The Iron Heel

by Jack London

  CHAPTER VII

  THE BISHOP'S VISION

  "The Bishop is out of hand," Ernest wrote me. "He is clear up in theair. Tonight he is going to begin putting to rights this very miserableworld of ours. He is going to deliver his message. He has told me so,and I cannot dissuade him. To-night he is chairman of the I.P.H.,* andhe will embody his message in his introductory remarks.

  * There is no clew to the name of the organization for which these initials stand.

  "May I bring you to hear him? Of course, he is foredoomed to futility.It will break your heart--it will break his; but for you it will be anexcellent object lesson. You know, dear heart, how proud I am becauseyou love me. And because of that I want you to know my fullest value, Iwant to redeem, in your eyes, some small measure of my unworthiness.And so it is that my pride desires that you shall know my thinking iscorrect and right. My views are harsh; the futility of so noble a soulas the Bishop will show you the compulsion for such harshness. So cometo-night. Sad though this night's happening will be, I feel that it willbut draw you more closely to me."

  The I.P.H. held its convention that night in San Francisco.* Thisconvention had been called to consider public immorality and the remedyfor it. Bishop Morehouse presided. He was very nervous as he sat on theplatform, and I could see the high tension he was under. By his sidewere Bishop Dickinson; H. H. Jones, the head of the ethical departmentin the University of California; Mrs. W. W. Hurd, the great charityorganizer; Philip Ward, the equally great philanthropist; and severallesser luminaries in the field of morality and charity. Bishop Morehousearose and abruptly began:

  * It took but a few minutes to cross by ferry from Berkeley to San Francisco. These, and the other bay cities, practically composed one community.

  "I was in my brougham, driving through the streets. It was night-time.Now and then I looked through the carriage windows, and suddenly my eyesseemed to be opened, and I saw things as they really are. At first Icovered my eyes with my hands to shut out the awful sight, and then, inthe darkness, the question came to me: What is to be done? What is to bedone? A little later the question came to me in another way: What wouldthe Master do? And with the question a great light seemed to fillthe place, and I saw my duty sun-clear, as Saul saw his on the way toDamascus.

  "I stopped the carriage, got out, and, after a few minutes'conversation, persuaded two of the public women to get into the broughamwith me. If Jesus was right, then these two unfortunates were mysisters, and the only hope of their purification was in my affection andtenderness.

  "I live in one of the loveliest localities of San Francisco. The housein which I live cost a hundred thousand dollars, and its furnishings,books, and works of art cost as much more. The house is a mansion.No, it is a palace, wherein there are many servants. I never knew whatpalaces were good for. I had thought they were to live in. But now Iknow. I took the two women of the street to my palace, and they aregoing to stay with me. I hope to fill every room in my palace with suchsisters as they."

  The audience had been growing more and more restless and unsettled, andthe faces of those that sat on the platform had been betraying greaterand greater dismay and consternation. And at this point Bishop Dickinsonarose, and with an expression of disgust on his face, fled from theplatform and the hall. But Bishop Morehouse, oblivious to all, his eyesfilled with his vision, continued:

  "Oh, sisters and brothers, in this act of mine I find the solution ofall my difficulties. I didn't know what broughams were made for, but nowI know. They are made to carry the weak, the sick, and the aged; theyare made to show honor to those who have lost the sense even of shame.

  "I did not know what palaces were made for, but now I have found a usefor them. The palaces of the Church should be hospitals and nurseriesfor those who have fallen by the wayside and are perishing."

  He made a long pause, plainly overcome by the thought that was in him,and nervous how best to express it.

  "I am not fit, dear brethren, to tell you anything about morality. Ihave lived in shame and hypocrisies too long to be able to help others;but my action with those women, sisters of mine, shows me that thebetter way is easy to find. To those who believe in Jesus and his gospelthere can be no other relation between man and man than the relationof affection. Love alone is stronger than sin--stronger than death. Itherefore say to the rich among you that it is their duty to do what Ihave done and am doing. Let each one of you who is prosperous take intohis house some thief and treat him as his brother, some unfortunate andtreat her as his sister, and San Francisco will need no police forceand no magistrates; the prisons will be turned into hospitals, and thecriminal will disappear with his crime.

  "We must give ourselves and not our money alone. We must do as Christdid; that is the message of the Church today. We have wandered far fromthe Master's teaching. We are consumed in our own flesh-pots. We haveput mammon in the place of Christ. I have here a poem that tells thewhole story. I should like to read it to you. It was written by anerring soul who yet saw clearly.* It must not be mistaken for an attackupon the Catholic Church. It is an attack upon all churches, upon thepomp and splendor of all churches that have wandered from the Master'spath and hedged themselves in from his lambs. Here it is:

  "The silver trumpets rang across the Dome; The people knelt upon the ground with awe; And borne upon the necks of men I saw, Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.

  "Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam, And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red, Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head; In splendor and in light the Pope passed home.

