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THE ROCK

THE ROCK

A PAGEANT PLAY, WRITTEN FOR PERFORMANCE
AT SADLEr’s wells THEATRE
28 MAY - 9 JUNE 1934
ON BEHALF OF THE
FORTY-FIVE CHURCHES FUND
OF THE DIOCESE OF LONDON

Book of Words by

T. S. ELIOT

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY

NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT, 1934, BY
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.

All rights reserved, including
the right to reproduce this book
or portions thereof in any form.

first edition

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY THE POLYGRAPHIC COMPANY OF AMERICA, NEW YORK

PREFATORY NOTE

I cannot consider myself the author of the “play”, but
only of the words which arc printed here. The scenario,
incorporating some historical scenes suggested by die Rev.
R. Webb-Odell, is by Mr. E. Martin Browne, under whose
direction I wrote the choruses and dialogues, and submissive
to whose expert criticism I rewrote much of them. Of only
one scene am I literally the author: for this scene and of
course for the sentiments expressed in the choruses I must
assume thei responsibility.

I should like to make grateful acknowledgment of the
collaboration of Dr. Martin Shaw, who composed the
music. To Mr. F. V. Morley I am indebted for one speech
for which technical knowledge of bricklaying was required;
to Major Bonamy Dobree for correcting the diction of the
Christopher Wren scene; to Mr. W. F. Cachemaille-Day for
information concerning the relations of architects, contrac-
tors and foremen. The Rev. Vincent Howson has so com-
pletely rewritten, amplified and condensed the dialogue
between himself (“Bert”) and his mates, that he deserves
the title of joint author.

April 1934

T. S. E.

PART I

The scene is an open place, with an irregular rocky hill in
the middle. The Chorus, seven male and ten female figures,
are discovered. They speak as the voice of the Church of
God.

The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,

The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.

O perpetual revolution of configured stars,

O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,

0 world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!

The endless cycle of idea and action.

Endless invention, endless experiment.

Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;

Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.

All our ignorance brings us nearer to death.

But nearness to death no nearer to God.

Where is the Life we have lost in hving?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

1 journeyed to London, to the timekept City,

Where me River flows, with foreign flotations.

There I was told: we have too many churches.

And too few chop-houses. There I was told

Let the vicars retire. Men do not need the Church

8 THE ROCK part i

In the place where they work, but where they spend
their Sundays.

In the City, we need no bells;

Let them waken the suburbs.

I journeyed to the suburbs, and there I was told;

We toil for six days, on the seventh we must motor
To Hindhead, or Maidenhead.

If the weather is foul we stay at home and read the papers.
In industrial districts, there I was told
Of economic laws.

In the pleasant coxmtryside, there it seemed
That the country now is only fit for picnics.

And the Church does not seem to be wanted
In country or in suburb; and in the town
Only for important weddings.

Chorus Leader. *

Silence! and preserve respectful distance.

For I perceive approaching

The Rock. Who will perhaps answer our doubtings.
The Rock. The Watcher. The Stranger.

He who has seen what has happened
And who sees what is to happen.

The Witness. The Critic. The Stranger.

The God-shaken, in whom is the trum inborn.

Enter the Rock, led by a Boy.

The Rock.

The lot of man is ceaseless labour.

Or ceaseless idleness, which is still harder.

Or irregular labour, which is not pleasant.

I have trodden the winepress alone, and I know
That it is hard to be reaUy useful, resigning ,

The things that men count for happiness^eaking
The good deeds that lead to obscurity, accepting

PART I

9

THE ROCK

With equal face those that bring ignominy,

The applause of all or the love of none.

All men are ready to invest their money
But most expect dividends.

I say to you: Make perfect your will.

I say: take no thought of the harvest,

But only of proper sowing.

The world turns and the world changes.

But one thing does not change.

In all of my years, one thing does not change.

However you disguise it, this thing does not change:
The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.

Forgetful, you neglect your shrines and churches;

The men you are in these times deride
What has been done of good, you find explanations
To satisfy the rational and enlightened mind.

Second, you neglect and behttle the desert.

The desert is not remote in southern tropics,

The desert is not only around the corner.

The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you.
The desert is in the heart of your brother.

The good man is the builder, if he build what is good.

I will show you the things that are now being done.
And some of the things that were long ago done.

That you may take heart. Make perfect your will.

Let me show you the work of the humble. Listen.

The lights fade; in the semi-darkness the voices ^Workmen
are heard chanting.

In the vacant places
We will build with new bricks
There are hands and machines
And clay for new brick

PART I

10 THE ROCK

And lime for new mortar
Where the bricks are fallen
We will build with new stone
Where the beams are rotten
We will build with new timbers
Where the word is unspoken
We will build with new speech
There is work together
A Church for all
And a job for each
Every man to his work.

Now a group of Workmen is silhouetted against the dim sky.

From farther away, they are answered by voices of the Un-
employed.

No man has hired us
With pocketed hands
And lowered faces
We stand about in open places
And shiver in unlit rooms.

Only the wind moves

Over empty fields, untilled

Where the plough rests, at an angle

To the furrow. In this land

There shall be one cigarette to two men.

To two women one half pint of bitter
Ale. In this land
No man has hired us.

Our life is unwelcome, our death
Unmentioned in “The Times”.

Chant (^Workmen again.

The river flows, the seasons turn,

The sparrow and starling have no time to waste.

If men do not build

II

PART I THE ROCK

How shall they live?

When the field is tilled
And the wheat is bread
They shall not die in a shortened bed
And a narrow sheet. In this street
There is no beginning, no movement, no peace and no end
But noise without speech, food without taste.

Without delay, without haste

We would build the beginning and the end of this street.

We build the meaning:

A Church for all
And a job for each
Each man to his work.

The lights are coming up and discover a small group of modern
Workmen digging and building foundations.

Ethelbert [the foreman, singing].

“A pick-axe and a spade, a spade,

For and a shrouding-sheet. . .

I ’eard that at the Old Vic once.

Alfred. Time to pack up, Bert.

Ethelbert. You’re always wantin’ to pack up, you are.
You start in the mornin’, and time you’ve ’ad your little
snack, soon as you’ve ’ad your blow, you wants to knock
off for dinner. This ’ere is a church you’re workin’ on, not
a public ’ouse. I reckon you think you’re something Hke a
bank clerk. I tell you what: you try puttin’ in a extra ten
minutes every night in the cause o’ reUgion, and see ’ow
you get on.

Alfred. Don’t sec as it makes any difference whether it’s
a church or a public or a bank I’m puttin’ up. I draws me
dough just the same so it’s all the same to me.

Edwin. And the licensee of the Bunch o’ Grapes gets
your money just the same, Fred, so it’s all the same to ’im*

PART I

12 THE ROCK

. Alfred. Nah then, not so much o’ your ruddy lip,
young Edwin. You ain’t never been in a church or a bank,
you ain’t.

Ethelbert. ’ Arf a mo’, ’arf a mo’. It’s lucky for you twq
as you’ve got someone what’s done a bit o’ lookin’ into
things to keep you in Hne.What’s wrong with you is, you’re
a lot too cocksure. Ain’t you ever ’card me speak o’ the
principles of Social Credit Reform?

Alfred. ’Ow much?

Ethelbert. What Major Douglas ’as to say about banks.
It’d take me hours to explain it to you two, and it’s dry
work. Only if I ’ad a pint o’ brown, I’d show you ’ow your
money goes. I asks you; ’oo runs the banks? Nobody
knows. A lot o’ your old Eton pals gets round a table once
a month and ’as a bit o’ lunch, and then they reads out a
report from someone ’oo ain’t there. Why ain’t there?
Nobody knows, and nobody don’t care neither. ’Oo
makes the profits? Nobody knows. Why? I’ll tell you
why: ’cos tney ain’t there, see? Nobodjr ain’t there. You
and I ain’t there; the shareholders ain’t there, and thefir
divvies ain’t ’ardly there either, ’cos they paid too ’ot for
their shares. That’s a bank, that is. It’s all profit what no-
body gets and nobody knows ’ow they gets it. Nah, then:
you take a church. There ain’t no profit about that. It’s for
you and me. The parson bloke, ’e don’t get much out of it,
leastways not by me looks of some I’ve seen. There ain’t
any share’olders or directors. The likes o’ you and me tries
to walk into a bank, and the commission bloke on the door
looks at us and says: “ ’op it!” But walk into a church! You
can sit where you fancy and you’re welcome. And let me
tell you, bein’ in the know, as diis ’ere church we’re puttin’
up is bein’ built ’arf on subscriptions firom people what
can’t afford it, and ’arf on ’ope.

Alfred. Maybe there’s something in what you say,
Bert.

PART I THE ROCK 13

Ethelbert. which leads me to this ’ere: these people
ain’t just set aside somethin’ out o’ profits for buildm’ this
church, in the expectation of makin more profits out of it.
They ain’t got a millionaire be’ind ’em to see it through.
They ain’t goin’ to make nothin’ out of it. They’ve been
worryin’ and scrapin’ to get a httle more money ’ere, and
save another Httle bit there. And when you thinks o’ all
the ’opes and worries and thinkin’ and prayin’ that’s gone
into this ’ere job, and all the disappointments maybe on the
way, why ’ere we are buildin’ ’em all into this church; and
in buildin’ this church we’re buildin’ somethin’ more than
walls o’ bricks and mortar.

Edwin. I’d Hke to ’ear you explain your meanin’, Bert.

Ethelbert. Us ’ere, I says, Fred, is doin’ somcthink
which is more ’n just bricks and mortar. Now, I know
what the Old Book says. You take the state o’ man. You
know the improvement of the state o’ man. That ain’t
bricks and mortar. No. I says to you, Fred, and to you,
Edwin, see what the Book says. There’s David. One o’
them fancy lads — a good soldier and fond o’ the ladies — ^but
a great one for ’is church. And what does it say. The Lord
loved ’im ’cause ’e was a fine fellow on one side and as bad
as they make ’em on the other. He was put up wrong.
Now David was sittin’ in ’is ’ouse thinkin’, and ’e says,
everyone ’as got a ’ouse to live in. You blokes what I’ve
raised up from bein’ cow’erds to stand around my kingly
throne, though you’re nothin’ but a lot o’ sore-eyed mon-
keys even now — you’ve all got a ’ouse to live in. But what
about the Lord? ’E ain’t got a ’ouse to Hve in. Let’s build
’im a ’ouse. And Solomon ’e built the Temple. There
always ’as been someone buildin’ a church. Always some-
one buildin’, buildin’, buildin’. It’s God’s ’ouse and it’s the
people’s ’ouse and it’s our ’ouse. You and me, Fred, and
you, young Edwin, are doin’ somethin’ for God and some-
thin’ for ’umanity what always ’as to be done. There’s

14 the rock part I

somethin’ strong and lastin’ about a buildin’. You needn’t
believe in God but you’ve got to believe in a buildin’. It
goes up and up in the sky, and on and on through the years,
and it speaks with its lights and its bells in the night and in
the sunshine — and it stands when you and I are dust, what
built it for the glory of God — and that church ’as been put
up with ’ands, buildin’, buildin’, buildin’ — all through the
years — ^in the ruddy rain and ’eat and ’ail and snow — ^workin’
in bricks and mortar, goin’ on forever and ever and ever,
buildin’ the Church of God.

Edwin. You do talk like a book, Bert.

Alfred. ’Ere’s what many says, though. I don’t say as
I ’olds with it myself, but there’s some as says it. They says
as ’ow mankind ’as made a lot o’ progress since the old days
o’ religion: become more ’uman, so to speak. In the old
days there wasn’t no sciences, and no education, and people
was simple-minded, so that religion served the purpose of
everythm’ else. Then what’s more, there wasn’t any
theatres, or any music but singin’ ’ymns; and there wasn’t
any papers and people couldn’t read nor write anyway.
And what’s more, there wasn’t any charities nor gov’ment
works o’ no kind; and when a man was up against it there
was nowheres else to go for ’elp but only to the church
people; and then the monks’ ’ouses they served as ’otels and
did all kind o’ good work too. Well, in those times there
was a lot to be said for buildin’ churches. But ain’t all that'
past and done with?

Edwin. Well, that bein’ the case, Fred, ’ow do you ex-
plain people wantin’ to go on btiiidin’ churches and keepin’
cm gom like they do?

Alfred. I didn’t say as I ’eld with this opinion, did I?
Tm just puttin’ a case . But so far as your remark goes, Ted,
people goin’ on bSti* religious when there don’t seem no
reasonable excuse for it. I’ve thought tbat out, and it come
to me as religion is like drink. People may not want if

PART I THE ROCK 15

drawn very strong, or very much o’ the time, most of ’em;
but they seems to like to know that it’s always there if and
’ow they do want it. And if they don’t get it one way, they
will another. Look at what’s been ’appenin’ in the U.S.
these recent years. You can’t keep people off drink by
tellin’ ’em it’s so ’armful they mustn’t ’ave it; and you can’t
keep ’em off rehgion, seemin’ly, by tellin’ ’em it’s so old-
fashioned they oughtn’t to want it.

Edwin. That’s a funny way to talk o’ rehgion, Fred.

Ethelbert. No, Fred’s right on that point; and no dis-
respect intended. I’m sure.

Alfred. All the same, though, there’s many thinks they
can do without. Look at all what’s goin’ on in Russia. Do
you think they’ll manage to make do without religion,
Bert?

Ethelbert. Ah, they wants it just as bad as anybody —
and they’ve got it a ’ole lot worse. If people don’t take their
religion in the usual proper way, they’ll take it in other
ways, such as poHtics; and then they get into a ’ell of a
muddle. As you was more or less ’intin’ yourself, Fred.
And pohtical rehgion is like invahd port: you caUs it a
medicine but it’s soon just a ’abit.

Edwin. You must ’ave read a lot o’ ’istory, Bert.

Ethelbert. I ’ave read a tidy bit.

