{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1269/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1269","id":"gutenberg_1269","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1269","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Novels","Didactic fiction","Religion -- Fiction"],"text":"THE SOUL OF A BISHOP\n\nBy H. G. Wells\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n     CHAPTER THE FIRST   -  THE DREAM\n     CHAPTER THE SECOND  -  THE WEAR AND TEAR OF EPISCOPACY\n     CHAPTER THE THIRD   -  INSOMNIA\n     CHAPTER THE FOURTH  -  THE SYMPATHY OF LADY SUNDERBUND\n     CHAPTER THE FIFTH   -  THE FIRST VISION\n     CHAPTER THE SIXTH   -  EXEGETICAL\n     CHAPTER THE SEVENTH -  THE SECOND VISION\n     CHAPTER THE EIGHTH  -  THE NEW WORLD\n     CHAPTER THE NINTH   -  THE THIRD VISION\n\n\n\u201cMan's true Environment is God\u201d\n\nJ. H. OLDHAM in \u201cThe Christian Gospel\u201d (Tract of the N. M. R. and H.)\n\n\n\n\nTHE SOUL OF A BISHOP\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FIRST - THE DREAM\n\n(1)\n\n\nIT was a scene of bitter disputation. A hawk-nosed young man with a\npointing finger was prominent. His face worked violently, his lips moved\nvery rapidly, but what he said was inaudible.\n\nBehind him the little rufous man with the big eyes twitched at his robe\nand offered suggestions.\n\nAnd behind these two clustered a great multitude of heated, excited,\nswarthy faces....\n\nThe emperor sat on his golden throne in the midst of the gathering,\ncommanding silence by gestures, speaking inaudibly to them in a tongue\nthe majority did not use, and then prevailing. They ceased their\ninterruptions, and the old man, Arius, took up the debate. For a time\nall those impassioned faces were intent upon him; they listened as\nthough they sought occasion, and suddenly as if by a preconcerted\narrangement they were all thrusting their fingers into their ears and\nknitting their brows in assumed horror; some were crying aloud and\nmaking as if to fly. Some indeed tucked up their garments and fled. They\nspread out into a pattern. They were like the little monks who run from\nSt. Jerome's lion in the picture by Carpaccio. Then one zealot rushed\nforward and smote the old man heavily upon the mouth....\n\nThe hall seemed to grow vaster and vaster, the disputing, infuriated\nfigures multiplied to an innumerable assembly, they drove about like\nsnowflakes in a gale, they whirled in argumentative couples, they spun\nin eddies of contradiction, they made extraordinary patterns, and then\namidst the cloudy darkness of the unfathomable dome above them there\nappeared and increased a radiant triangle in which shone an eye. The eye\nand the triangle filled the heavens, sent out flickering rays, glowed\nto a blinding incandescence, seemed to be speaking words of thunder\nthat were nevertheless inaudible. It was as if that thunder filled the\nheavens, it was as if it were nothing but the beating artery in the\nsleeper's ear. The attention strained to hear and comprehend, and on the\nvery verge of comprehension snapped like a fiddle-string.\n\n\u201cNicoea!\u201d\n\nThe word remained like a little ash after a flare.\n\nThe sleeper had awakened and lay very still, oppressed by a sense of\nintellectual effort that had survived the dream in which it had arisen.\nWas it so that things had happened? The slumber-shadowed mind, moving\nobscurely, could not determine whether it was so or not. Had they indeed\nbehaved in this manner when the great mystery was established? Who\nsaid they stopped their ears with their fingers and fled, shouting with\nhorror? Shouting? Was it Eusebius or Athanasius? Or Sozomen.... Some\nletter or apology by Athanasius?... And surely it was impossible that\nthe Trinity could have appeared visibly as a triangle and an eye. Above\nsuch an assembly.\n\nThat was mere dreaming, of course. Was it dreaming after Raphael? After\nRaphael? The drowsy mind wandered into a side issue. Was the picture\nthat had suggested this dream the one in the Vatican where all the\nFathers of the Church are shown disputing together? But there surely God\nand the Son themselves were painted with a symbol--some symbol--also?\nBut was that disputation about the Trinity at all? Wasn't it rather\nabout a chalice and a dove? Of course it was a chalice and a dove! Then\nwhere did one see the triangle and the eye? And men disputing? Some such\npicture there was....\n\nWhat a lot of disputing there had been! What endless disputing! Which\nhad gone on. Until last night. When this very disagreeable young man\nwith the hawk nose and the pointing finger had tackled one when one was\nsorely fagged, and disputed; disputed. Rebuked and disputed. \u201cAnswer me\nthis,\u201d he had said.... And still one's poor brains disputed and would\nnot rest.... About the Trinity....