e men of both parties burned in both an active
and a passive sense. Those charming Tudor sisters, Bloody Mary (as the
Anglicans call her) and Bloody Bess (as the Roman Catholics
affectionately name her) left a large smudge upon accepted ideas of
orthodoxy; charred human flesh was a principal constituent of it. The
mark remains, the differences are far greater, but, to Chesterton, both
Anglican and Roman Catholic are "orthodox." Of such is the illimitable
orthodoxy of an ethical society, or of a body of Theosophists who
"recognize the essential unity of all creeds and religions"--the liars!
Chesterton tells us that Messrs. Shaw, Kipling, Wells, Ibsen and others
are heretics, because of their doctrines. But he gives us no idea
whether the Pope of Rome, who sells indulgences, is a heretic. And as
the Pope is likely to outlive Messrs. Shaw, etc., by perhaps a thousand
years, it is possible that Chesterton has been attacking the ephemeral
heresies, while leaving the major ones untouched. In effect, Chesterton
tells us no more than that we should shout with the largest crowd. But
the largest crowd prefers, just now, not to do anything so clamorous.

The most curious feature about the present position of Christianity is
the energy with which its opponents combine to keep it going. While Mr.
Robert Blatchford continues to argue that man's will is not free, and
Sir Oliver Lodge continues to maintain that it is, the Doctrine of the
Resurrection is safe; it is not even attacked. But the net result of all
those peculiar modern things called "movements" is a state of immobility
like a nicely balanced tug-of-war. Perhaps a Rugby scrum would make a
better comparison.

The great and grave changes in our political
civilization all belong to the early nineteenth
century, not to the later. They belong to the
black-and-white epoch, when men believed fixedly
in Toryism, in Protestantism, in Calvinism, in
Reform, and not infrequently in Revolution. And
whatever each man believed in, he hammered at
steadily, without scepticism: and there was a time
when the Established Church might have fallen, and
the House of Lords nearly fell. It was because
Radicals were wise enough to be constant and
consistent; it was because Radicals were wise
enough to be conservative. . . . Let beliefs fade
fast and frequently