Alfred. But what about this point o’ ’uman progress?
It do seem as if people was a good deal more ’umane than
they once was, from what I’m told: ’specially in the way o’
bein’ kind to animiles. And it don’t seem as if that could be
laid down to the influence o’ Christianity.

Ethelbert. When Christianity does somethin’ for the
world, then people likes to think they done it for them-
selves. That’s the way o’ the world, as the sayin’ is. But for
good and bad, people is still bom very much the same.
/There’s some new notion about time, what says that the
past— what’s be’ind you — ^is what’s goin’ to ’appen in the

PART I

i6 THE ROCK

future, bein’ as the future ’as already ’appened. I ’aven’t
’ad time to get the ’ang of it yet; but when I read about all
those old blokes they seems much hke us. . . .

The lights begin to change. Music sounds.

Ethelbert. ’Ere, wot’s this?

Alfred. Bhmey, Bert, you seem to ’ave ’it the nail on
the ’ead this time!

The Workmen step aside; gradually, as music and lights alter
the scene, a Group op Saxons enter. The Workmen, with-
drawn in a corner, observe the following scene with eager
curiosity.

1 ST Saxon Man. What do you think of the new faith
preached by these priests of the God who rules, they say,
in Rome?

1ST Woman. It brings no good, it brings no good. Do
not listen to them. The gods will surely let us be destroyed
ifwehstentothem. We have many enemies. Will not the
gods favour those who keep the old faith?

2 ND Woman. In time of trouble it is best to keep to the
old gods whom we know.

2ND Man. No, but these men seem good and peaceful,
and they have great faith. I like their preaching and their
kindness.

1 ST Woman. O do not hsten to them, do not listen to
them.

3RD Man. Yet it is a beautiful faith, ifit were true. That
dieir god should have been bom among men, of a humble
woman, and lived his life among folk Ime you and me> not
kings and earls, and yet was truly god, and now is wor-
sbi ^ d, they say, by very great kings: that is very won-

«>

Enter Mbllitus {first Bishop of London) and Monks.

PART I THE ROCK 17

Mellitus. My children, will you stay while I preach to
you the word of God, and make clear the true faith, that
you may beheve and be saved to eternal Ufe?

1ST Man. Sir, we would hear you, most of us, though
some of our women are weak and terrified.' But it is not for
humble folk like us to turn to your ways and trust to your
leading, unless our king turns also.

Mellitus. Be it so, for I see your king approaching. He
shall be saved, and you with him, for it is the will of God.

Enter Sabert {King of London) with Retinue.
Sabert. Priest of the foreign god, expound again your
mysteries, the cross and the god who died hke a man but
lives again as a god. I will listen and my people shall Hsten
with me.

Mellitus’ sermon

Mellitus. King and People, I have already preached to
you, not once but at sundry times, the mysteries of the
Christian Faith. And that vou have Hstened to me is, I am
assured, already some sign of God’s Grace upon you, that
He wills that you and all the people of this land shall be
saved. For I came to you, not as magicians and wonder-
workers come, to deceive you with the false miracles of
their father the devil. But I have come quietly, not Hke
princes and potentates, but a humble man, lodging poorly,
suffering much, lacking everything, even fresh water, and
wishing only to Hve more lowly and suffer more durely
still, remembering the humiUty and the sufferings of our
Lord upon earth, and knowing myself the least of his
servants. For God is not hke the gods of your imagination
whom you vainly worship. He does not come in pride, or
to gratify' pride. Your gods, you say, fight for you and
strcngtheil you in battle. But I tell you that God is not
only your God but the God of all men. He does not fight

1 8 THE ROCK part i

for you except you fight for righteousness; for He is the I
God of your enemies also, even if your enemies know himj
not; and He loves all men, and would see them at peace
with one another. You must not think, whether God be
for you, but whether you be for God. So only shall you
be freed from the pains of everlasting damnation, of which
I have told you, and which are more terrible than any
words of mine or of any man can describe to you.

Sabert. These are strange teachings to us; but by the
Name of the God whom you preach, I will have your God,
and He shall be my God and the God of my people of Lon-
don, as he is already the God of my brother of Kent and of
his people. And my people shall kneel with me and yield
ourselves to Christ, and pray that he fight for us.

All kneel and the Modern Workmen, who have been watch-
ing, take off their caps and kneel also.

Melutus. Blessed be God. Now in sign of your con-
version, my children, and after I have baptised you, you
shall build a church to God.

Sabert. On my hill. Let it be on my hill to the west of
London!

Mellitus. Be it so. And the church shall be built to the
honour of the blessed St. Paul, whom I unworthily follow,
and to the glory and worship of God.

Sabert. And when we are become Christians, shall we
have the white bread to eat?

Melutus. You shall have the white bread to eat. For it
\ is written: except ye eat of the Flesh of the Son of Man, and
(drink His Blood, ye have no life in you. But first of all,
you must learn to pray. Instructed by saving precepts, and
taught by Divine Example, we are bold to say — you must
say after me. . . .

As they begin die “Our Fadter . . . "the lights grad-

PART I THE ROCK 19

uallyfade out. In the distance, the Builders’ song is heard.

Ill done and undone,

London so fair.

We will build London
Bright in dark air,

With new bricks and mortar
Beside the Thames bord •

Queen of Island and Water,

A House of Our Lord.

A Church for us all and work for us all and God’s
world for us all even unto this last.

As this ends the lights come up again, disclosing the Chorus
alone.

Chorus.

Thus y(jur fathers were made

Fellow citizens of the saints, of the household of God,
being built upon the foundation

Of apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself the chief
cornerstone.

But you, have you built well, that you now sit helpless
in a ruined house?

Where many are bom to idleness, to frittered Hves and
squahd deaths, embittered scorn in honeyless hives.

And mose who would build and restore turn out the
palms of their hands, or look in vain towards
foreign lands for alms to be more or the urn to be
filled.

Your building not fitly framed together, you sit
ashamed and wonder whether and how you may be
builded together for a habitation of God in the
Spirit, the Spirit which moved on the face of the
waters like a lantern set on the back of a tortoise.

And some say: “How can we love our neighbour? For
love must be made real in act, as desire unites with

20

PART I

THE ROCK

desired; we have only our labour to give and our
labour is not required.

We wait on corners, with nothing to bring but the songs
we can sing which nobody wants to hear sung;
Waiting to be flung in the end, on a heap less useful than
dung.’’

You, have you built well, have you forgotten the
corner-stone?

Talking of right relations of men, but not of relations of
men to God.

“Our citizenship is in Heaven”; yes, but that is the model
and type for your citizenship upon earth.

When your fathers fixed the place of God,

And settled all the inconvenient saints.

Apostles, martyrs, in a kind of Whipsnade, •

Then they could set about imperial expansion
Accompanied by industrial development.

Exporting iron, coal and cotton goods
And intellectual enhghtenment
And everything, including capital
And several versions of the Word of God:

The British race assured of a mission
Performed it, but left much at home unsure.

Of all that was done in the past, you eat the fruit, either
rotten or ripe.

And the Church must be forever building, and always
decaying, and always being restored.

For every ill deed in the past we suffer the consequence:
For sloth, for avarice, gluttony, neglect of the Word of
God,

For pride, for lechery, treachery, for every act of sin.
And of all that was done that was good, you have the
inheritance.//

PART I THE ROCK 21

^ For good and ill deeds belong to a man alone, when he
stands alone on the other side of death,

, But here upon earth you have the reward of the good and
" ill that was done by those who have gone before you.

^ , And all that is ill you may repair if you walk together in
i humble repentence, expiating the sins of your
fathers;

And all that was good you must fight to keep with
hearts as devoted as those of your fathers who fought
to gain it.

The Church must be forever building, for it is forever
decaying within and attacked from without;

For this is the law of life; and you must remember that
while there is time of prosperity
The people will neglect the Temple, and in time of
advejrsity they will decry it.

j ' What life have you if you have not life together?

There is no Hfe that is not in community.

And no community not lived in praise of God.

Even the anchorite who meditates alone.

For whom the days and nights repeat the praise of
God,

Prays for the Church, the Body of Christ incarnate.

And now you Uve dispersed on ribbon roads,

And no man knows or cares who is his neighbour
Unless his neighbour makes too much disturbance,

But all dash to and fro in motor cars,

Famihar with the roads and settled nowhere.

Nor does the family even move about together,

But every son would have his motor cycle.

And daughters ride away on casual pillions. ^

Much to cast down, much to build, much to restore;
Let the work not delay, time and the arm not waste;

22 THE ROCK PART I

Let the clay be dug from the pit, let the saw cut the
stone,

Let the fire not be quenched in the forge.

The lights fade out; when they come up again the church site is
seen; the W orkmen are continuing their work on the foundations.

Alfred. Cor bHmey, it ’ave been a sweat tryin’ to get
these foundations right. What they want to build a church
on a bleedin’ swamp like this for? Don’t these parsons
know that you can’t build without somethin’ to build on?

Edwin. Parsons don’t know anythink about buUdin’.
They think you can take any piece o’ ground and do any-
think with it.

Ethelbert. Well, I don’t know as I’d go so far as to say
that, Ted, but you put me in mind of a parson I talked to
once. I assumed that ’e knew a few facts, as you^ght say,
till ’e up and asked me what was I goin’ to do about the
keystone for a arch! Didn’t even know you could build a
arch without a keystone! Then *e started shoutin’ about
pointin’, and I says as when I was pointin’ im there, blowed
if I didn’t knock the Frenchman off the scaffoldin’ and took
a chip off the old stone saint underneath. Showed ’im the
place. “But was ’e ’urt?’’ asked the old boy. “Oh no,” says
I, “just a little chip it was; that there Sussex marble is a ’ard
stone.” “No,” he says, “I mean the Frenchman.”

General laughter.

Fancy anyone not knowin’ that a Frenchman’s a pointin’
tool!

Alfred. Look ’ere, ’ere’s the water got in again. This
place is nothin’ but a sponge, this is. These foundations
ain’t strong enough to set a egg-cup on.

Enter Contractor.

Contractor. Well, you don’t seem to be doin’ much
good here. Can’t you get on with it?

PART I THE ROCK 23

Alfred. A little piece o* decent soil ’ud do us a fair treat.
’Ow can we make any ’eadway ’ere? It’s got me beat.

Contractor. Well, I tell you what it is. If you can’t
get these foundations soHd by the end o’ the week, I’m go-
ing to tell the architect I must claim an extra, that’s all.

Ethelbert. And what’ll the architect do then?

Contractor. Why, he’ll go to the people that’s puttin’
up the money, and he’ll say: “As I warned you,” he’ll say —
and he did, I know that — “as I warned you, there will be
an extra. The contractor has handed me an estimate,” he’ll
say, “and I have checked it and found it correct. We’ll need
such and such a sum or the work can’t go on.”

Ethelbert. But from what I ’ear, they ’aven’t got any
money over and above. In fact, they’ve started buildin’
before they’ve done collectin’ subscriptions, ’aven’t they?

Contractor. Yes, they was in such a hurry to get a
church built here.

Ethelbert. Well, it don’t look as if you could ’urry
these foundations. It’ll take more ’n my coaxin’, anyway.

Contractor. If they haven’t any contingency fund to
draw on, that’s their look-out. I dare say they’ll get a bit
more money, or they can make another appeal, or they can
try to get a overdraft o’ some kind, though a church don’t
make very good security, certainly not when it’s in this
state, and this piece o’ ground ain’t worth that.

Alfred. Ground? You can’t ’ardly call it ground.

Edwin. Can’t they save a bit on other things, like decor-
ations an’ stained glass windows an’ gold plate on the altar
an’ such Hke?

Ethelbert. They’ll bloomin’ well ’ave to do that.
These foundations’ll soak up money like this soil collects
moisture. It’d ’ave saved ’em money in the end to ’ave put
more of it into a good buildin’ lot.

Contractor. Ah, but they wanted a church particular
for this neighbourhood; and there wasn’t any odier piece

24 THE ROCK part i

o’ land round here available. Now I tell you what.
Architects is difficult gentlemen, and I don’t like to go and
tell him what I said I would if I can help it; and besides, we
know what the answer’ll be: it’ll just mean stoppin’ con-
struction for a indefinite period, durin’ which this piece of
land ain’t going to improve any. I’ll give it another whole
week before I makes out the estimate for him. So mean-
while you put your backs into it, and try usin’ your brains
for once.

Exit

Alfred. Coo!

Ethelbert. Use me brains, indeed! If I ’ad as httle
brains as ’im I might be a contractor myself by now; but
bein’ a intellectiul. I’m only a foreman.

All stand and brood despondently. (Enter Rahere, unobserved)
Alfred. Yes, but wam’t they off the chump, them that
thought you could build a church on this soil? Whatever
made ’em think they ’ad to ’ave a church just ’ere?

Edwin. Yes, why try to build a church in this place? It’s
only fit for allotments for growin’ whelks and cockles ill,
this is.

Alfred. Why do they need a church ’ere?

Rahere. Because God needs a church here.

All turn round with a start and touch their caps in embarrassment.

Alfred. Askin’ your pardon, sir, didn’t know as you
was with us. Might you be the parson o’ this ’ere church
we’re tryin’ to build?

Rahere. No, I was a monk in the time of King Henry.
Edwin. King ’Enery? How come you to be ’ere now,
then?

Rahere. Because I also was a London builder, and I also
built on marshy ground; and I also knew discouragement.
Therefore, because you arc building to the glory of God

PART I THE ROCK 25

and for His people, and because you are now at a loss to
finish what you began, have I come to comfort and en-
courage you.

Alfred. Might we ’ear a bit o’ your story, sir?

Edwin. And wot might be your name, sir?

Rahere. My name is Rahere. I was a man of London
bom and bred like you. But God having endowed me
with a ready wit, the power to provoke mirth and merri-
ment in all men, this was the cause of my temptation. For
I loved ease and luxury, and to make men pleased with me,
and I loved courts and the company of the great. And to
my mirth I joined the power of flattery, so that great men
and princes loved to have me of their company. And so
in time I came to frequent the Royal Court, and became
indeed the King’s Jester.