  "My heart stole back across wide wastes of years To One who wandered by a lonely sea; And sought in vain for any place of rest: 'Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest, I, only I, must wander wearily, And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with tears.'"

  * Oscar Wilde, one of the lords of language of the nineteenth century of the Christian Era.

  The audience was agitated, but unresponsive. Yet Bishop Morehouse wasnot aware of it. He held steadily on his way.

  "And so I say to the rich among you, and to all the rich, that bitterlyyou oppress the Master's lambs. You have hardened your hearts. You haveclosed your ears to the voices that are crying in the land--the voicesof pain and sorrow that you will not hear but that some day will beheard. And so I say--"

  But at this point H. H. Jones and Philip Ward, who had already risenfrom their chairs, led the Bishop off the platform, while the audiencesat breathless and shocked.

  Ernest laughed harshly and savagely when he had gained the street. Hislaughter jarred upon me. My heart seemed ready to burst with suppressedtears.

  "He has delivered his message," Ernest cried. "The manhood and thedeep-hidden, tender nature of their Bishop burst out, and his Christianaudience, that loved him, concluded that he was crazy! Did you see themleading him so solicitously from the platform? There must have beenlaughter in hell at the spectacle."

  "Nevertheless, it will make a great impression, what the Bishop did andsaid to-night," I said.

  "Think so?" Ernest queried mockingly.

  "It will make a sensation," I asserted. "Didn't you see the reportersscribbling like mad while he was speaking?"

  "Not a line of which will appear in to-morrow's papers."

  "I can't believe it," I cried.

  "Just wait and see," was the answer. "Not a line, not a thought that heuttered. The daily press? The daily suppressage!"

  "But the reporters," I objected. "I saw them."

  "Not a word that he uttered will see print. You have forgotten theeditors. They draw their salaries for the policy they maintain. Theirpolicy is to print nothing that is a vital menace to the established.The Bishop's utterance was a violent assault upon the establishedmorality. It was heresy. They led him from the platform to prevent himfrom uttering more heresy. The newspapers will purge his heresy in th
eoblivion of silence. The press of the United States? It is a parasiticgrowth that battens on the capitalist class. Its function is to servethe established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it.

  "Let me prophesy. To-morrow's papers will merely mention that the Bishopis in poor health, that he has been working too hard, and that he brokedown last night. The next mention, some days hence, will be to theeffect that he is suffering from nervous prostration and has been givena vacation by his grateful flock. After that, one of two things willhappen: either the Bishop will see the error of his way and return fromhis vacation a well man in whose eyes there are no more visions, or elsehe will persist in his madness, and then you may expect to see in thepapers, couched pathetically and tenderly, the announcement of hisinsanity. After that he will be left to gibber his visions to paddedwalls."

  "Now there you go too far!" I cried out.

  "In the eyes of society it will truly be insanity," he replied. "Whathonest man, who is not insane, would take lost women and thieves intohis house to dwell with him sisterly and brotherly? True, Christ diedbetween two thieves, but that is another story. Insanity? The mentalprocesses of the man with whom one disagrees, are always wrong.Therefore the mind of the man is wrong. Where is the line betweenwrong mind and insane mind? It is inconceivable that any sane man canradically disagree with one's most sane conclusions.

  "There is a good example of it in this evening's paper. Mary McKennalives south of Market Street. She is a poor but honest woman. She isalso patriotic. But she has erroneous ideas concerning the American flagand the protection it is supposed to symbolize. And here's what happenedto her. Her husband had an accident and was laid up in hospital threemonths. In spite of taking in washing, she got behind in her rent.Yesterday they evicted her. But first, she hoisted an American flag, andfrom under its folds she announced that by virtue of its protection theycould not turn her out on to the cold street. What was done? She wasarrested and arraigned for insanity. To-day she was examined by theregular insanity experts. She was found insane. She was consigned to theNapa Asylum."

  "But that is far-fetched," I objected. "Suppose I should disagree witheverybody about the literary style of a book. They wouldn't send me toan asylum for that."

  "Very true," he replied. "But such divergence of opinion wouldconstitute no menace to society. Therein lies the difference. Thedivergence of opinion on the parts of Mary McKenna and the Bishop domenace society. What if all the poor people should refuse to pay rentand shelter themselves under the American flag? Landlordism would gocrumbling. The Bishop's views are just as perilous to society. Ergo, tothe asylum with him."

  But still I refused to believe.

  "Wait and see," Ernest said, and I waited.

  Next morning I sent out for all the papers. So far Ernest was right. Nota word that Bishop Morehouse had uttered was in print. Mention was madein one or two of the papers that he had been overcome by his feelings.Yet the platitudes of the speakers that followed him were reported atlength.

  Several days later the brief announcement was made that he had gone awayon a vacation to recover from the effects of overwork. So far so good,but there had been no hint of insanity, nor even of nervous collapse.Little did I dream the terrible road the Bishop was destined totravel--the Gethsemane and crucifixion that Ernest had pondered about.