The Irish standard., 1912-11-23

or forgotten Midland hairdresser;
or swinging a censor before the statue
of foreign waiter. If we could really
see such things, we should be bound
TO admit that DR.. Munro's religion
would be a real, and even a valuable
religion: it would insist on the two
most essential and most awkward
things in extraordinarily and
truth. But l fear we shall not see
these things; l fear it would not work
quite like that.
But there is another complication
in the idea which would be very anus
ing. Should we, I wonder. under DR..
Munro's papal edcts, be permitted to
choose which ancestor we should wor-
ship. according to our taste in histor-
ical periods or personal qualities and
careers: Ancestor worship, as it ex-
lists in China, is concerned with a ne
cllliarly unbroken and unouestioned
tradltlon of morals and manners: so
that YOU would probably admire your
grandfather for much the same uuaN.
ties as caused you to admire the most
remote and mythical founder of your
house: such as obedience to parents
or ndellty to the sacred emperor, In
short, you would admire your grand
father by admiring your great-grand-
father You would admire your great
great-srandfather for having done the
same service for the benevolent and
long-remembered Emperor Ping. as,
your father did for the polished but
lately deceased Emperor Wo. But in
Europe it is only the very silliest sort
of futurists and innovators who insist
On talking of the past as if it were all
one thing. Most of us can realize that
elaborately to compare the present and
the past is like comparing a drop of
water and the sea. And our Christian
past has been very stormy sea: vio-
lent and variable, and ranging to ev-
cry extreme of storm and calm. There
would, therefore, be considerable
amount of selection, and perhaps of
schlsm, In the true religion. 1 might
agree to adore an ancestor who went
crusading with Richard, while firmly
declining to adore an ancestor who
went colonizing with Rhodes: the
point gives ME the less disuuiet be-
cause l am not aware of possessing
either. You might admire that ances-
tor of yours that was hanged for. horse
stealing, while finding no such roman
tic excuses for that other relation of
yours who went to Jail for stealing
handbags at the railway station. The
results look as if they might be alarm
ing; as all the religious and political
battles of history might be fought over
again in the bosom Of every family
III the selection of historical patron
There is another moral for modern
England in the matter. 1t would be
practically impossible to have the wor-
snip of ancestors. or even the respect
for them, except in country mostly
asrlcultural-such as China. 1t would
be paradoxical to say that one grows
ancestors as one grows cabbages: il
Is not paradoxical to say that one one
sows ancestors as one sows seeds. In
the great towns man does not even
grow ancestors: he manufactures
them. In the great towns even tho
arlstocrats are upstairs, the real arie-
tocrats as we'll as the sham ones. AS
q rule the most aristocratic family
is, the less old it is; if we understand
aristocracy in it's modern sense of
polish and public dignity the public
school spirit or the oxford manner
NO serious student of history, Of
course, believes for a moment in
families that came over with the con-
queror any more than in families that
came over in the ark. But the little
that is left of the true medieval
chivalry in our great families is al
most entirely accidental. The Har-
courts, 1 am told, are really traceable
to the old Plantagenets; and thew are
really, in their more recent public
specimens, sporting and spirited pub
lie men, as a Plantagenet might have
been. But they do not owe their
present position to their aristocratic
blood or to their democratic synna.
thies: they owe it to the economic
combination Of the great landlords
toward the end of the eighteenth CEN
fury, which excused itself as the
Wing party. The rest Of that partv
contained about as many Plantagen-
cts as it did Palaeolithic men: the
trend of the time was wholly nouyeau
richie. In cities, therefore, we cannot /
be certain of anything, even in the
aristocracy. If DR.. Munro wants tot
see where something like the seed of
his singular evangel might be pos