Edwin.^ What’s a jester?

Alfred. You ought to be ashamed, young Ted, showin’
your ignorance by interruptin’ the gentleman with ques-
tions o’ that sort. You ought to know a jester’s a man what
comes on and does the comic turn.-^ ’ ‘

Edwin. Oh, Hke George Robey.

Alfred. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Ted, to
hken this gentleman to George Robey. Robey’s on the
’alls; but this gentleman’s meanin’ is as ’ow ’e used to
hentertain the toffs, at Buckin’ham Palace and such Hke.

Edwin. Askin’ your pardon, didn’t mean no offence.
Please go on, sir.

Rahere. In this way I spent the years of my youth. But
God, who has performed so many and marvellous miracles
of mercy, and who in His^good time does often choose the
foolish and weak to be his instruments, thought fit to reveal
to me the error of my ways. And thus He sent me forth in
penitence to Rome.

Edwin. I can’t see as ’ow you’d done anything so wicked
as all that, to be sent to Rome.

26 THE ROCK part i

Alprbd. You ought to be ashamed, Ted, breakin’ in
with crude remarks like that. ’E means, God wanted ’im
to Uve a ’oly life, so ’E sent ’im to Rome where the Pope
lives. Quite right and proper, I says.

Rahere. And while I dwelt in Rome I was suddenly
vexed with a grievous sickness.

Edwin. I ’eard tell the drinkin’ water ain’t none too good
in foreign parts. Not like our London water.

Alfred. Ted, if you don’t shut up. I’ll ask Bert to give
you a tellin’ off.

Rahere. My sickness was near to death, and in my
extremity I made a vow, that if God gave me health to
return to my own dear country, then would I build a
hospital for the restoration of poor men. So by God’s
Grace casting off my sickness and becoming whole, I fared
home bent upon the fulfilment of my vow. And while I
was accomplishing my journey, I had a vision, ifull at once
of terror and of sweetness.

Edwin. What’s a vision?

Alfred. ’E means ’e ’ad a dream, Ted.

Edwin. Oh, a dream. I’d like to ’ear your dream, sir.

Rahere. While I was refreshing my limbs with rest,
after the ardours of the day in travel, it seemed that I was
borne on high by a beast having four feet and two wings,
and set on a high place, which seemed to me of greatest
peril. Then saw I one beside me of great beauty and
majesty, who said: “I am Bartholomew, an apostle of Jesus
Chnst, who am come to help thee. By the will of Heaven,
I have chosen a spot at Smithfield in London, where in my
name thou shalt found a church. And have no fear con-
cerning the expenses of this building; but apply diUgence;
mine it shall be to provide the costs.”

Alfred. I know what you’re talkin’ about, sir; you mean
St. Bartholomew’s Church and Bart’s Hospital down by the
General Post Office there. Goon, sir!

PART I THE ROCK 27

Rahere. So I came to London; and God inclined the
Ring’s heart ^ward my work, and I began to build the
church. tv-

Edwin. And did you ’ave trouble gettin’ the foundations
right?

Rahere. I did. But for the bidding of St. Bartholomew,
had I Jiever chosen any part of London rather than that.
For in those days it was a marshy ground, abounding in
filth and muddy water; a place so vile that the part that was
not water was used only for the hanging of thieves.

Alfred. Well, I must say, sir, you did ’ave everythink
against you! And ’ow did you come off for money for the
buildin’?

Rahere. That too was lacking. For to find means to
pursue the work, at times I had to return to my old trick
of jester, not to lords and princes, but to amuse servants and
even children.

Edwin. That was ’ard lines, sir. I think those rich people
what you used to know might ’ave ’elped you. But you
got it built! I know that, ’cause it’s there now! Well done,
sir!

Ethelbert. Ah, but ’ow’s all this goin’ to ’elp on the
present occasion, sir? You see ’ow it is. Here’s a lot o’
people given their money for buildin’ a church, on a spot
as unsuitable as can be, because they say a church is needed
’ere, there bein’ none handy, and a crowded neighbourhood
full o’ poor people, and no other spot available. There
wasn’t none other as they could buy; and I guess they only
got this ’ere because it wasn’t no good for nothink else.
Times ’as changed since your day, and there ain’t much
’oliness about, seemin’ly ; if we’re better off in some ways,
may be we’re worse in others. It ain’t so much that we’ll
lose the job, but bein’ on account of these poor folks as ’ave
set their ’eart on ’avin’ a church ’ere. What can we do?
We’re m a proper fix, sir!

PART I

28 THE ROCK

Rahere. If you will have faith, we will help you. Those
who helped me, both visible and invisible, shall help you.
If you will have faith, all the angels and saints of God shall
pray for you, and your work shall be blessed. Ethelbert,
Alfred and Edwin

As he names them they twitch off their caps and kneel
in the name of God, who knoweth all your faults, even the
slightest imworthy desire of your hearts, arise and proceed
to your work, for here are those who shall help you.

Voices of Rahere’s Men, entering at the back
Ethelbert, Alfred, Edwin,
with all those who give their hand to this work,
we shall work with you,
we shall stand beside you,
for a moment visible and again invisible,
until your foundations are made firm,
until your walls are built and your rooftree set,
until the altar is dressed, and the sanctuary;
until the dedication of your church.

Above, Rahere and his men dig and build; below, the brick-
layers resume their tasks with a will. After a time, “Blessed
City, Heavenly Salem” is heard being sung in the distance; a
procession approaches to lay the Foundation Stone of the new
church.

As the lights fade out on this, the Builders' Song is heard.
Shall arms hang straight
With fingers unbent
While voices debate
Of money misspent
And the coverless bed
And the fireless grate
And the lamp unfed?

How late shall we wait?

PART I THE ROCK 29

A Church for us all and work for us all and God’s
world for us all even unto this last.

Lights up again on the Chorus.
jChorus.

The Word of the Lord came unto me, saying:

O miserable cities of designing men,

0 wretched generation of enhghtened men.

Betrayed in the mazes of your ingenuities.

Sold by the proceeds of your proper inventions:

1 have given you hands which you turn from worship,
I have given you speech, for endless palaver,

I have given you my Law, and you set up commissions,
I have given you Hps, to express friendly sentiments,

I have given you hearts, for reciprocal distrust.

I have given you power of choice, and you only alternate
Between futile speculation and unconsidered action.
Many are engaged in writing books and printing them,
Many desire to see their names in print.

Many read nothing but the race reports.

Much is your reading, but not the Word of God,
Much is your building, but not the House of God.

Will you build me a house of plaster, with corrugated
roofing.

To be filled with a Utter of Sunday newspapers?

1ST Male Voice.

A Cry from the East:

What shall be done to the shore of smoky ships?

Will you leave my people forgetful and forgotten
To idleness, labour, and deUrious stupor?

There shall be left the broken chimney,

The peeled hull, a pile of rusty iron,

In a street of scattered brick where the goat climbs,
Where My Word is unspoken.

THE ROCK

PART I

30

2ND Male Voice.

A Cry from the North, from the West and from the
South:

Whence thousands travel daily to the timekept City;
Where My Word is unspoken,

In the land of lobeHas and tennis flannels
The rabbit shall burrow and the thorn revisit.

The nettle shall flourish on the gravel court.

And the wind shall say: “Here were decent
people;

Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls.”

Chorus.

' We build in vain unless the Lord build with us.

Can you keep the City that the Lord keeps not with you ?
A thousand poUcemen directing the traffic
Caimot tell you why you come or where you go.

A colony of cavies or a horde of active marmots
Build better than they that build without the Lord.
Shall we Uft up our feet among perpetual ruins?

I have loved the beauty of Thy House, the peace of Thy
sanctuary,

I have swept the floors and garnished the altars.

Where there is no temple there shall be no homes.
Though you have shelters and institutions,

Precarious lodgings while the rent is paid,

. Subsiding basements where the rat breeds
Or sanitary dwellings with numbered doors
Or a house a little better than your neighbour’s; '•
When the Stranger says: “What is the meaning of this
city?

Do you huddle close together because you love each
other?”

What will you answer? “Wc aU dwell together

PART I THE ROCK 31

To make money from each other”? or “This is a com-
munity”?

And the Stranger will depart and return to the desert.
O my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger,
Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.

O weariness of men who turn from God
T o the grandeur of your mind and the glory of your
action,

To arts and inventions and daring enterprises.

To schemes of human greatness thoroughly discredited.
Binding the earth and the water to your service.
Exploiting the seas and developing the mountains,
Dividing the stars into common and preferred.

Engaged in devising the perfect refrigerator.

Engaged in working out a rational morahty.

Engaged in printing as many books as possible.
Plotting of happiness and flinging empty bottles.
Turning from your vacancy to fevered enthusiasm
For nation or race or what you call humanity;

Though you forget the way to the Temple,

There is one who remembers the way to your door:

' Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.

You shall not deny the Stranger.

On the fore-stage, an Agitator is addressing a tattered aowd.

Agitator. Friends, I want your attention for a moment.
Do you see that buildin’ that’s goin’ up over there? Do you
know what it is? Do you think they’re puttin’ up decent
’abitations for people hke you ’n me? Not much o’ that
and then somethink less. That’s a church, that is. And
what’s a church, you asks. It’s a place where they practises
a degradin’ and outworn superstition, an abomination what
ought to be swept off the face o’ the earth, in what they call
these enlightened times. Did you ever ’ear o’ Darwin?

32 THE ROCK part i

Well, ’e was a scientific bloke what lived more ’n a hundred
years ago, more ’n a hundred years ago, mind you, and ’e
showed up the ’ole bhghtin’ swindle as I can prove ’ere by
this book which is pubUshed by the Rationalist Press
Association for the price of one shillin’. Have you read it?
No ! and why not? ’Cause the people what’s in power keeps
you short o’ cash o’ purpose, so as you shan’t be able to buy
books what tells you the truth. These parsons would pre-
vent you from learnin’ to read an’ write if they could.
There’s a ’ole ’ierarchy of ’em, hvin’ olF your sweat, as you
might say; puttin’ up churches instead o’ ’ousin’; and if you
goes inside, which I ’opes you never does nor will, there
they takes more money from you for to watch ’em at their
monkey tricks. And there ain’t one of ’em, from bishop
down, and you can take my word for it, as doesn’t ’ave ’is
bottle o’ port wine every night and ’is grouse in season.
And yet there’s men o’ your own class workin’ to put up
that ’ouse o’ sin. If you was ’arf hke free men you wouldn’t
let ’em do it!

He leads them to where Ethelbert, Alfred and Edwin are at
work on half-built walls.

Alfred. Now, mate, what do you want? Ain’t lookin’
for a job, are you?

Agitator. Comrades, I come to tell you, man to man,
that you are betrayin’ your class and the workers of the
world, by prostitutin’ yourselves by lendin’ your labour
towards buildin’ a church. [To Alfred] Call yourself a
man?

Alfred. Well, if I do, what ’ave you got to say abotit it?

Agitator. Lay down your tools and refuse to work on
a buildin’ which is only for the purpose o’ dopin’ the
workers.

Alfred. Oh, I see what ydur game is. Ain’t got a job
yourself so you want to twist us out o’ ours. All I ’ave to .

PART I

THE ROCK 33

say to you, mate, is; ^moving towards him] You’re a ruddy
Nosey Parker. You op it.

Ethelbert. ’Arf a mo’, leave ’im to me, Fred. ’Ave a
fag? [to AgitatorJ. Got a match? Thanks. I know ’ow to
talk to ’im. I don t suppose ’e’s even ’eard o’ the principles
o’ Credit Reform. Now then, boy, you give us a few o’
your valuable opinions. What’s your view o’ Maynard
Keynes’s theory o’ money?

Agitator. Keynes? ’E’sthe’eadofabankorsomethink,
ain’t ’e? He’s a interested party, so whatever ’e says don’t
count.

Ethelbert. Well, ain’t you ’n me interested parties, if it
come to that?

Agitator. And what are you defendin’ Keynes for, any-
way? Is ’e payin’ you for it?

Ethelbert. Oh, I ain’t defendin’ nobody. I’m just askin’
questions. Probin’ of your mind, such as it is.

Agitator. What’s that?

Ethelbert. I say I’m a-probin’ of your mind, what there
is of it.

Agitator. Keynes indeed! I tell you, it’s your Keynes’s
and your Montagoo Normans and such Hke, they’re the
blokes what keeps the yoke o’ rehgion on the shoulders o’
the workm’ man; and they ’as their own nefarious reasons
for it, you may be sure.

Ethelbert. Well, that’s a idea, that is. That takes a bit
o’ thinkin’ out, that do, and no mistake.

Agitator. And what’s more, I shouldn’t be surprised if
it was your Keynes, or your Norman, or one o’ them
blokes, as was the ’idden ’and as is puttin’ up the money for
this church you’re buildin’.

Ethelbert. Not this ’ere church. I ’appens to know.
Some other church, p’raps.

Agitator. You a manooal labourer and refuse to stand
by your own class?

34 the rock part i

Alfred AND Edwin. What’s that? Us manual labourers?

Alfred. It’s a shame to allow you to show your
ignorance, old son. Us manual labourers? We’re brick-
layers, as you’d see for yourself if you wasn’t stone-blind.

Edwin. Go and talk to the fellows as casts up figures
in oflSces, they’re manual labourers if you like. We’re brain
workers, we are. As for you, you’re nothin’ but a Img
worker.

Ethelbert. But what’s your objection to the buUdin’
o’ churches, apart from they bein’ a outworn super-
stition?

Agitator. Why, it’s plain as the nose on your face.
Ain’t all this money and labour and material bein’ diverted
from its rightful purpose o’ providin’ decent ’omes for the
workers?

Ethelbert. Ah, there you are. I knew you ad’ered to
some antiquated theory of money. So you think that
buildin’ more churches means buildin’ fewer ’ouses and
flats, does you?