\n\nThe brain upon the pillow was now wearily awake. It was at once\nhopelessly awake and active and hopelessly unprogressive. It was like\nsome floating stick that had got caught in an eddy in a river, going\nround and round and round. And round. Eternally--eternally--eternally\nbegotten.\n\n\u201cBut what possible meaning do you attach then to such a phrase as\neternally begotten?\u201d\n\nThe brain upon the pillow stared hopelessly at this question, without an\nanswer, without an escape. The three repetitions spun round and round,\nbecame a swiftly revolving triangle, like some electric sign that\nhad got beyond control, in the midst of which stared an unwinking and\nresentful eye.\n\n(2)\n\n\nEvery one knows that expedient of the sleepless, the counting of sheep.\n\nYou lie quite still, you breathe regularly, you imagine sheep jumping\nover a gate, one after another, you count them quietly and slowly until\nyou count yourself off through a fading string of phantom numbers to\nnumber Nod....\n\nBut sheep, alas! suggest an episcopal crook.\n\nAnd presently a black sheep had got into the succession and was\nstruggling violently with the crook about its leg, a hawk-nosed black\nsheep full of reproof, with disordered hair and a pointing finger. A\nyoung man with a most disagreeable voice.\n\nAt which the other sheep took heart and, deserting the numbered\nsuccession, came and sat about the fire in a big drawing-room and argued\nalso. In particular there was Lady Sunderbund, a pretty fragile tall\nwoman in the corner, richly jewelled, who sat with her pretty eyes\nwatching and her lips compressed. What had she thought of it? She had\nsaid very little.\n\nIt is an unusual thing for a mixed gathering of this sort to argue about\nthe Trinity. Simply because a tired bishop had fallen into their party.\nIt was not fair to him to pretend that the atmosphere was a liberal and\ninquiring one, when the young man who had sat still and dormant by the\ntable was in reality a keen and bitter Irish Roman Catholic. Then the\nquestion, a question-begging question, was put quite suddenly, without\npreparation or prelude, by surprise. \u201cWhy, Bishop, was the Spermaticos\nLogos identified with the Second and not the Third Person of the\nTrinity?\u201d\n\nIt was indiscreet, it was silly, to turn upon the speaker and affect an\nair of disengagement and modernity and to say: \u201cAh, that indeed is the\nunfortunate aspect of the whole affair.\u201d\n\nWhereupon the fierce young man had exploded with: \u201cTo that, is it, that\nyou Anglicans have come?\u201d\n\nThe whole gathering had given itself up to the disputation, Lady\nSunderbund, an actress, a dancer--though she, it is true, did not say\nvery much--a novelist, a mechanical expert of some sort, a railway peer,\ngeniuses, hairy and Celtic, people of no clearly definable position,\nbut all quite unequal to the task of maintaining that air of reverent\nvagueness, that tenderness of touch, which is by all Anglican standards\nimperative in so deep, so mysterious, and, nowadays, in mixed society at\nleast, so infrequent a discussion.\n\nIt was like animals breaking down a fence about some sacred spot. Within\na couple of minutes the affair had become highly improper. They had\nraised their voices, they had spoken with the utmost familiarity of\nalmost unspeakable things. There had been even attempts at epigram.\nAthanasian epigrams. Bent the novelist had doubted if originally there\nhad been a Third Person in the Trinity at all. He suggested a reaction\nfrom a too-Manichaean dualism at some date after the time of St. John's\nGospel. He maintained obstinately that that Gospel was dualistic.\n\nThe unpleasant quality of the talk was far more manifest in the\nretrospect than it had been at the time. It had seemed then bold\nand strange, but not impossible; now in the cold darkness it seemed\nsacrilegious. And the bishop's share, which was indeed only the weak\nyielding of a tired man to an atmosphere he had misjudged, became a\ndisgraceful display of levity and bad faith. They had baited him.\nSome one had said that nowadays every one was an Arian, knowingly or\nunknowingly. They had not concealed their conviction that the bishop did\nnot really believe in the Creeds he uttered.\n\nAnd that unfortunate first admission stuck terribly in his throat.\n\nOh! Why had he made it?\n\n(3)\n\n\nSleep had gone.