Bernard Shaw's Remarkable Religion: A Faith That Fits the Facts

132 Bernard Shaw’s Remarkable Religion
than in the relationship of the father, his daughter, and her suitor. All three
are more than we might expect them to be, both in themselves and in their
relations to the other two. Undershaft is the most obviously inscrutable.
He is discussed as if he were a towering monster of evil; his first entrance
reveals him as kindly, considerate, thoughtful, and somewhat embarrassed
by being surrounded by a family he does not know. Money was the sole
item on this meeting’s agenda, but that is evaded—by the person who
called the meeting—and the conversation is turned to religion—by Undershaft.
He begins to question Barbara about the Salvation Army, and
when his wife attempts to change this (to her) unpleasant subject by asking
that Charles play something on his concertina “at once,” he stops them
by saying: “One moment, Mr Lomax. I am rather interested in the Salvation
Army. Its motto might be my own: Blood and Fire” (3:88).
The reactions to this announcement are characteristic: Lomax is
shocked, but Barbara, with perfect calm and unperturbed good nature, invites
her father to come down to the shelter and “see what we’re doing.”
She even has the audacity to ask the millionaire profiteer in mutilation and
murder, the man who has all of Europe under his thumb, if he can play
anything in their planned march. To Lomax’s unspeakable amazement, he
accepts as naturally and calmly as Barbara had asked. Father and daughter
hit it off splendidly, and their common ground is religion. The opposition,
for the moment, is represented by Lomax, who takes up the cause of moral
purity championed earlier by Stephen and his mother. He succeeds in
making the contradictions in that position even more obvious than had
Lady Brit: “The cannon business may be necessary and all that: we cant get
on without cannons; but it isnt right, you know.” Lest anyone miss the
point, Undershaft explains that he is not “one of those men who keep their
morals and their business in watertight compartments.” He is speaking for
himself, as a munitions manufacturer, but his observation is valid for anyone
who, like Lomax, regards the cannon business as necessary. This, as we
shall see, includes just about everyone—and especially anyone who wishes
to make the world a better place rather than just to deplore its wickedness.
Father is more firmly drawn to daughter in the exchange that follows
his observation that there “is only one true morality for every man; but
every man has not the same true morality.” Stephen’s contemptuous dismissal,
that “some men are honest and some are scoundrels,” is met by
Barbara’s “Bosh! There are no scoundrels.” Immediately interested, Undershaft
asks if there are any good men. When she assures him that there
are neither good men nor scoundrels, he offers his challenge: “May I ask