Agitator. O’ course it does.

Ethelbert. Now, wait a minute. I’m tellin’ you, mate.
Deny if you can as there’s enough clay and hme and tools
and men to build all the ’ouses that’s needed in this country,
and all the churches too? Well, that bein’ the case, I say:
to 'ell with money! You can arrange the convenience o’
money so’s to get these things. That’s as plain as the nose
on your face. But that ain’t my job. I’m a speciahst. I’m
proud and ’appy to be buildin’ a wall as you’ll never see the
inside of; I’ve got this trowel in one ’and and I’ve got me
fist in the other, so you be off.

One or two of the Crowd make threatening noises in reply;
voices are raised and a scuffle is developing, when a Pouceman s
whistle is heard. The Crowd go off as the lights fade.

Chorus Leader.

35

PAHT I THE ROCK

There are those who would build the Temple,

And those who prefer that the Temple should not be built.
In the days of Nehemiah the Prophet
There was no exception to the general rule.

In Shushan the palace, in the month Nisan,

He served the wine to the King Artaxerxes,

And he grieved for the broken city, Jerusalem;

And the King gave him leave to depart
That he might rebuild the city.

So he went, with a few, to Jerusalem,

And there, by the dragon’s well, by the dung gate.

By the fountain gate, by the king’s pool,

Jerusalem lay waste, consumed witli fire;

No place for a beast to pass.

There were enemies without to destroy him.

And spies and self-seekers within.

When he and his men laid their hands to rebuilding the
wall.

So they built as men must build

With me sword in one hand and the trowel in the other.

Curtains open, to discover Israelites rebuilding Jerusalem. To
them enter Two or Three Women.

1ST Woman. Have the enemy been seen?

1ST Man. No, but we watch lest they Ught upon us as
the dew falleth on the ground.

2ND Woman. They may come before the wall is builded;
and then will they destroy us utterly.

1ST Man. Do you know what Sanballat said, when he
heard we were building the wall? ^Helhocked the Jews,
and he spake to his brethren and the army of Samaria, and
said: What do these foolish Jews? Will they fortify them-
selves? Will they sacrifice? Will they make an end in a
day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rub-
bish, seeing they are burned?

36 THE ROCK part i

2Nt) Man. And Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and
he said: Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall
break down their stone wall.

All falling on their knees:

Hear, O our God; for we are despised; and turn back
their reproach upon their own head, and give them up
to spoiling in a land of captivity; and cover not their
iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before
thee: for they have provoked thee to anger before the
builders. Hear, O our God.

Enter Nehemiah with more Men.

Nehemiah. Be ye not afraid of them: remember the
Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your
brethren, your sons and your daughters, your wives and
your houses. Now our enemies know that their counsels
are known to us, and that God hath brought them to
naught. Therefore every man must be at ms work. It
shall be done thus: half shall toil in the work, and half shall
hold the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the coats of
mail. And the builders shall have every one his sword
girded by his side, and with one hand hold his weapon, and
with the other work. And as the work is great and large,
and we are separated upon the wall, one far from another;
therefore in what place soever ye hear the sound of the
trumpet, resort ye thither unto us; our God shall fight for
us.

Enter an Israelite

Israelite. O Nehemiah, here are again two messengers
sent by Sanballat.

Nehemiah. Let them enter.

Enter Two Messengers.

PART I THE ROCK 37

Nehemiah. Four times has Sanballat sent to me, saying:
Let us meet together in one of the villages in the plain of
Ono. Ah(J four times have I replied saying: I am doing a
great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the
work cease, while I leave it, and come down to you? If
you bring the same message, you may take the same answer.

Messenger. Sir, we have here a letter to you from
Sanballat.

Nehemiah [to Israelite]. Do thou read it aloud.

Israelite [reading], “It is reported among the nations, ,
and Gashmu saith it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel;
for which cause thou buildcst the wall; and thou wouldst be
their king, according to these words. And thou hast also
appointed prophets to preach of thee at Jerusalem, saying:
There is a king in Judah; and now shall it be reported to the
king according to these words. Come now therefore, and
let us take counsel together.’’

Nehemiah. Return now to your master, and say: There
are no such things done as thou sayest, but thou feignest
them out of thine own heart.

Exeunt Messengers

They send thus to make us afraid; and they think that
our hands shall be weakened from the work, that it be not
done. But now, O God, strengthen thou my hands.

Stands for a moment in prayer, then starts to go out. Meets
Shemaiah.

Shemaiah! what wouldst thou?

Shemaiah [confidentially], Nehemiah! let us meet to-
gether in the house of God, within the temple, and let us
shut the doors of the temple: for they will come to slay
thee, yea, in the night will they come to slay thee.

Nehemiah. Should such a man as I flee? And who is
there, that, b^g such as I, would go into the temple to
save his Ufee^I wHl not go in.

PAST I

38 THE ROCK

Shemaiah. Nay, but, Nehcmiah—

Nehemiah. Have done and be gone. I will not listen.

Exit Shemaiah

[So/ms] I discern his purpose. God hath not sent him;
but he pronounced this prophecy against me: and Tobiah
and SanbaUat have hired him, that I might be afraid, and do
so, and sin, and that they might have matter for an evil
report, that they might reproach me. Remember, O my
God, Tobiah and SanbaUat according to these their works,
and also the prophetess Noadiah, and the rest of the pro-
phets, that would have put me in fear.

Exit Nehemiah. Work proceeds for a few moments. Sentry
appears to descry enemies on the plain.

Women. Do they come? They come?

Nehemiah [off-stage] Sound the trumpet!

Trumpet sounds. All grasp arms ana look out, ready to join the
rest wherever the attack may be. Re-enter Nehemiah.

Voices [dispersedly] They attack! No, they stay! They
see we are ready for them. They see that they are not many
enough to be sure of victory. They retire!

Nehemiah. Praise, praise unto God!

Others join in rejoicing as the lights fade.

Chorus.

O Lord, dehver me from the man of exceUent intention
and impure heart: for the heart is deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked.

SanbaUat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite and
Geshem the Arabian: were doubtless men of pubUc
spirit and zeal.

Preserve me from the enemy who has something to gain:
and from the friend who has something to lose.

PART I THE ROCK 39

Remembering the words of Nehemiah the Prophet:
“The trowel in hand, and the gun rather loose in the
holster.”

Those who sit in a house of which the use is forgotten:
are hke snakes that he on mouldering stairs, content
in the sunhght.

And the others run about like dogs, full of enterprise,
sniffing and barking: they say, “This house is a nest
of serpents, let us destroy it.

And have done with these abominations, the turpitudes
of the Christians.” And these are not justified, nor
the others.

And they write innumerable books; being too vain and
distracted for silence: seeking every one after his
own elevation, and dodging his emptiness.

If humihty and purity be not in the heart, they are not in
the home: and if they are not in the home, they are
not in the City.

The man who has builded during the day would return
to his hearth at nightfall: to be blessed with the gift
of silence, and doze before he sleeps.

But we are encompassed with snakes and dogs: therefore
some must labour, and others must hold the spears.

On the fore-stage, re-enter AerrATOv. followed by Crowd. He
turns and addresses them.

Agitator. You see, comrades, it’s no sort o’ use talkin’
to men like that what is the willin’ dupes o capitahsm. I
could ’a answered ’im, but what’s the use? He’s too old and
too ignorant. What we ^ot to do is to happeal to the young
and ’opefiil, them what as fresh vitaUty and ’as got vision,
like you ’ere. When we seizes the power we must make it
a law that nobody teaches religion to anyone under the
a^e o’ eighteen. That’s what they do in Russia. Ever ’ear
o theComsomol? We’ll turn all me churches into workers’

PART I

40 THE ROCK

clubs, and museums, and every think useful for the people:
dance ’alls, picture palaces, swimmin’ baths, smokin’ con-
certs, restaurants where you can get all the cups o’ coffee
you want for a ’apenny and sausage and mashed or toad-in-
the-’ole for twopence. We’ll all be free and we’ll all think
ahke, as a free people does; and them that don’t won’t be
allowed to think different.

Tumultuous applause.

A Voice. Youtalkverypretty, mate, but what we goin’
to do about it?

Another. That’s right! What we wants is action, I
says, action.

A Third. Commiinism in our time!

Agitator. What’re we to do, you asks? Why, friends,
there’s no end to what you can do. F’r instance, on
Christmas Day we can organize a Anti-God procession,
same as they does in Russia, with playcards an’ ex’ibitions
exposin’ all the dope o’ Christianity an’ turnin’ it to ridicule.

A Voice [Lancs.]. Ay, lad, but it’s a long way to
Christmas yet.

Another. You ain’t even ’ad your summer ’ohdays yet!
Tell us what to do about it now, see, nowl

Another. That’s what I says. Action is what we wants,
I says, action.

Agitator. Well, every time as you can see your way to
’eavin’ a brick through one o’ their stained glass windows
what is pure idolatry an’ worshippin’ o’ graven images,
you’ll be doin’ a service to ’umanity.

A Voice. An’ be pinched for it. I just done me stretch.

Agitator. Well, I’ll tell you what you can do right now,
see? Sabotagin’ ! that’s the word. As soon as them soulless
an’ ’eartless workmen as is so pig-’eaded ’as knocked off for
the night, an’ everythin’ is quiet, you go an’ mess the place
up as much as you can. Break up the bricks, muck up the

PART I THE ROCK 41

mortar, and shove over the walls where they ain’t set yet.
That’ll ’elp to show ’em we’re in earnest!

Exeunt Crowd tumultuously with cheers. The curtains open.
DANISH INVASION

Lights up on an empty stage — music far off— Nuss, fearful of
the Danes coming, carry their treasures to hiding places; some
are stopped by Danes toho seize their precious relic and kill one
of them. The others weep and pray over her body. Monks come
to them bearing a Crucifix. The Danes, returning in force,
hesitate as the Monks stand still and unresisting across their path;
eventually they attack and kill some of them, but dare not touch
the Crucifix.

Chorus.

It is hard for those who have never known persecution,
And who have never known a Christian,

To believe these tales of Christian persecution.

It is hard for those who live near a Bank
To doubt the security of their money.

It is hard for those who live near a PoHcc Station,

To beheve in the triumph of violence.

Do you think that the Faith has conquered the World
And that lions no longer need keepers?

Do you need to be told that whatever has been, can still be ?
Do you need to be told that even such modest attain-
ments

As you can boast in the way of polite society
Will hardly survive the Faith to which they owe their
significance?

Men! pohsh your teeth on rising and retiring;

Women! polish your fingernails:

42 THE ROCK part i

You polish the tooth of the dog and the talon of the cat.
Why should men love the Church? Why should they
love her laws?

She tells them of Life and Death, and of all that they
would forget.

She is tender where they would be hard, and hard where
they hke to be soft.

She tells them of Evil and Sin, and other unpleasant facts.
They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need
to be good.

But the man that is will shadow
The man that pretends to be.

And the Son of Man was not crucified once for all,

The blood of the martyrs not shed once for all,

The lives of the Saints not given once for all:

But the Son of Man is crucified always
And there shall be Martyrs and Saints.

And if blood of Martyrs is to flow on the steps
We must first build the steps;

And if the Temple is to be cast down
We must first build the Temple.

But come, let us not lose hope in the world, prematurely;
The world is not quite given up to diplomacy,
Combinations and finding of formulas.

There arc always the young, the devoted.

The enthusiasts, breakers of fetters.

And some such I now see approaching
With aloft their gay banner of sunrise.

Enter Redshirts in military formation.

O you who thus intrude upon a house of sorrow,
Your looks arc horrid, but your hearts no doubt are pure*

43

PART I THE ROCK

Bring you some succour for our failing strength?
Bring you some light to lead our faltering steps?
Brooding on backward time, abysmal future,
Outward oppression and within betrayal.

We beg some word of comfort and assurance.

RfiDSfflRTS [i« unison, with military gestures].

Our verse
is free

as the wind on the steppes
as love in the heart of the factory worker
thousands and thousands of steppes
millions and millions of workers

all working

all loving

in the cities

on the steppes

production has risen by twenty point six per cent
we can laugh at God!
our workers

all working
our turbines

all turning
our sparrows

all chirping

all denounce you, deceivers of the people!

Chorus.

Alas! there is no help here.

Yet they are young, with fairly intelligent faces.

O Jesus, Saviour of Man, preserve us
From Man, the Saviour of Man,

The Saviour who destroys Man in Men.

But who come now, approaching from our right?
Shall these avail us?

PART I

44 THE ROCK

The right of some is the left of others,

The right of some is the wrong of others,

It is best to suspend judgment.

Enter Blackshirts, in military formation.

Blackshirts [saluting]. Hail!

We come as a boon and a blessing to all,

Though we'd rather appear in the Albert Hall.

Qur methods are new in this land of the free,

We make the deaf hear and we make the blind see.

We're law-keeping fellows who make our own laws

And we welcome subscriptions in aid of the cause!

Hold out collection tins.

Male Chorus.

Friends, kindly solve the riddles in your speech:

Are you obedient to the Law of God?

Are you with those who reverence the Temple?

Blackshirts.

Your vesture, your gesture, your speech and your face.
Proclaim your extraction from Jewish race.

We have our own prophets, who're ready to speak
For a week and a day and a day and a week.

This being the case, we must firmly refuse
To descend to palaver with anthropoid Jews.

Chorus.

There seems no hope from those who march in step.
We have no help from those with new evangels.

Is there yet hope from those who hold the world,
From those who have the glory and the power?

And here comes one who has a noble seeming.
Experienced, vrise, a man of balanced judgment:

And him will we accost.

PART I THE ROCK 45

Enter Plutocrat. During this and the following speech other
Plutocrats, Flash Ladies, Gunmen and other shady and
rapacious individualists getting lower and lower in class, enter,
until the stage is pretty full. As he enters. Blackshirts hold out
tins again, and he drops a penny in each.

