Appearances: Being Notes of Travel

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Dickinson Goldsworthy Lowes. Appearances: Being Notes of Travel

PREFACE

PART I. INDIA

I. IN THE RED SEA

II. AJANTA

III. ULSTER IN INDIA

IV. ANGLO-INDIA

V. A MYSTERY PLAY

VI. AN INDIAN SAINT

VII. A VILLAGE IN BENGAL

VIII. SRI RAMAKRISHNA

IX. THE MONSTROUS REGIMEN OF WOMEN

X. THE BUDDHA AT BURUPUDUR

XI. A MALAY THEATRE

PART II. CHINA

I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF CHINA

II. NANKING

III. IN THE YANGTSE GORGES

IV. PEKIN

V. THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD

VI. CHINA IN TRANSITION

VII. A SACRED MOUNTAIN

PART III. JAPAN

I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN

II. A "NO" DANCE

III. NIKKO

IV. DIVINE RIGHT IN JAPAN

V. FUJI

VI. JAPAN AND AMERICA

VII. HOME

PART IV. AMERICA

I. THE "DIVINE AVERAGE"

II. A CONTINENT OF PIONEERS

III. NIAGARA

IV "THE MODERN PULPIT"

V. IN THE ROCKIES

VI. IN THE ADIRONDACKS

VII. THE RELIGION OF BUSINESS

VIII. RED-BLOODS AND "MOLLYCODDLES"

IX. ADVERTISEMENT

X. CULTURE

XI. ANTÆUS

CONCLUDING ESSAY

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"But why do you do it?" said the Frenchman. From the saloon above came a sound of singing, and I recognised a well-known hymn. The sun was blazing on a foam-flecked sea; a range of islands lifted red rocks into the glare; the wind blew fresh; and, from above,

Male voices were singing; voices whose owners, beyond a doubt, had no idea of clinging to anything. Female voices, too, of clingers, perhaps, but hardly to a cross. "Why do you do it?" – I began to explain. "For the same reason that we play deck-quoits and shuffle-board; for the same reason that we dress for dinner. It's the system." "The system?" "Yes. What I call Anglicanism. It's a form of idealism. It consists in doing the proper thing." "But why should the proper thing be done?" "That question ought not to be asked. Anglicanism is an idealistic creed. It is anti-utilitarian and anti-rational. It does not ask questions; it has faith. The proper thing is the proper thing, and because it is the proper thing it is done." "At least," he said, "you do not pretend that this is religion?" "No. It has nothing to do with religion. But neither is it, as you too simply suppose, hypocrisy. Hypocrisy implies that you know what religion is, and counterfeit it. But these people do not know, and they are not counterfeiting. When they go to church they are not thinking of religion. They are thinking of the social system. The officers and civilians singing up there first learned to sing in the village church. They walked to the church from the great house; the great house stood in its park; the park was enclosed by the estate; and the estate was surrounded by other estates. The service in the village church stood for all that. And the service in the saloon stands for it still. At bottom, what that hymn means is not that these men are Christians, but that they are carrying England to India, to Burma, to China." "It is a funny thing," the Frenchman mused, "to carry to 300 million Hindus and Mahometans, and 400 million Confucians, Buddhists, and devil-worshippers. What do they do with it when they get there?" "They plant it down in little oases all over the country, and live in it. It is the shell that protects them in those oceans of impropriety. And from that shell they govern the world." "But how can they govern what they can't even see?" "They govern all the better. If once they could see, they would be lost. Doubt would enter in. And it is the virtue of the Englishman that he never doubts. That is what the system does for him."

.....

"Master. But, my dear sir, why should you call it an earthen image? Surely the Image Divine is made of the Spirit!

"The disciple cannot follow this. He goes on: But is it not one's duty, sir, to make it clear to those who worship images that God is not the same as the clay form they worship, and that in worshipping they should keep God Himself in view and not the clay images?

.....