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Trust and Prey
Published in the Agnostic Journal London, England 10 November, 1906 (pages 289-290)
Cleanliness cometh next to Godliness, so Messrs. Lever Brothers must be very nigh to him who washeth away the sins of the world. Once Christians used to sing, "Wash me in thy precious blood, and take my sins away." Those were the good old days of wheels and blood; but times are changing, and in these days of Lever and Sud, many followers of the Lamb, without spot or blemish, are now yelling themselves hoarse with that beautiful hymn, "Don't wash me in thy precious sud, not take my tin away."
Having carefully read the Bible, from Berashith to Amen, I find no less than one hundred "Trusts," and over half that number of "Preys," yet, curious to say, no single mention of Soap. Such Trusts and Preys, however, are sufficient to justify my title; but are they sufficient to justify—
Dr. Allen, Bishop of Shrewsbury; The Rev. Canon R. J. Livingstone, of Shrewsbury; The Ven. Archdeacon Shears, of Stafford; The Rev. Canon French, of Liverpool; The Rev. Canon Bennett, of Exmouth; Dr. A. Maclaren, of Manchester; The Rev. F. H. Wales, of Altrincham; The Rev. F. Ellstow of Faversham; The Rev. W. Earle, of Rugby; The Rev. C. D. Snell, of Sevenoaks; The Rev. E. C. Lowndes, of Chester,
holding shares in any concern whatever—let alone a soap trust which has attempted to reduce the pound by an ounce, and which underpays its workers?
"The young girls and young men receive less than the average throughout the trade, and adult skilled work is paid twenty-five per cent. less than at Messrs. Price's, just across the road."
This twenty-five per cent. short wages goes to increase the income of the above gentlemen, who bray all their lives, "Blessed by ye poor." This is certainly one way of keeping the "blessed poor" poor; yet, whether it is the best method of rendering them "blessed," is quite another question. I have heard of young girls folding sheets of Bible pages by day for a modicum which would scarcely keep a healthy cat in "lights," and by night folding up their chastity for a shilling. On the work of these prostitutes have the Hottentots and Tahetians been brutalized, debauched and exterminated. On the gold of the harlot hath the Church of Christ thriven, and grown fat and kicking. "Blessed by ye poor," and some loathsome creature, eaten with disease, soulless and rotten, plunges over London Bridge. "Blessed by ye poor," and a drunken Hottentot sodden on "Cape smoke," ape-like, jibbering, crawls to his hut. "Blessed be ye poor," and the Bishop of Shrewsbury holds shares in a Soap Trust; but this is not all, for he holds shares in the most execrable Trust that has ever cursed this planet—the Trust of the Christian Church; the monopoly of the Heart.
Once the Church monopolized every mortal and immortal thing—body and soul, mind and heart, gold, silver, power, estate, churches, temples, prisons, brothels, barracks, the home, duchies, kingdoms, empires, continents, the World, yea, Heaven and Hell itself! She monopolized everything from the wage of a harlot to the crown of an Empire; she preyed, and she preyed, and she preyed, whilst man trusted her; and, should he cease to trust, then, in his turn, he was trussed like a fowl on a spit, just to show the world that either Mary or Elizabeth, or whoever was the Lever of the day, could wash souls, whether bodies liked it or not.
The Church, which, on one side, could produce such men as St. Augustine and St. Francis., could, on the other, produce a Calvin and a Luther. Whatever may be said of the old saints, they were men of the Word. Read the Confessions of St. Augustine, or, better still, that sublime little work, the Fioretti of St. Francis, penned by an unknown hand, in the dim days of the thirteenth century. Who, from the above list of clergy (a Bishop, an Archdeacon, a Canon, a Reverend)—"Faugh! bring me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to drown the stench of these disgusting creatures!"—who among the above can compare to Brother Bernard, who, when he heard St. Francis preaching, "Behold, the counsel that Christ giveth us, come, then, and fulfil that which thou hast heard, and blessed be our Lord Jesu Christ, who hath deigned to shew forth his own life in the holy Gospel," went out and sold all that he had—and he was very rich?
Who, now, among all the Bible-banging pulpiteers, of church or chapel—Vaughans, Ingrams, Torreys, and autre canaille—who rail at the society their Church has manured for nearly two thousand years have uttered such sublime words as St. Francis did to his little sisters, the birds? Not one. The first shuffle cards, the second trashy novels, and the third brimstone and treacle; and St. Francis: "My little sisters, the birds, much bounden are ye [unto God, your Creator, and always in every place ought ye] to praise Him, for that he hath given you liberty to fly about everywhere, and hath also given you double and triple raiment moreover. He preserved your seed in the ark of Noah, that your race might not perish out of the world; still more are ye beholden to Him for the element of air which He hath appointed for you; beyond all this, ye sow not, neither do you reap; and God feedeth you, and giveth you the streams and fountains for your drink, the mountains and the valleys for your refuge, and the high trees whereon to make your nests; and because ye know not how to spin or sew, God clotheth you, you and your children; wherefore, your Creator loveth you much, seeing that He hath bestowed upon you so many benefits; and, therefore, my little sisters, beware of the sin of ingratitude, and study always to give praises unto God."
This, indeed, was a follower of Christ; no gaitered bishop, or silk-hatted canon; bare-headed and bare-foot, without scrip or purse, he followed in the footsteps of his master. He possessed no money to invest in Soap. I doubt me much if had the wherewith to buy himself a single cake. The cold waters of the mountains were his bath, a wayside stone his pillow, and the stars were his canopy. It may be an allegory, but St. Francis is said to have fasted forty days, like his Saviour; but it was no allegory when, to-day, I saw a reverend Father in God entering Simpson's, in the Strand, to pay half-c-crown for two slices of beef and a potato; neither was it when I saw yet a second reverend gentleman step out of a first-class carriage at Victoria Station.
Christ, the Son of God, their divine Master, to whom allegiance had been sworn by these two modern Christians, would have begged for scraps outside Lockhart's, and would have tramped miles to avoid taking a penny 'bus.
A man who sells canned workman as potted ham is liable to become incarcerated in a jail; but a man who sells canned cant as Christ is always eligible to be enthroned at Canterbury. A Trade Trust is smashable, but a Religious Trust is only damnable. Year in, year out, Sunday after Sunday, we hear thundered from the pulpit, Lazarus and Dives, the camel and the needle's eye, Christ and Nicodemus, and the blessings of poverty; yet those who stand in the very rostrum, and beat the drum ecclesiastic only do so for gold. Counting their coins with Scrooge, they invest them in the most profitable Corner, and put their trust in God; irrespective as to whether the workers earn their bread in the gutter, or end in the Lock Hospital.
For such Christians who daily drive the rusty spear of hypocrisy into the quivering flank of their Saviour; for such Christians who hourly trust and prey, I have no words to convey my contempt. Serving God and Mammon, in the words of St. Paul, they are those "Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things," They are the vermin of the Heart, the very lice of the Spirit, who trust and prey.
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