Stranger! if strange you are, for yet I think
I have a sad acquaintance with your face.

Are you among the loyal to the Faith?

Are you among the children of the Church,

Prepared for sacrifice and suffering?

. Plutocrat [very suavely].

Let me assure you, first of all,

I have a great respect for Mother Church.

She is the bulwark of society.

The great maintainer of stabihty.

Her ceremonies, too, are very fine.

Most impressive, most impressive.

For Church and State and Liberty I stand.

I wish to reassure you on this point.

Lest otherwise you fail to understand
The trifling criticisms that I make
Wholly inspired by the wish to help you.

It grieves me very much to have to say this

Yet I must say, in humble charity.

The Church is most oppressive to the poor.

Cheers from Redshirts

I feel that I am qualified to speak.

Having been active in philanthropy;

For any man who makes a million pounds
Has done at least a million pounds of good.

Some clergymen are grossly overpaid;

You are extortionate in rents and tithes;

Cheers from Blackshirts

PAST I

46 THE ROCK

And then the Ecclesiastical Commission
Might be reformed. These seem small points, I know;

But there’s one grievance that must be put right

And one that I have suffered from myself

You must make some concessions towards divorce,

Cheers from All

Though, mind you, I don’t want divorce made cheap —
That cheapens marriage. Yet, when all is said,

I t hin k the Church an excellent institution.

You don’t mind such frank speaking, do you now?

From one who has so much goodwill as I.

Chorus.

There is no help in parties, none in interests.

There is no help in those whose souls are choked and
swaddled

In the old winding sheets of place and power
Or the new windmg sheets of mass-made thought.

0 world! forget your glories and your quarrels.

Forget your groups and your misplaced ambitions.

We speak to you as individual men;

As individuals alone with God.

Alone with God, you first learn brotherhood with men.

Crowd grumbles and mutters, rising to a sullen roar, and
manifests disapproval.

Plutocrat [in a conciliatory manner],

1 have here an alternative to offer.

Hoping it will commend itself to all.

For after all, we’re all at heart agreed;

The things we want are really ^ the same.

So why not try to find a formula?

And I, who am the soul of moderation,

And earnest spirit of conciliation,

47

PART I THE ROCK

Have beeri exploring every avenue
To find the terms on which we can agree.

We all, I know, have various interests.

And there’s the Church to be considered too.

So I have had a Httle image cast.

And I must say, you’ll find it very nea^

Something I’m sure that all of you will hke.

It looks like Gold, but its real name is Power.

Enter at hack, Feunkeys bearing the Golden Calf. All
cheer uproariously and kneel for a moment. Then rise and begin
to push and shove and pursue the image across stage. Fall to
struggling with each other indisaiminately. The calf is dis-
membered. Exeunt in tumult.

The lights fade. In the dimness Ethelbert’s voice is heard.

Ethelbert. O Gawd! O Gawd! Ain’t we got every think
against us, tryin’ to get this church built! O Lord, help us!

Suddenly the Rock is observed standing brooding on the
pinnacle.

The Rock.

I have known two worlds, I have known two worlds of
death.

All that you suffer, I have suffered before.

And suner always, even to the end of the world.

Does the spring change, does the bird’s wing change,
does the fly alter

Its purpose since the amber-time, the old time?

There shall be always the Church and the World
And the Heart of Man

Shivering and fluttering between them, choosing and
chosen.

Valiant, ignoble, dark and full of light
Swinging between Hell Gate and Heaven Gate.

PART I

48 THE ROCK

And the Gates of Hell shall not prevail.

Darkness now, then

Light.

Light.

END OF PART I

PART II

Chokus.

In the beginning God created the world. Waste and
void. Waste and void. And darkness was upon the
face of the deep.

And when there were men, in their various ways, they
struggled in torment towards God

Blindly and vainly, for man is a vain thing, and man
without God is a seed upon the wind: driven this
way and that, and finding no place of lodgement
and germination.

They followed the light and the shadow, and tlie Ught
led them forward to light and the shadow led them
to darkness.

Worshipping snakes or trees, worshipping devils rather
than nothing: crying for hfe beyond fife, for ecstasy
not of the flesh.

Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness on the
face of the deep.

And the Spirit moved upon the face of the water.

And men who turned towards the Ught and were known
of the Ught

Invented the Higher Religions; and the Higher ReUgions
were good

And led men from Ught to Ught, to knowledge of Good
and Evil.

But their Ught was ever surrounded and shot with dark-
ness

50 THE ROCK part ii

As the air of temperate seas is pierced by the still dead
breath of the Arctic Current;

And they came to an end, a dead end stirred with a
dicker of life,

And they came to the withered ancient look of a child
that has died of starvation.

Prayer wheels, worship of the dead, denial of this world,
affirmation of rites with forgotten meanings

In the restless wind-whipped sand, or the hills where
the wind will not let the snow rest.

Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness on the
face of the deep.

Then came, at a predetermined moment, a moment in
rime and of rime,

A moment not out of rime, but in rime, in what we call
history; transecting, bisecting the world of rime, a
moment in rime but not like a moment of rime,

A moment in rime but rime was made through that
moment: for without the meaning there is no rime,
and that moment of time gave the meaning.

Then it seemed as if men must proceed from Ught to
Hght, in the light of the Word,

Through the Passion and Sacrifice saved in spite of their
negative being;

Bestial as always before, carnal, self-seeking as always
before, selfish and purblind as ever before.

Yet always struggling, always reaffirming, always
resuming their march on the way that was Ht by the
light;

Often hairing, loitering, straying, delaying, returning,
yet following no other way.

But it seems that something has happened that has never
happened before: though we Imow not just when,
or why, or how, or where.

PART II THE ROCK 51

Men have left God not for other gods, they say, but for
no god; and this has never happened before

That men both deny gods and worship gods, professing
first Reason,

And then Money, and Power, and what they call Life,
or Race, or Dialectic.

The Church disowned, the tower overthrown, the bells
upturned, what have we to do

But stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards

In an age which advances progressively backwards?

Voice of the Unemployed [afar off].

In this land

There shall be one cigarette to two men,

To two women one half pint of bitter

Ale. . . .

Chorus.

What does the world say, does the whole world stray in
high-powered cars on a by-pass way?

Voice of the Unemployed [more faintly].

In this land

No man has hired us. .. .

Chorus.

Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness on the
face of the deep.

Has the Church failed mankind, or has mankind failed
the Church?

When the Church is no longer regarded, not even
opposed, and men have forgotten

All gods except Usury, Lust and Power.

Enter The Rock, with his cowl flung back.

THE ROCK

PART n

52

The Rock.

0 faint-hearted, and easily unsettled, and easily lost

In the blinding movement of time, sinking and borne
away;

Remember, all you who are numbered for God,

In every moment of time you hve where two worlds
cross,

In every moment you hve at a point of intersection.

Remember, Hving in time, you must live also now in
Eternity.

Chorus Leader.

Not for ourselves we mourn, O Rock, but for the xm-
bom.

We hear the wailing of souls that are not yet conceived,
of parents and grandparents still to be bom.

The Rock.

These also may lament the future, as you now lament.

But with them too shall I stand, with them in due season.

Chorus Leader.

But is there no hope for them, beyond what our eyes
have beheld;

The Rock.

1 have said, take no thought of the harvest, but only of

proper sowing.

Chorus Leader.

Your words are hard, O Rock, and of bitter consolation.

The Rock.

Did He promise the peace of this world to the children
of Ught?

PART II THE ROCK 53

But come, you must put your thoughts once more to
this season of sowing,

So with much pain shall you see Eternity crossing the
current of time.

I send you now one who accomphshed much, in a time
of drought and desolation:

Blomfield, Bishop of London,

Builder of many churches;

One who was usually right.

And never intimidated, never disheartened;

Displaying equal justice

In the time of the great-grandfathers

Of those who are here sitting silent;

Blomfield who built in a time which was no better time
than this.

The Rock is no longer seen, Blomheld enters, briskly.
Chorus Leader.

Blomfield, Bishop of London,

Do you bring us any encouragement?

Seeing that the times are evil.

Of many theories, and of evil practice.

When the great sit helpless in their seats.

And the humble stand helpless at comers.

Blomheld. I think that you are needlessly despondent
about the prospects of the Church in this time, and in this
diocese. When I came to London, I found a situation of
much smaller compass, it is true, but fully as unhopeful as
that of to-day.

Chorus Leader. Your words are hard to beUevc, though
we do not dispute you.

Blomheld. They are true. The upper classes were in-
different, and pagan in their behaviour; the middle classes
were complacent, and self-righteous in their behaviour;

54 THE ROCK part n

and the lower classes were destitute of the most rudimentary
Christian education. As for the clergy. . . .

Chorus Leader. Inform us, O Bishop.

Blomfield. Some I had occasion to reprimand — to put
the matter delicately — for laxity of manners and low
standards of austerity; others I had to reprimand for
preaching in conventicles.

Chorus Leader. But were not the people, both great and
small, more ready to hear the Word of God than now?
Did not the wealthy care more for the Faith, and did not
the learned preach only the truth dehvered to the saints and
deposited in the Church?

Blomheld. Indeed! there were powerful anti-Christian
influences in the highest places. There was a party in the
I country bent upon destroying its best and dearest institu-
/tions, constantly at work tmdermining the Church, and
through the Church attacking the Monarchy. People
active in educational reform were preaching something
they called neutrality in religionl nothing less than treason
:^ainst the truth! Monstrous.

Chorus Leader. But the poor, did they not still hold the
Faith?

Blomeeeld. As for that, I found extensive districts with
no churches to serve them; and when I set about to build
churches, what was I told? I was told that the new churches
were only half flUed! as if a church was run like a theatre!
People said that the spiritually destitute, for whom those
churches were built, refused to take advantage of them.
This accusation was by no means true; but even if it were,
what did men expect? In neighbourhoods where the people
have had almost no pastoral superintendence, or religious
instruction of any kind, and where their physical and social
condition is mostly on the same level as their spiritual,
would it not be miraculous if they did want churches?
I had to persuade doubters that our work in such

PART II THE ROCK 55

places, urban and suburban, must be missionary work.

Chorus Leader. And what instruction had the children?
Was there teaching, reUgious and secular?

Blomfield. I had to look to that too. In the places where
the people had so far lost the Faith as to be incapable of
teaching their children, I was careful to supply schools as
well as churches; and if we could not supply both, then the
school first and the church afterwards. My schools were
intended to train up a congregation for the church. Re-
member that I was in almost daily contact with masses of
my fellow creatures living without God in the world!

Chorus Leader. You speak to good purpose, O Father.
Yet now is much need, and little money. Not only for
armament, in ceaseless fear of wars; not only for secular
education. But also for worthier purposes; men say, they
must see that aU are fed and housed, and they say that there
is no money for building churches.

Blomheld. It was not easy in my time. It will not be
easy now. Yet I saw buil^ two hundred churches; and you
ask for less than a quarter of that number. All things that
are for good, work together. There is plenty of building
material, you may be sure. There must be many more
workmen, or men anxious for work, than there were in my
time, and men have mechanical devices to-day such as we
never dreamed of. Men must not prate of economic laws
which are half superstition, just as superstition is half fear.
Do they not understand that a few men of principle and
conviction can accomphsh what men without principle and
conviction deem impossible?

Chorus Leader. What example do you hold before us?

Blomheld. Remember the Crusades! both in their
glory and in their shame. Remember that the Crusades
were set in motion by a few such men, that they accom-
plished what they set out to do, to win the Sepulchre of
Our Lord and the Holy Places for Christendom; and

PART II

56 THE ROCK

remember that the results were botched by the ordinary
deadly sins of ordinary men like the mass of men hving
to-day. And so I leave you.

Exit

Chorus.

O Father, we welcome your words,

And we will take heart for the future.

Remembering the past.

The heathen are come into thine inheritance.

And thy temple have they defiled.

Who is this that cometh from Edom?

He has trodden the wine-press alone.

There came one who spoke of the shame of Jerusalem
And the holy places defiled;

Pdter the Hermit, scourging with words.

And among his hearers were a few good men.

Many who were evil.

And most who were neither.

Like all men in all places,

Some went from love of glory,

Some went who were restless and curious.

Some were rapacious and lustful.

Many left their bodies to the kites of Syria
Or sea-strewn along the routes;

Many left their souls in Syria,

Living on, sunken in moral corruption;

Many came back well broken.

Diseased and beggared, finding
A stranger at the door in possession:

PART II THE ROCK 57

Came home cracked by the sun of the East
And the seven deadly sins in Syria.

But our King did well at Acre.

And in spite of all the dishonour,

The broken standards, the broken lives.

The broken faith in one place or another.

There was something left that was more than the tales
Of old men on winter evenings.

Only the faith could have done what was good of it.
Whole faith of a few,

Part faith of many.

Not avarice, lechery, treachery.

Envy, sloth, gluttony, jealousy, pride:

It was not these that made the Crusades,

But these that unmade them.

Remember the faith that took men from home
At the call of a wandering preacher.

Our age is an age of moderate virtue
And of moderate vice
When men will not lay down the Cross
Because they will never assume it.

Yet nothing is impossible, nothing,

To men of faith and conviction.

Let us therefore make perfect our will.

O God, help us.

The curtains close. Enter in front of them a Young Man, of the
time of Richard Cceur de Lion, who is about to take the Cross.
He is followed by his sweetheart.

Young Woman. Ralph! Ralph! before it is too late,
before you take the Cross. O please consider again. There
are so many who want to go, so many with nothing to
keep them at home! Why should you, of all men, be
among the first to go?

58 THE ROCK part ii

Yotog Man. Because that is the greater honour. I have
told you, this is a Holy War. It is not like other wars.
Honour demands this sacrifice of us. The bishops have
appealed for men. And our King himself will be there.
And there is the Holy Sepulchre to be won. And all who
go are promised remission of their sins.

