d up, common, I
suppose, to all such cases, in which was, among other things, an inquiry
about what was his religion. With an equal and ceremonial gravity the
man wrote down the word "Methuselahite." Whoever looks over such papers
must, I should imagine, have seen some rum religions in his time; unless
the Army is going to the dogs. But with all his specialist knowledge he
could not "place" Methuselahism among what Bossuet called the variations
of Protestantism. He felt a fervid curiosity about the tenets and
tendencies of the sect; and he asked the soldier what it meant. The
soldier replied that it was his religion "to live as long as he could."

Now, considered as an incident in the religious history of Europe, that
answer of that soldier was worth more than a hundred cartloads of
quarterly and monthly and weekly and daily papers discussing religious
problems and religious books. Every day the daily paper reviews some new
philosopher who has some new religion; and there is not in the whole two
thousand words of the whole two columns one word as witty as or wise as
that word "Methuselahite." The whole meaning of literature is simply to
cut a long story short; that is why our modern books of philosophy are
never literature. That soldier had in him the very soul of literature;
he was one of the great phrase-makers of modern thought, like Victor
Hugo or Disraeli. He found one word that defines the paganism of to-day.

Henceforward, when the modern philosophers come to me with their new
religions (and there is always a kind of queue of them waiting all the
way down the street) I shall anticipate their circumlocutions and be
able to cut them short with a single inspired word. One of them will
begin, "The New Religion, which is based upon that Primordial Energy in
Nature...." "Methuselahite," I shall say sharply; "good morning." "Human
Life," another will say, "Human Life, the only ultimate sanctity, freed
from creed and dogma...." "Methuselahite!" I shall yell. "Out you go!"
"My religion is the Religion of Joy," a third will explain (a bald old
man with a cough and tinted glasses), "the Religion of Physical Pride
and Rapture, and my...." "Methuselahite!" I shall cry again, and I shall
slap him boisterously on the back, and he will fall down. Then a pale
young poet with serpentine hair will come and say to me (as one did only
the other day): "Moods and impressions are the only realities, and these
are constantly and wholly c