THE HIGHER UNITY

G.K. Chesterton


The Rev. Isaiah Bunter has disappeared into the interior of the Solomon Islands, and it is feared that he may have been devoured by the natives, as there has been a considerable revival of religious customs among the Polynesians.--A real paragraph from a real Paper; only the names altered.

It was Isaiah Bunter
Who sailed to the world's end,
And spread religion in a way
That he did not intend.

He gave, if not the gospel-feast,
At least a ritual meal;
And in a highly painful sense
He was devoured with zeal.

And who are we (as Henson says)
That we should close the door?
And should not Evangelicals
All jump at shedding Gore?

And many a man will melt in man,
Becoming one, not two,
When smacks across the startled earth
The Kiss of Kikuyu.

When Man is the Turk, and the Atheist,
Essene, Erastian[,] Whig,
And the Thug and the Druse and the Catholic
And the crew of the Captain's gig.
                (G. K. Chesterton - 1914)

[The reference to "the crew of the Captain's gig" is from the poem The Yarn of the Nancy Bell by Gilbert.]



[home] Up to G.K.Chesterton's Works on the Web.
Last modified: 18th December, 1999
Martin Ward, De Montfort University, Leicester.
Email: martin@gkc.org.uk