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Babberly's next statement was that he defied the present Government to drive us out of the British Empire, which we had taken a great deal of trouble in times past to build up. This was, of course, a perfectly safe defiance to utter; for no one that I ever heard of had proposed to drive Babberly, or me, or Moyne out of the Empire. Then we got to the core of Babberly's speech.
After all, a high ecclesiastic cannot sit still and listen to profane condemnation of one of the Psalms of David, even if it has undergone versification at the hands of Dr. Watts. The conduct of McNeice and Malcolmson was offensive and provocative. The noise made by the crowd was maddening. There is every excuse for Babberly's sudden loss of temper. But the Dean's anger was more than excusable.
Any attempt to hold the meeting can only result in bloodshed, deplorable bloodshed, the lives of men and women, innocent women sacrificed." "The strength of Babberly's position," I said, "is that he doesn't think bloodshed deplorable." "But he does. He told me so in London. He repeated the same thing this morning."
It was, as I might have guessed, the tune to which "O God, our help in ages past" is sung in Ireland. The hymn, since Babberly's first demonstration in Belfast, had become a kind of battle song. It is, I think, characteristic of the Irish Protestants that they should have a tune of their own for this hymn.
I could easily imagine that the news of Babberly's exertions, dribbling in during the day to the offices of harassed Ministers, might have reinforced with grave political considerations the hysterical humanitarian telegrams which Clithering was shooting off from the seat of war. A Tory Government might survive a little bloodshed.
Babberly's position is, of course, vastly more important than mine. Moyne, goaded on I suppose by Lady Moyne, wrote a letter to the papers perhaps I should say published a manifesto urging the extreme importance of Babberly's demonstration. This was necessary because McNeice and O'Donovan, in The Loyalist, had lately adopted a sneering tone about demonstrations.
It was on sale everywhere in the north of Ireland, and it was delivered with striking regularity in out of the way places in which it was almost impossible to get any other daily paper. It continued to press upon its readers the necessity of attending Babberly's demonstration in Belfast. It said, several times over, that the demonstration was to be one of armed men.
I did not notice it, and probably should never have found it out if I had not tried afterwards to write down what he said. After Babberly came the Dean. I suffer a great deal from the Dean's sermons on Sundays; but I thoroughly enjoyed his speech. He is not Babberly's rival in eloquence; but he has a knack of saying the kind of things which people listen to.
I wanted Crossan to realize how fully I entered into his feelings, so I quoted a phrase from one of Babberly's speeches. "In this supreme crisis of our country's destiny," I said, "it is the duty of every man to do his uttermost to avert the threatened ruin of our common Protestantism." That ought to have pacified Crossan even if it did not rouse him to enthusiasm.
This time I was to sit on the platform side by side with Malcolmson and Cahoon, because, being a Liberal, or rather suspected of being inclined to Liberalism, my presence might induce the other Liberals, who were Liberals indeed, not to take Babberly's remarks at their face value. That is the drawback to the kind of detached position which I occupy.
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