Young Woman. But, Ralph, you haven’t committed

any sins that matter And we were to have been married

so soon. Life was going to be so lovely, vmtil you went and
listened to that preacher. And how will your father man-
age without you? He is growing old, you know.

Young Man. He has other sons growing up, who will
soon be able to help him. I have given my word that I
would go. I have promised to take the Cross! You must
not midte me late.

Young Woman. But, Ralph, you may be gone a long
time. You are going a long long way. I shall be an old
woman by the time you get back.

Young Man. Nonsense, dearest. The war will be over
in six months!

Young Woman. Are you sure? How do you know
that?

YotWG Man. Everybody says so. It cannot last longer.
Our King is the greatest fighting-man in all Christendom.
And the infidel are cowardly folk who do not know how to
fight. And with all the Christian people, fighting side by
side like brothers in one common cause! It cannot last
longer.

Young Woman. Yes. ...

Young Man. Be brave, Ursula.

Young Woman. And what am I to think about, all the
time you are gone?. Six months is a very, very long time.

Young Man. Why, you must think of me, riding into
Damascus and Jerusalem, as I shall, in a coat of mail at the
head of my troop — for I shall be made a knight, surely, for

PART n THE ROCK 59

bravery on the field of battle — ^perhaps King Richard him-
self will knight me; and I shall be made a captain, and ride
at the head of my company — perhaps with me head of the
Saracen king on the point of my lance! You must think of
all that, Ursula.

YotJNG Woman. I had rather think of some other
things.

Young Man. And booty and spoils of the unbehevers,
silks and jewels, will fall into our hands!

Young Woman. Ralph, can you swear you will be
true to me all the time you are away? Six months is a long
long time.

Young Man. I shall be true to you, dearest. I could
never look at anyone else, and I shall think of you always.
But, Ursula. . . .

Young Woman. Yes, my love?

Young Man. Are you sure that you can wait for me?

Young Woman. Quite sure. Quite quite sure. O,
Ralph! promise me that you will come back safe and
whole!

Young Man. I shall come back to you.

Young Woman. But safe and whole?

Yoxjng Man. Safe and whole.

Young Woman. O God bless you, dear Ralph, I
mustn’t stop you. I have been selfish in wanting to keep
you, please God forgive me for it, I won’t try to hold you.
Good-bye, my dear, good-bye! I know it is God’s will that
you should go, so God will protect you. Good-bye!

Exit hurriedly.

YotJNG Man. Good-bye, dear Ursula.

Exit in the opposite direction very slowly.

Enter Elderly Merchant, his Wipe, his Son who is about to
take the Cross, and a Younger Daughter.

Elderly Merchant. The cause is a just and holy one, my

6o THE ROCK part n

boy. For my own sake, and for your mother’s, I would to
God you had not made this vow. But God forbid that we
should prevent you! And it comforts me much that you
will have with you our own King Richard, who is the
greatest fighting-man in Christendom. Though for my
part, I had rather see him here at home; in his absence I have
grave fears for the fumre of this kingdom, even graver than
I have for you, my son. For our king has been Httle enough
in his England; he hardly knows our northern speech; and
a king should be ever among his own people to comfort
them, for without him they perish.

Son. I shall pray for you all at home. Father; for I am
sure God will protect us, who have the Pope’s blessing upon
our venture. It is for you that I worry.

Wipe. O Harry, Harry, to-morrow night you will He
somewhere on the road to Dover, and I shall not smoothe
your bed for you!

Son. But the wars will soon be over. Mother, and back
I shall come, straight and strong, and take care of you and
Father in your old age, and dance at Edith’s wedding.

Wife. You are our only son, Harry.

Elderly Merchant. You may see much sin and evil in
the wars, Harry. But that you have ever been an honest
boy, with no inclination to bad company — ^had your
brother Uved, I had meant you for the priesthood, boy — I
had said you were too young. And I say this, Harry: I had
f^ rather you were slain in Syria than came back tainted
with any of the evil you will meet.

Wipe. O Edward, do not say that. You know our
Harry would not. ^

Son. If my life is spared to me. Father, you shall have
me back unsoiled. Ours is a high and holy cause, the hoUest
war, I think that ever was fought: I had rather give my life
than betray the Name I take.

Elderly Merchant. Well said, Harry, well said.

PART II THE ROCK 6i

Wife. Now, Harry, come back as early as you can,
because this is your last night with us; I have all your
clothes to make ready.

Son. Yes, Mother, as soon as the bishop has blessed us.
Wife. And, Harry, I have made you a knitted belt
against the cold, and some other httle things you may need.
Son. Against the cold, in Syria, Mother!

Wife. Ah, son, you may be cold enough one night,
lying out asleep beneath the stars.

Son. Oh, Mother, we must be more cheerful than that!
Well, Edith, what shall I bring you back from the Holy
Land? Some silks and jewels, such as the Eastern people
have in plenty?

_ Daughter. O ye$, Harry, I should love that!

Son. Or perhaps King Saladin’s head in a golden coffer?
Daughter. No, please, Harry, the silks and jewels.
Son. I will, I will. I’ll be home early, Mother.

Exeunt severally.

The curtains open. An altar is disclosed; the two young Men
before it, their friends and relations in the background. The
Bishop, with Attendants and Knights Templar, enters to
perform the ceremony of blessing those who wish to take the
Cross. The candidates come forward and kneel.
y. In nomine. . . .

I^. Amen.

y. Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.

R/. Qui fecit coelum et terram.

Biskov gives first line of'Vexilla Regis Prodeunt^': Choir and
later strings take this up. After first verse, Bishop says ''Pater
Noster^ secretly, ending aloud,
y. Et ne nos inducas in temptationem.

Rj. Sed libera nos a malo.
y. Domine, exaudi orationem meam.

PART II

62 THE ROCK

R/. Et clamor meus veniat ad te.
y. Dominus vobiscum.

R/. Et cum spiritu tuo.
y. Oremus:

Deus invictae potentiae, Deus majestatis immensa^, Deus
fidelium omnium peregrinantium auxilium, plena et per-
fecta consolatio, qui famulis tuis arma victricia tribuis,
quaesumus has cruces in tuo nomine formatas bene ^
dicere digneris, et venerandae Crucis vexillum sit ei, ei
robur invictissimum contra hostis tentamenta nequissimi,
sitque ei in vita salus, in via defensio, in domo protectio, et
ubiquc praesidium sempiternum, per Jesum Christum
Dominum Nostrum. . . .

The Bishop sprinkles two red linen crosses in the form of a Cross
with holy water, and fastens one on the breast of each Candidate,
saying:

Accipe signum crucis, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus
sancti, in figuram passionis, Crucis, et mortis Salvatoris
nostri Jesu Christi, et ad tui corporis et animae defensionem.
Amen. [So to each,]

Then he says:

Ut divinae bonitatis gratia post iter expletum salvus et
emendatus ad nos valeas remeare, per Jesum. . . .

All kneel
Pater noster. . . .

All join .

Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat.

R/. In aeternum et in sacculum saecuh.
y. Sanctus Deus, Sanctus fortis, Sanctus immor'Jalis.
I^. Miserere nobis, Domine, miserere nobis,
y. Respice, Domine, faciem Christi tui.

R/. Et exaudi preces servorum tuorum
y. Adjuva nos, Deus salutaris noster.

R/. Ut leberati serviamus tibi.

PART II THE ROCK 63

y. Alieva manus tuas super gentes alienas.

R/. Ut vidcant, ct agnoscant potentiam tuam.
y. Hostium nostrorum tolle superbiam.

R/. Et eorum contumaciam prosterne.
y. EfFunde iram tuam in gentes, quae te non noverunt.
R/. Et in rcgna quae nomcn tuum non invicaverunt.
y. Ecce, inimici tui, Domine, surrexerunt.

R/. Et qui oderunt te extulerunt caput,
y. Mitte, nobis, Domine, -auxilium de sancto.

R/. Et de Syon mere nos.

All stand.

y. Domine, exaudi precem meam.

R/. Et clamor incus vcniat ad te.
y. Dominus vobiscuni.

R/. Et cum spiritu tuo.

Orcmus:

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui pretioso sanguine
dilectissimi Filii tui Domini nostri Jesu Christi genus hu-
manum redimcre, ac in ejus humilitate jacentem mundum
crigcre dignatus cs, tribue quaesumus ut hie famulus tuus
per tc redemptus, qui adversus impias Tartarorum et Tur-
corum gentes ceterasque barbarorum nationes vivificae
Crucis inimicos pro tui nominis gloria arma suscepturus est
et pugnaturus, virtutis tui brachio sublevatus ad ecclesiam
tuam victricia signa reportent, per Jesum Christum Domin-
um nostrum. . . .

Bishop sprinkles the Candidate with holy water, and with his
hand makes over him the sign of the Cross, saying:

In hoc signo ^ vade, in hoc signo vince, in hoc signo
^ revertere.

He kisses the face of the Candidates, saying to each:

Pax tibi.

64 the rock part n

R/. Et cum spiritu tuo.

The Bystanders then kiss the Cross fixed on the breast of one
of the Candidates. All gradually go out, the lights fading as
they go. The Builders' Song is heard.

We have worked and have fought
For this London of oars;

Our lives have been bought
By Our Lord on the Cross;

We are those who pay rent
To the temporal powers;

Of our lives misspent
Our Lord bears the loss.

A Church for us all and work for us all and God’s
world for us all even unto tliis last.

With strength that was warmed
In verminous rooms,

With hands that were formed
In resentful wombs,

We will build the new towers
And fashion the shrine
In this London of ours
For the Bread and the Wine.

A Church for us all and work for us all and God’s
world for us all even unto this last.

As the song ends, the lights reveal the east end of tfie Church
nearly finished, with Ethelbert, Alfred and Edwin at work
on it.

Alfred. Well, it don’t seem ’ardly yesterday we was
thinkin’ we wouldn’t never get this job done. And that
old contractor ’e fair put the wind up me, ’e did. And now

PART II THE ROCK 65

look at us! Ain^t nothin’ ’e can grumble at ’ere, is there?

Edwin. Yes, it do a’most seem a miradg^s you might
say, the way things ’ave come right.

Ethelbert. Well, me lad, when a thing comes as near a
miracle as this, it’d be splittin’ ’airs to call it anythink else.

Edwin. You know, I ’alf believe there was meanin’ in
what that bloke said.

Alfred. What bloke?

Edwin. That nice old parson what said ’e was a monk
in the time o’ King ’Enerey. Blimey, when a bloke drops
round of a sudden and says ’e was a monk in the time o’
King ’Enerey, and spins a credible yarn about it too, that
ain’t what you’d call normal, is it?

Alfred. Yes, but what’s that you mean about ’is meanin’ ?

Edwtn. Well, if you recollect, the meanin’ of ’is meanin’
was this: ’e said, ’e and ’is mates was a-goin’ to work with
us. ^‘Visible and invisible,” that’s what ’e said. We only
saw ’em for a moment, to be sure, in some queer kind o’
ancient garb; but if you remember rightly it was from that
time things begun to come to rights.

Alfred. Yes, that’s all in order, Ted, but ’ow do you
explain it? I suppose it can’t ’ave been real. What if we all
’ad a dream together?

Ethelbert. Fred, I’m afraid you’ve; got that disease they
call the modern mind. Which is as much as to say, you’ll
take no end of trouble to explain away what any man in ’is
senses would just believe and take for granted. But don’t
let’s argue about it. We ’ad a lot o’ trouble, one way and
another, and we ain’t finished yet.

A Voice. Bert! Bert!

Ethelbert. What’s that? Lor-love-a-duck, it’s the
missus!

Enter Mrs. Ethelbert with marketing bag, hilariously.

Ethelbert. Why, ’ow on earth did you ’appen along?

PART II

66 THE ROCK

Mrs. Ethelbert. Oh, I just ambled in unconscious. But,
Bert, I near died o’ larfm’, I did, when I ’card you talkin’ to
that young man. That one as wanted you to leave off
buildm’ ’cause it was a church, and ’ad so much to say for
’isself. You didn’t ’alf tick ’im off! I thought ’e was goin’
to ’ave you once or twice, but I must say you was too artful
for ’im, Bert. I got to admit it, all the time. Proud o’ you
I was, Bert, and no mistake.

Ethelbert. Why, you don’t mean to tell me you was
there all the time, Ma?

Mrs. Ethelbert. Wasn’t I! I see that crowd, and I ’eard
the young man talkin’, and then I ’eard you answerin’ up
to ’im. So I says to myself, there’s old Dad playin’ the fool
again. I’d best hsten in. But I was proud o’ you, Bert, and
no mistake.

Ethelbert. Well, I’m bound to say I never seed you.

Mrs. Ethelbert. Oh, I knows ’ow to make myself in-
visible. Don’t I look it? There’s more I ’ears nor ever I
chatters about, Bert. But I’m forgettin’. What I come to
say is this. I thinks to myself, my Bert deserves somethink
for that, ’e do, so I ’ops ’ome, and I brought you along a
drop o’ satin. Four glasses and all [produces them] I ’avcn’t
forgotten ’em, and we’re goin’ to drink your ’ealth, Bert.

Alfred and Edwin. ’Ear! ’ear!

Mrs. Ethelbert [pouring, to Alfred]. You needn’t be
afraid o losin’ consciousness, young man, I put a drop o’
water to it, as much as I thought to be judicious. I’m
beginnin’ to rumble now, Bert, what comes o’ all that
readin’ you do at night. Well, ’ere’s your very good ’ealth.

Alfred and Edwin. To you, Bert! [etc.) For he's a
jolly . . ,

Ethelbert. 'Arf a mo’. Gents all and lady, if I may be
allowed to say, I maintain as this ’ere is too solemn a occa-
sion for drinkin’ the ’ealth of a mortal and perishable indi-
vidual like your ’umble, if you take my meanin’.

PART II THE ROCK 67

Mrs. Ethelbert. O, Bert, don’t you go talkin’ like that,
or you’ll make me cry.

