Chapter II: Conclusion

An Address delivered at Clifton 163
College, Sunday Evening,
October 1879

An Address delivered at Rugby 189
School, February 1891

An Address delivered at Rugby 209
School, June 1892

William Cotton Oswell, 1894 231

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INTRODUCTORY
THE MOTIVE OF THE BOOK

SOME time ago, when I was considering what method it would be best to adopt in Sunday afternoon readings with a small class in the Working Men’s College, I received a communication which helped me to come to a decision. It came in the form of a proposal for a new association, to be called “The Christian Guild.” The promoters were persons living in our northern towns, some of which had lately gained a bad reputation for savage assaults and crimes of violence. My correspondents believed that some organised effort ought to be made to meet this evil, and that there was nothing in existence which would serve their purpose. The Young Men’s Christian Associations had increased of late indeed in numbers, but had failed to reach the class which most needed Christian influences. There was a widespread feeling, they said, that these associations—valuable as they allowed them to be in many ways—did not cultivate individual manliness in their members, and that this defect was closely connected with their open profession of Christianity. They had separated their members too much from the ordinary habits and life of young men; and had set before them a wrong standard, which taught, not that they were to live in the world and subdue it to their Master, but were to withdraw from it as much as possible.

Therefore they would found their new “Christian Guild” on quite other principles. They aimed, indeed, at something like a revival of the muscular Christianity of twenty-five years ago, organised for missionary work in the great northern towns. The members of the Guild must be first of all Christians, but selected as far as possible for some act of physical courage or prowess. It was proposed that the medal of the Royal Humane Society, or the championship of a town or district in running, wrestling, rowing, or other athletic exercise, should qualify at once for membership. These first members were to form the root, as it were, out of which branches of the Guild were to grow—one, they hoped, in every great centre of population. Each branch, if properly supported, might attract the most vigorous and energetic young men of its district, and so by degrees give a higher tone to the sports and occupations which absorb the spare time and energies of young Englishmen.

I did not see my way to joining any such movement, which indeed never seemed at all hopeful to me: nor do I know whether anything more has been done in the matter. But the proposal set me thinking on the state of things amongst us which “The Christian Guild” was intended to meet. I was obliged to admit that my own experience, now stretching over a quarter of a century in London, agreed to some extent with that of my northern correspondents. Here too this same feeling exists, or it may be this same prejudice, as to “Young Men’s Christian Associations” amongst the class from which their members are for the most part taken. Their tone and influence are said to lack manliness, and the want of manliness is attributed to their avowed profession of Christianity. If you pursue the inquiry, you will often come upon a distinct belief that this weakness is inherent in our English religion; that our Christianity does appeal and must appeal habitually and mainly to men’s fears—to that in them which is timid and shrinking, rather than to that which is courageous and outspoken. This strange delusion is often alleged as the cause of the want of power and attraction in these associations.

I do not myself at all share this opinion as to the Young Men’s Christian Associations, for, so far as I have had the means of judging, they seem to me, especially in the last few years, to have been doing excellent service, though they work in a narrow groove. But whether this be so or not, is a matter of comparative indifference, and the controversy may safely be left to settle itself. But the underlying belief in the rising generation that Christianity is really responsible for this supposed weakness in its disciples, is one which ought not to be so treated. The conscience of every man recognises courage as the foundation of manliness, and manliness as the perfection of human character; and if Christianity runs counter to conscience in this matter, or indeed in any other, Christianity will go to the wall.

But does it? On the contrary, is not perfection of character—“Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect,” perfection to be reached by moral effort in the faithful following of our Lord’s life on earth—the final aim which the Christian religion sets before individual men—and constant contact and conflict with evil of all kinds the necessary condition of that moral effort, and the means adopted by our Master, in the world in which we live, and for which He died? In that strife then, the first requisite is courage or manfulness, gained through conflict with evil—for without such conflict there can be no perfection of character, the end for which Christ says we were sent into this world. But was Christ’s own character perfect in this respect—not only in charity, meekness, purity, long-suffering, but in courage? If not, can He be anything more than the highest and best of men, even if He were that; can He be the Son of God in any sense except that in which all men are sons?

This was the question which was forced on me at the time by the proposals of “The Christian Guild,” and it gave me the hint I was in search of as to the method of our Sunday readings. We followed it up as well as we could through the events recorded in the gospels, applying the test at every stage of the drama. The results are collected in the following papers.

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