\n\nThe awakened sleeper groaned, sat up in the darkness, and felt gropingly\nin this unaccustomed bed and bedroom first for the edge of the bed and\nthen for the electric light that was possibly on the little bedside\ntable.\n\nThe searching hand touched something. A water-bottle. The hand resumed\nits exploration. Here was something metallic and smooth, a stem. Either\nabove or below there must be a switch....\n\nThe switch was found, grasped, and turned.\n\nThe darkness fled.\n\nIn a mirror the sleeper saw the reflection of his face and a corner\nof the bed in which he lay. The lamp had a tilted shade that threw\na slanting bar of shadow across the field of reflection, lighting a\nright-angled triangle very brightly and leaving the rest obscure. The\nbed was a very great one, a bed for the Anakim. It had a canopy with\nyellow silk curtains, surmounted by a gilded crown of carved wood.\nBetween the curtains was a man's face, clean-shaven, pale, with\ndisordered brown hair and weary, pale-blue eyes. He was clad in purple\npyjamas, and the hand that now ran its fingers through the brown hair\nwas long and lean and shapely.\n\nBeside the bed was a convenient little table bearing the light, a\nwater-bottle and glass, a bunch of keys, a congested pocket-book, a\ngold-banded fountain pen, and a gold watch that indicated a quarter past\nthree. On the lower edge of the picture in the mirror appeared the back\nof a gilt chair, over which a garment of peculiar construction had been\ncarelessly thrown. It was in the form of that sleeveless cassock of\npurple, opening at the side, whose lower flap is called a bishop's\napron; the corner of the frogged coat showed behind the chair-back, and\nthe sash lay crumpled on the floor. Black doeskin breeches, still warmly\nlined with their pants, lay where they had been thrust off at the corner\nof the bed, partly covering black hose and silver-buckled shoes.\n\nFor a moment the tired gaze of the man in the bed rested upon these\nevidences of his episcopal dignity. Then he turned from them to the\nwatch at the bedside.\n\nHe groaned helplessly.\n\n(4)\n\n\nThese country doctors were no good. There wasn't a physician in the\ndiocese. He must go to London.\n\nHe looked into the weary eyes of his reflection and said, as one makes a\nreassuring promise, \u201cLondon.\u201d\n\nHe was being worried. He was being intolerably worried, and he was ill\nand unable to sustain his positions. This doubt, this sudden discovery\nof controversial unsoundness, was only one aspect of his general\nneurasthenia. It had been creeping into his mind since the \u201cLight Unden\nthe Altar\u201d controversy. Now suddenly it had leapt upon him from his own\nunwary lips.\n\nThe immediate trouble arose from his loyalty. He had followed the King's\nexample; he had become a total abstainer and, in addition, on his own\naccount he had ceased to smoke. And his digestion, which Princhester\nhad first made sensitive, was deranged. He was suffering chemically,\nsuffering one of those nameless sequences of maladjustments that still\ndefy our ordinary medical science. It was afflicting him with a general\nmalaise, it was affecting his energy, his temper, all the balance and\ncomfort of his nerves. All day he was weary; all night he was wakeful.\nHe was estranged from his body. He was distressed by a sense of\ndetachment from the things about him, by a curious intimation of\nunreality in everything he experienced. And with that went this levity\nof conscience, a heaviness of soul and a levity of conscience, that\ncould make him talk as though the Creeds did not matter--as though\nnothing mattered....\n\nIf only he could smoke!\n\nHe was persuaded that a couple of Egyptian cigarettes, or three at the\noutside, a day, would do wonders in restoring his nervous calm. That,\nand just a weak whisky and soda at lunch and dinner. Suppose now--!\n\nHis conscience, his sense of honour, deserted him. Latterly he had had\nseveral of these conscience-blanks; it was only when they were over that\nhe realized that they had occurred.\n\nOne might smoke up the chimney, he reflected. But he had no cigarettes!\nPerhaps if he were to slip downstairs....\n\nWhy had he given up smoking?\n\nHe groaned aloud. He and his reflection eyed one another in mutual\ndespair.\n\nThere came before his memory the image of a boy's face, a swarthy little\nboy, grinning, grinning with a horrible knowingness and pointing\nhis finger--an accusing finger. It had been the most exasperating,\nhumiliating, and shameful incident in the bishop's career. It was\nthe afternoon for his fortnightly address to the Shop-girls' Church\nAssociation, and he had been seized with a panic fear, entirely\nirrational and unjustifiable, that he would not be able to deliver the\naddress. The fear had arisen after lunch, had gripped his mind, and then\nas now had come the thought, \u201cIf only I could smoke!