Ethelbert. Cheer up, old dear, there ain’t no occasion
for tears. What I mean is, we’ve got a ’ealth to drink, my
old lady ’avin’ provided the wherewithal, as you might
say. Lady and gents, I give you the church we’re
bihldin’, may it last forever!

All. The church we’re buildin’, may it last forever!

Mrs. Ethelbert. Now, Bert, now all this ’ere pomp and
ceremony is over, I think it’s a proper occasion for you to
give us a song.

Alfred AND Edwin. That’s right, Bert! Give us a song!

Ethelbert. Lady and gents, I beg leave to state that my
voice ain’t what it used to be, what with bein’ out o’ prac-
tice, and the fog we’ve ’ad this winter, and one thing and
another. Whai would you like to ’ear me singe

Mrs. Ethelbert. Bert, you know! [Nudges him.]

Ethelbert. Oh, you mean that song you used to love to
’ear me sing when we was a-courtin’. [ 5 m^s] At Trinity
Church I met my doom. That the one you mean, Mothere

Mrs. Ethelbert. Bert, I’m ashamed o’ you. If you don’t
be’ave yourself I’ll give you a good slap on the face, I will.

Alfred and Edwin. ’Ear! ’ear!

Mrs. Ethelbert. Bert, anybody’d think you ’adn’t ’ad
no re’earsin’, they would. You ’aven’t ’ad a lapsis o’
memory, ’ave youe ’Ere’s ’undreds and ’undreds of people
all waitin’ to ’ear you sing that song what was wrote for
you special.

Ethelbert [with a start]. Oh, askin’ your pardon all.
’Ere goes.

Song

Ethelbert.

When I was a lad what ’ad almost no sense
Then a gentle flirtation was all my delight;

And Vd oj^ go seekin for ex-pe-ri-ence

68

PART n

THE ROCK

Along the New Cut of a Saturday night.

It ivas on a May evenin’ I’ll never forget

That I found the reward of my diligent search;

And I made a decision I never regret,

Which led to a weddin at Trinity Church,

Mrs. Ethelbert.

When I was a delicate slip of a maid
What could eat nothin’ more than a couple o’ chops,

Of a Saturday night I occas’nally strayed
Along the New Cut for to look at the shops.

Me ’avin’ no other design at the start.

You may well be surprised by the end of me search.

For a ’andsome young bricklayer captured me ’eart
And led me all blushin to Trinity Church.

Ethelbert.

Now ’ere is the moral with which this song ends,

So as not to leave nobody left in the lurch:

I am proud to beforeman o’ this group o’ friends.

What ’as ’ere been engaged in constructin’ this church.

Mrs. Ethelbert.

That statement’s significant, cornin’ from he
What ’as such reputation as no one can smirch;

To which I will add that I’m ’appy to be
The wife of the foreman what’s buildin this church.

Enter the Major, Millicent and Mrs. Poultridge.

Major. Well, here we are. That’s the new churcK, over
there.

Mrs. Poultrtoge. I’m afraid I left my glasses in the car.
What are those workmen about? They seeih to have been
singing] And I do believe they have agin bottle! Really, I
diink it’s disgraceful. Disgraceful, I call it.

PART n THE ROCK 69

Major. How do you know it’s a gin bottle, if you
haven’t got your glasses e

Mrs. Poultridgb. Well, one of those beverages. And I
believe — yes, it is — they’ve got a woman with them.

Major. I’m not surprised. That’s what comes of democ-
racy. Turn us all out of our j’obs, you women do. That’s
what causes unemployment: women taking men’s jobs
away. They Uve at home; so they can afford to work for
lower wages.

Milucent. Oh, I don’t think she’s working. See, she’s
saying good-bye to them.

Mrs. Ethelbert. Well, tar, tar, boys. Don’t forget
you’re goin’ to take me to the pictures to-night, Bert.

Ethelbert. That’s right, Mother.

Exit Mrs. Ethelbert.

Major. Well, anyway, we didn’t come here to supervise
the workmen, but to look at the church. They’ve got it
nearly finished. What do you think of it?

Mrs. Poultridge. Well, Major, I must say. If you call
this a church, I’m glad I don’t have to worship here, that’s
all I have to say.

Major. Why, what’s wrong with it? It looks a good
sound church, to me.

The Workmen go round to the other side of the apse and are seen
no more.

Mrs. Poultridge. Well, I may be old-fashioned, and
I’m not ashamed of it if I am; but these modernistic churches
seem to me to show a shocking lack of devoutness.

Major. What d’you mean by devoumess?

Mrs. PoulIpridge. Well, I mean what you feel when you
go into one of our dear old simple late Gothic churenes.
Even the ivy seems to make a difference; it seems to me that

70 THE ROCK part n

God made ivy to help us to pray. But of course you can’t >
expect to have ivy in town. I do believe that if the Church '
gives up Gothic, it may come to disestabhshment, or re-„
union, or nonconformity, or almost anything.

Milucent. I suppose you worship in a Gothic church?

Mrs. Poxn,TRiDGE. The purest Gothic. Our architect
chose the style of fourteen eighty-four.

Major. Why fourteen eighty-four?

Mrs. Poultridge. So that it should not be Tudor, of
course. And Lady Fasmess says that there isn’t one thing
among all our church furniture that is more than four or
five years out from that date.

Milucent. Have you got a vicar belonging to that
period too?

Mrs. Poultridge. Well, no, I must say that in some
ways the vicar is almost unpleasantly modern. Some of the
things he does are so modern as to make him seem almost
an anachronism in that perfect setting. But, Major, what are
they doing about the stained-glass windows?

Major. Stained-glass windows? I’m afraid there isn’t
money enough to think about stained glass yet. They’ll be
glad enough to have plain glass.

Mrs. Poultridge. Oh, dear! that is a pity. What’s a
church without stained glass? It’s hardly a church at all
until you get stained glass. So bleak. What is that lovely
line of Keats, dim religious light? Or is it George Herbert?

Milucent. I can’t feel as you do about stained glass, Mrs.
Poultridge. I beUeve that — especially in these times, when
we are all so poor — simplicity should be the keynote in
churchbuilding. That sounds like a quotation, doesn’t it?
But I don’t care if it is.

Mrs. Poultridge. Well, if you mean late Gothic sim-
plicity. . . .

Milucent. I don’t. I mean simplicity. WhatCranmer
and those other Oxford men went to the stake for. Excuse

PART n THE ROCK 71

my warmth, Mrs. Poultridge; but you know I was at Lady
Margaret.

Mrs. Poultridge. Oh, yes, dear, I was at Newnham,
hke Cranmer. But I do want to hear your views about
simphcity.

Major. What on earth are you two arguing about? I’m
not a University man, myself; I say you learn a lot more in
the Army.

Millicent. I should hke to explain what I mean, especi-
ally as you are interested in this church, Uncle John, and
can exert your influence when it comes to the decoration.
I don’t agree with Mrs. Poultridge. I don’t believe in all
this period decoration. I think there is far too much decor-
ation. I don’t beheve that our Enghsh rehgion needs to
depend upon Art. Rehgion is rehgion, and Art is Art;
and the people who want Art can go to exhibitions and
cocktail parties.

Major. I say, Milly, you’ve no need to go running
down cocktail parties.

Millicent. I beg your pardon, Uncle John, but this is a
subject I do feel strongly about. When I go into one of
these stuffy churches full of whamots and rows and rows of
painted plaster saints, I declare I want to knock the heads
off of ev^ry one of them.

Mrs. Poultridge. Really, Milhcent, you are an icono-
clast!

Milucent. You musm’t think I’m bigoted. I’m sure
nobody’s more broadminded than I am. In fact, if I wasn’t
so broadminded I wouldn’t feel so strongly.

Mrs. Poultridge. Well, of course, dear, very often
these decorations are cheaply made; and when they are not
in the proper period, I quite agree with you. But you must
admit that sometimes they are very tasteful.

Milucent. No, Mrs. Poultridge, that’s just the point. I
say these things are always in bad taste. It’s die vulgarity of

PART 11

72 THE ROCK

it all that I loathe so. All church decoration is vulgar. It’s
, not English. And it’s throwing away money that ought to
be spent on other things — ^libraries and hedth centres and
Wiilk for the children

Major. O, come now, Milly!

Milucent. I mean it, Uncle John. If you take money
from those things to decorate a church you’re worshipping
idols.

Major. Really, you talk hke Ohver Cromwell.

Mrs. Poultridge. Or Henry the Eighth

Sound of a Lutheran hymn. The lights change to an angry glow.
T/ie Workmen and Visitors have disappeared. On the hill is
a Preacher of Reformation times.

Preacher. Now first of all, brethren, as touching the
worship of images, which has long been a gross and Baby-
lonish superstition in this land. God hath said: “Thou shalt
not make to thyself any graven image.” Therefore look
you well to it, that no images abide in your churches,
neither let them be carried away by superstitious folk who
cling to them; but take them down, take them out your-
selves, and destroy them utterly, whether they be graven,
or molten, or painted or woven in silk; whether of gold or
silver or brass or stone or canvas or glass. Thus shdl they
not serve again as baits of the Devil; and the Temple of
God shall be purged.

Enter a crowd of 1640, bearing various “images”, etc., taken
from the churches and intended for destruction. Mourners ovefthe
desecration chant the “Reproaches” at the foot of the hill.

Preacher. Oh Londoij, London, repent, repent. Re-
pent, all ye unpreaching prelates, so troubled with lordly
ttving, so placed in palaces, couched in courts, ruffling' in
their rents, dancing in their dominions, burdened with

PART II THE ROCK 73

ambassages, pampering of their paunches; munching in
their mangers, and moiling in their gay manors and man-
sions. Repent, ye knavish monks, that entice the people
to make pilgrimage to your rich shrines where you do nod
and kneel and mumble to heathenish idols and cozen the
simple folk of plate and jewels and coin in return for
promises false and fair, indulgences and remission of sins.
It is a holy work, and approved of God, that the idolator
should be spoiled.

A Tudor crowd enter with gold and jewels from churches and
shrines; they exult over their booty. Enter a King’s Ofhcer.

King’s Oepicer. Oyez! oyez! oyez! Forasmuch as the
King’s Majesty hath need presently of a mass of money,
therefore Commissioners shall be addressed into all shires
of England to take into the King’s hands such church plate
as remaineth, to be employed unto His Highness’s use.

Accordingly, we the Servants of His Majesty’s Com-
missioners, do command you to surrender, as loyal subjects
of His Majesty Edward the Sixth, King of England,
Defender of the Faith, such plate, jewels and other furniture
as you have removed from churches in the purging of this
land from idolatry, to His Majesty’s Commissioners, to
be employed unto His Highness’s use.

Groans from the crowd. As the Ofhcer moves to collect the gold
and jewels, lights alter to show the Mourners again. Then the
Preacher is heard.

Preacher. Their stinted service is a Popish beadroU full
of vain repetitions as if seven paternosters did please the
Lord better than six; and as if the chattering of a parrot
were much more the better, because it is much more than
enough. Their tossing to and fro of psalms and sentences
is like tennis play whereto God is called a judge who c^
do best and be most gallant in his worship; as be

74 the rock part n

sol£i-ing, pricksong chauntdng, bussing and mumbling
very roundly, on divers hands. Thus they have a show of
religion, but indeed they turn it to gaming, and play mock-
hoUday with the worship of God.

The Crowd enter with altar-books; they deface and cut them,
and, bringing more fuel, make a bonfire. The Preacher again^
declaims, as the lights fade.

God will come, God will come, he will not tarry long
away. He will come upon such a day as we nothing look
for him, and at such hour as we know not. He will come
and cut us in pieces. He will reward us as He doth the hypo-
crites. He will set us where waihng shall be, my brethren;
where gnashing of teeth shall be, my brethren. And let here
be the end of our tragedy if you will. These be the dehcate
dishes prepared for the world’s well-beloved children.
These be the wafers and junkets provided for worldly pre-
lates, waihng and gnashing of teeth. Can there be any
mirth, where these two courses last all the feaste Here we
laugh, there we shall weep. Our teeth make merry here,
ever dashing in dehcates; there we shall be tom with teeth,
and do nothing but gnash and grind our own.

Chorus.

Son of Man, behold with thine eyes, and hear widi thine
ears

And set thine heart upon all that I show thee.

Who is this that has said: the House of God is a House of
Sorrow;

We must walk in black and go sadly, with longdrawn
faces.

We must go between empty walls, quavering lowly,
whispering feindy.

Among a few flickering scattered hghtse

PART 11 THE ROCK 75

They would put upon God their own sorrow, the grief
they should feel

For their sins and faults as they go about their daily
occasions.

Yet they walk in the street proudnecked, like thorough-
breds ready for races,

Adorning themselves, and busy in the market, the forum.
And all other secular meetings.

Thinking good of themselves, ready for any festivity.
Doing themselves very well.

Let us mourn in a private chamber, learning the way of
penitence.

And then let us learn the joyful communion of saints.

The soul of Man must quicken to creation.

Out of the formless stone, when the artist unites himself
with stone,

Spring always new forms of Ufe, from the soul of man
that is joined to the soul of stone;

Out of the meaningless practical shapes of all that is
hving or Hfeless

Joined with the artist’s eye, new hfe, new form, new
colour.

Out of the sea of sound the life of music.

Out of the slimy mud of words, out of the sleet and hail
of verbal imprecisions.

Approximate thoughts and feelings, words that have
taken the place of thoughts and feelings.

There spring the perfect order of speech, and the beauty
of incantation.

Lord, shall we not bring these gifts to Your service?
Shall we, not bring to Your service all our powers
For life, for dignity, grace and order.

And intellectud pleasurQf of the senses?

PART n

76 THE ROCK

The Lord who created must wish us to create

And employ our creation again in His service

Which is already His service in creating.

For Man is joined spirit and body.

And therefore must serve as spirit and body.

Visible and invisible, two worlds meet in Man;

Visible and invisible must meet in His Temple;

You must not deny the body.

