terial. The truth, as is not uncommon in these transcendental mat- man like Stephen but we wili not stand it from you." ters, is that Chesterton and Belloc were eupeptic and Hobson and I dJrspeptic.But I suspect that there is more than this in the suggesbion W. T. Sbeadtried to lure me into Spiritualism, others into the Church of that I am still a cleric,.an atheistic chaplain. It will appear in the courso England, Unitarianism, ot' Congregationalism. Robcrtscin-later the I impatient of hypocrlsy in leaders of or Right Honorable-took 'free-love of this narrative that am as me into an anarchist circle. I 1ivedin workers in an "a,dvanced"movement as I am in the ease of priests; a world of isrns: a beggar at the feast. and that I loathe the hard dogmatism that pushes some eccentric The sudd:;n elevation was too much for a brair! that had linsered opinion-as that Jesusreally was a fish-god of ancient Palestineor the lqng on mo_nasl,iclowlairds. ,so- -t_hg It was the ruost dil{icrrlt year o1 my hbro of a rustic passion-pla-v-because it has such a destructive air. Irfe to recall, b_utI seem to have lost appreciation oI my contacts w,ith To the many peoplewho do know my name, sinceseveral of my books distinguished people-writers, editrlrs, professors, lervyers, etc.-and and bookletshave sold more than 100,000copies and at least a mlllion been blind to the opportunities they afforded. Probably the economic folk have heard me lecture, in America and Britain it is that of one ol uncertainfy of my life disturbed me. At all events when a friend told the leading rebels against religious traditiotts. From their clerical me that the Leicester Secular Society, an old Owenite foundation but writers in '{act they get the idea that, from some mysterious impulse chiefly regarded as an atheist center. wanted a sort of cha.plain I an- or diabolical guidance or anger at the waste of my youth, my life ts plied fo-r the post. I bade good-bye to my elegant London fiiends, afid "devoted to the destruction of religion." This sketch of my life will, I it was final with most o'i them. But I saw in a few months ilrat i had fear, show that I am a much less melodramatic and colorful personallty, put nryseif in a false position. f had expectedmainly to be a lecturer: and I must explain how the accidents of iife so shaped my eariy career they had expectedme to maintain and enlarge the society much as a that I came to devote so much of my writing and lecturing to religion. p.arson manages his pa-ristr. I_ Fa{ never done parochial work, and I have explained that I had set out on a definite literary path ln they- innoeently assumed !4-+t t had. W'e parted at the end of a year writing my "Pefer Abelard" and "St. Augustine and His Age." This field on friendiy terms; and still once a year f go to the little Midiand of historical biography, studying the age even more than the man, society_to le.cture,though I have almost abandoned lecturing. It was had a fascination for me, and l,eonard Courtney, then editor of the a worth-while experience that I have never regretted. and I had FortnightlE Reaiew, and others as well as Sir Leslie Stephen, assured lelsure to begin to write my first historical work, "peter Abelard,', my me that I would go far a)ong that line. But, with all respect to Vol- plototyp.e in so many rgspeqlq, There too I met the girl of 18, dau'ghter taire, I must live. I had married, and, although we lived sparingly ln of a hosiery worker,_a fine little man and great reader, whom l malried three rooms in a cheap district, bread and beef could not be paid for in a year later. Then back to London to resume my literary work, insure compliments. Just at this juncture the Ethical movement and the a steady income, and prepare a nest for the bride. Rationalist movement olfered me a steady basic income. The expert on the moral instruction of children, F. J. Gould, succeeded me in Leicester, and I took his place in London; and the work of writing and lecturing on both lines was entirely congenial. 24 25 Here let me begin to be a little more malicious, if you care to Gould's history of the movement shows that I am the one survivor of the call it that, than convention permits in a respectable biographer, I early times-and that I was'one of the original directors when the asso- came out of the hypocritical atmosphere of the Church expecting^wickeE that, ciation was founded with my old friend George Jacob Holyoake as Chair- while I almost hbbed that the world woulcl prove as and man. picturesque as our sermons represented, anti-clerical movements would In 1902 my name went over the English-speaking world and I be entirely honest and courageous. I found at once that my expectation acquired a prestige to which I was not really entitled. I translated Pro- had the enthusiasm of youth and inexperience. The head of the Ra- fessor Haeckel's "Riddle of the Universe." I understand that over quarter tionalist movement who introduced me.

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