Now you shall see the Temple completed:

After much striving, after many obstacles;

For the work of creation is never without travail;

The formed stone, the visible crucifix,

The dressed altar, the lifting Hght,

Light

Light

The visible reminder of Invisible Light.

Curtains open, disclosing the apse completed, and an altar stand-
ing on the top of the hill. Craftsmen are shown in rhythmical
movement: Painters frescoing the apse; Stone-carvers at work on
the crucifix and the front of the altar; Wood-carvers making
\;jcandlesticks and book-rest; Weavers and lacemaker producing
curtains and linen cloth; Metal workers beating out chalice and
paten; Illuminator decorating altar-book. When ready, all these
articles of furniture are put in their places.

Ethelbert, Alfred and Edwin have watched from a comer
with great interest. The two latter now come forward to look at
the craftsmens work.

Alfred. Well, it do seem queer not to be workin’ on this
old church any more. You can’t ’elp bein’ fond o’ the
place, after ’er givin’ us so much trouble and then co;g^*
all straight and right in the end. '

PART n THE ROCK 77

Edwin. Yes, it’s as if she was somethin’ what ’ad growed
under our ’ands, ain’t it? Like bringin’ up a baby in a
hincubator.

Alfred. Yes, and now she’s growed up and can stand
on ’er own, it makes you feel lonesome like, don’t it?

Ethelbert [who has contemplated the building in reverent
silence]. Aw ! . . . But what I’d Hke to see is more diamonds,
and rubies and emeralds, and drap’ries stiff with sohd gold;
because there ain’t anythink too good for this old church,
there ain’t, not to my way of dunkin’.

Alfred. But they ’ave made a neat job of it, I will say.

Edwin. Ah, they knowed we was watchin’ of ’em, and
would remark any piece of carelessness.

Alfred. Yes, it ain’t ’alf bad. [Pause]

Ethelbert. Well, boys, what do you say to a pint of
Oh Be Joyful?

Edwin. O.K., chief.

Ethelbert. Now, look ’ere, young fellow me lad, ain’t
I told you afore I won’t ’ave these foreign expressions used
in my ’earin’. Words like “O.K.” ain’t English; and what
ain’t EngUsh is vulgar.

Edwin. Sorry, boss.

Ethelbert. “Sorry, boss!” YoimgTed, everythinkyou
touch you lower. Don’t you go openin’ your mouth like
that in the Bunch o’ Grapes. Well, we’d best be movin’.
I’ve got a proper thirst, I ’ave. And the next time we’ll
meet ’ere will be when the Lord Bishop gives ’is blessin’.
We’ll all be there, won’t we?

Aured and Edwin. That’s right! That’s right!
Ethelbert. Right! Cornin’ along, then? v

Exeunt. Curtains dose.

THE ROCK

PART II

78

Chorus.

How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!

My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the
Lord;

My heart and my flesh cry out unto the hving God.

I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go
up into my bed;

I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine
eyehds;

Until I find out a place for the Lord;

A tabernacle for the Mighty One of Jacob.

We have wimessed the building of the House,

The weak foundations made strong, brick laid upon
brick;

While encompassed with enemies armed with the spears
of mistaken ideals;

Encompassed with enemies armed with the swords of
the will to power.

Encompassed by enemies armed with the deadly gas of
indifference.

We have seen the House adorned, made ready for prayer
and worship.

And now is the dedication, now shall the House

Be sanctified to the Lord.

But first you shall be reminded of other dedications

Out of the distant past of London, out of times Jess im:

So that you may remember

That the Temple is forever building, forever to be
destroyed, forever to be restored.

So that you may remember, seeing the past.

The dim waste plains of the future, where the Temple is
still to be built.

PART n THE ROCK 79

So that you may remember

The lives that await their time to be bom, to be dedicated
On the dim vast plain of the future, burning as lonely
hghts.

Chorus Leaders.

First you shall hear

Of the Abbey Church of St. Peter, the Abbey at West-
minster,

How it was dedicated

Not by the Bishop MelHtus, Bishop of London,
Because one had been there before him.

One came, not with crowds and processions
In view of the people, by day;

But came alone in the night.

Alone but for one of his trade:

A fisherman served by a fisherman,

St. Peter, and a Thames-side fisherman.

And thus the church received no usual dedication

Until it was wholly rebuilt

In the reign of Edward, King and Confessor;

Which also you shall be shown.

St. Peter (The Rock) and a Fisherman are seen returning
to the Thames shore.

Fisherman. Who are you. Father? who have consecrated
this church, as the Bishop was to have done to-morrow?
You’re one of the foreign clergy, I can see that. Father; but
who are you, if you pardon me asking? Was all this by the
Holy Pope’s orders. Father?

Peter. By the order of one who came before him, my
son. I am Peter, servant of God, once a fisherman like you.

Fisherman. O Lord, save me from dais miracle! [Cross-
ing liitnself and falling on his knees in terror] Oh, the blessed
Saint Peter himself! Am I to die at once, unshriven as I am,

8o THE ROCK part ii

I that have seen what mortal eyes should not see. O Blessed
St. Peter, make my sins to be forgiven, or I am a lost man.

Peter. Fear not, my son, but do that to which I now bid
you. When you have ferried me over, you shall see me no
more. But this is what you are to do. You are to return,
and cast your nets, and you shall have a great draught of
salmon. And this shall be for a sign of my coming. And of
these fish you shall choose the finest, and bear it to the
Abbot, and you shall tell him of all that you have seen and
heard this night. You shall tell him that his church has been
dedicated, and that this is not to be done again. Then will
he in and will see the holy water, the oil and the crosses, the
half-burnt candles, and the alphabets, Greek and Latin, upon
the wall. And you shall tell your brother fishermen, all
those that fish between Staines and Gravesend, of all these
things; and they are to bring every year, on the morning of
my dedication, an offering of salmon to the Abbey.

Fisherman. All this I will do. [Ki'ses and they go toward
the wherry.]

The lights become stronger as a procession is heard approaching.
The Archbishop, the Abbot of Westminster, the Queen
and their attendants are on their way to dedicate Edward the
Confessor s new Abbey Church of Westminster. A Fisherman
offers a salmon to the Abbot.

Chorus Leaders.

And now, centuries later,

In the prosperous City of London,

The sculhon becomes a master.

The master gathers wealth.

The rich man becomes the Lord Mayor,

And builds a church in the City.

One such, you shall now see.

There are, alas, many more,

Even in the City of London,

PART n THE ROCK 8i

Who have heard the name of Whittington,

Richard, familiarly mentioned.

Than have prayed in the church he built
So that men in the City might pray:

St. Michael Paternoster Royal.

You shall now sec Dick as you know him.

And then the dedication of his church.

Ballet: The legend of Dick Whittington and his Cat.

Procession to dedicate the Church of St. Michael, Paternoster
Royal, on its rebuilding by Sir Richard Whittington, Lord
Mayor of London.

Chorus Leaders.

Once more, centuries pass.

And my ears have heard in the distance
The wailing of plague-stricken London;

Parting of husbands and wives,

Of parents and children;

And the creaking of loaded carts
Which bear them to a common pit;

And over all, wandering preachers’

Voices in lunatic prophesy.

And now a great fire has ravaged the City;

And over the coals, as the phoenix.

The spirit of Christopher Wren
Exults in new life and creation.

The dome of St. Paul, which was formed in his mind.
Will at last arise to completion
Enthroned on the hill of King Sabert,

Set as a symbol for London,

Receiving its dedication

In the reign of the great Queen Anne. >

82 THE ROCK part ii

Wren, Pepys and Evelyn seated round a dining-table. Nuts
and wine.

Evelyn. I marvel, Dr. Wren, that with all the buildinff
you have set about, and with all the vaster designs which
no doubt are in your mind, you can bring yourself to talk
of lighter matters as we have been doing, and condescend
to gossip with lighter men than yourself. Were I a great
architect, and had I your opportunity, I do beheve I should
notice other men at such a time only in so far as they were
fit to advance my purposes: draughtsmen, masons, stone-
carvers, suchlike men I would tsike notice of, and others
ignore.

Wren. I never work of evenings. And, Mr. Evelyn,
there is another reason for frequent and regular relaxation.
The designs which haunt my imagination, when I think of
what might be done — ^in this city which Providence has
thought fit to visit with fire, and thus prepare for the
builder — of what might be done, I say: to build here by
Thames’ side the most beautiful city of ^ Europe, excelling
Vicenza or Rome itself; these inventions in my mind, I say,
which may never come to birth, threaten to devour the
womb that nourishes them. ’Tis so with all human imagin-
ings. The city of my phantasy will not be made real upon
earth, gentlemen. Squalor and filth, and houses expressive
of the desolate lives of their inhabitants — these will survive
me; and believe me, gentlemen, architectural monsters
will raise their horrid heads long after we are gone. Yes,
posterity will erect buildings representative of every archi-
tectural heresy, embodying every hideous dream that
violates the laws of my art. Against thoughts like t£iese.

4 Mr. Evelyn, which dog me like the Furies, I find that a
I glass of wine and a little gossip and scandal-bearing among
1 mends is a sovereign corrective.

Evelyn. Yet rumour says. Dr. Wren, that your plans
for St. Paul’s and the city exceed all expectation, and pre-

PART n THE ROCK 83

pare for a very paragon among minsters. I did myself make
some proposals to His Majesty, but yours had prevented
me.

Wren. They are not too bad, not too bad, Mr. Evelyn.
Yet even my plans for St. Paul’s are not the plans which I
wished to execute.

Enter Servant.

Servant. Sir, there is a person who asks to see you; he
says, upon urgent business.

Wren. Ah . . . tell him I’m designing St. Paul’s.

Servant. Very good, sir.

Exit.

Pepys. I walked to-day in the City, to wimess how the
demohdon of old St. Paul’s progressed. Strange, how the
sight of stones falling from the top of the steeple do make
me seasick; but no hurt, I hear, has yet happened.

Wren. No, Mr. Pepys, no hurt has yet happened; and
in that work too I take some pride. It is true that no hfe has
been lost, and no workmen injured. Perhaps it will be said
of me in rimes to come, that as I was the first man of
modem times who would have planned and built a whole
city — ^for there were such in antiquity — so I was the first to
study and apply the science of removing what should not
remain. Would that I might destroy more and build more !
Another glass of wine, Mr. Evelyn? Mr. Pepys, another
glass of wine: let it inspire you to tell us more of affairs at
me Navy Office. . . .

Lights fade. Procession of thanksgiving to St. Paul's with
Queen Anne. Then the curtains open and the Chorus ascend
and surround the altar, now furnished and lighted.

Chorus.

You have seen the house built, you have seen it adorned

By one who came in the night, it is now dedicated to
Gop.

84 THE ROCK part n

It is now a visible church, one more Hght set on a hill
In a world confused and dark and disturbed by portents
of fear.

And what shall we say of the future? Is one church all
we can build?

Or shall the Visible Church go on to conquer the World?

The great snake Hes ever half awake, at the bottom of the
pit of the world, curled

In folds of himself until he awakens in hunger and
moving his head to right and to left prepares for his
hour to devour.

But the Mystery of Iniquity is a pit too deep for mortal
eyes to plumb. Come

Ye out from among those who prize the serpent’s golden
eyes.

The worshippers, self-given sacrifice of the snake. Take
Your way and be ye separate.

Be not too curious of Good and Evil;

Seek not to count the future waves of Time;

But be ye satisfied that you have hght
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

O Light Invisible, we praise Thee!

Too bright for mortal vision.

O Greater Light, we praise Thee for the less;

The eastern hght our spires touch at morning.

The hght that slants upon our western doors at evening,
The twiheht over stagnant pools at batflight,

Moon hght and star hght, owl and moth hght.
Glow-worm glowhght on a grassbladd
O Light Invisible, we worship Thee!

Wc thank Thee for the hghts that we have kindled,

The hght of altar and of sanctuary;

PART n THE ROCK 85

Small lights of those who meditate at midnight

And hghts directed through the coloured panes of
windows

And hght reflected from the poUshed stone,

The gilded carven wood, the coloured fresco.

Our gaze is submarine, our eyes look upward

And see the light that fractures through unquiet water.

We see the hght but see not whence it comes.

O Light Invisible, we glorify Thee !

In our rhythm of earthly Ufe we tire of Hght. We are
glad when the day ends, when the play ends; and
ecstasy is too much pain.

We are children quickly tired: children who are up in
the night and fall asleep as the rocket is fired; and
the day is long for work or play.

We tire of distraction or concentration, we sleep and are
glad to sleep.

Controlled by the rhythm of blood and the day and the
night and the seasons.

And we must extinguish the candle, put out the hght
and relight it;

Forever must quench, forever relight the flame.

Therefore we thank Thee for our httle hght, that is
dappled with shadow.

We thank Thee who hast moved us to building, to
finding, to forming at the ends of our fingers and
beams of our eyes.

And when we have built an altar to the Invisible Light,
we may set thereon the httle hghts for which our
bodily vision is made.

And we thank Thee that darkness reminds us of hght.

O Light Invisible, we give Thee thanks for Thy great
glory!

86

PART n

THE ROCK

The Rock, now St. Peter
You speak of your church. You have spoken well.

But we who behold the glory of the Lord

With the face unveiled, we are transformed, made new

Into the same image from glory to glory,

As it were, to the Spirit of the Lord.

And where we dwell, there is no Temple. For the Lord
God the Almighty, and the Lamb,

They are the Temple. And the lamp thereof is the Lamb
And there with us is night no more, but only

Light

Light

Light of the Light.

The Rock reveals the Bishop who gives the

BENEDICTION

All stand for this, and then sing together.

Ill done and undone,

London so fair
We will build London
Bright in dark air.

With new bricks and mortar
Beside the Thames bord
Queen of Island and Water,

A House of Our Lord.

A Church for us all and work for us all and God’s
world for us all even unto this last.

THE END