\u201d And he had smoked.\nIt seemed better to break a vow than fail the Association. He had fallen\nto the temptation with a completeness that now filled him with shame and\nhorror. He had stalked Dunk, his valet-butler, out of the dining-room,\nhad affected to need a book from the book-case beyond the sideboard,\nhad gone insincerely to the sideboard humming \u201cFrom Greenland's icy\nmountains,\u201d and then, glancing over his shoulder, had stolen one of\nhis own cigarettes, one of the fatter sort. With this and his bedroom\nmatches he had gone off to the bottom of the garden among the laurels,\nlooked everywhere except above the wall to be sure that he was alone,\nand at last lit up, only as he raised his eyes in gratitude for the\nfirst blissful inhalation to discover that dreadful little boy peeping\nat him from the crotch in the yew-tree in the next garden. As though God\nhad sent him to be a witness!\n\nTheir eyes had met. The bishop recalled with an agonized distinctness\nevery moment, every error, of that shameful encounter. He had been too\nsurprised to conceal the state of affairs from the pitiless scrutiny of\nthose youthful eyes. He had instantly made as if to put the cigarette\nbehind his back, and then as frankly dropped it....\n\nHis soul would not be more naked at the resurrection. The little boy\nhad stared, realized the state of affairs slowly but surely, pointed his\nfinger....\n\nNever had two human beings understood each other more completely.\n\nA dirty little boy! Capable no doubt of a thousand kindred\nscoundrelisms.\n\nIt seemed ages before the conscience-stricken bishop could tear himself\nfrom the spot and walk back, with such a pretence of dignity as he could\nmuster, to the house.\n\nAnd instead of the discourse he had prepared for the Shop-girls' Church\nAssociation, he had preached on temptation and falling, and how he knew\nthey had all fallen, and how he understood and could sympathize with the\nbitterness of a secret shame, a moving but unsuitable discourse that\nhad already been subjected to misconstruction and severe reproof in the\nlocal press of Princhester.\n\nBut the haunting thing in the bishop's memory was the face and gesture\nof the little boy. That grubby little finger stabbed him to the heart.\n\n\u201cOh, God!\u201d he groaned. \u201cThe meanness of it! How did I bring myself--?\u201d\n\nHe turned out the light convulsively, and rolled over in the bed, making\na sort of cocoon of himself. He bored his head into the pillow and\ngroaned, and then struggled impatiently to throw the bed-clothes off\nhimself. Then he sat up and talked aloud.\n\n\u201cI must go to Brighton-Pomfrey,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd get a medical\ndispensation. If I do not smoke--\u201d\n\nHe paused for a long time.\n\nThen his voice sounded again in the darkness, speaking quietly, speaking\nwith a note almost of satisfaction.\n\n\u201cI shall go mad. I must smoke or I shall go mad.\u201d\n\nFor a long time he sat up in the great bed with his arms about his\nknees.\n\n(5)\n\n\nFearful things came to him; things at once dreadfully blasphemous and\nentirely weak-minded.\n\nThe triangle and the eye became almost visible upon the black background\nof night. They were very angry. They were spinning round and round\nfaster and faster. Because he was a bishop and because really he did not\nbelieve fully and completely in the Trinity. At one and the same time\nhe did not believe in the Trinity and was terrified by the anger of the\nTrinity at his unbelief.... He was afraid. He was aghast.... And oh! he\nwas weary....\n\nHe rubbed his eyes.\n\n\u201cIf I could have a cup of tea!\u201d he said.\n\nThen he perceived with surprise that he had not thought of praying. What\nshould he say? To what could he pray?\n\nHe tried not to think of that whizzing Triangle, that seemed now to be\nnailed like a Catherine wheel to the very centre of his forehead,\nand yet at the same time to be at the apex of the universe. Against\nthat--for protection against that--he was praying. It was by a great\neffort that at last he pronounced the words:\n\n\u201cLighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord ....\u201d\n\nPresently he had turned up his light, and was prowling about the room.\nThe clear inky dinginess that comes before the raw dawn of a spring\nmorning, found his white face at the window, looking out upon the great\nterrace and the park.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE SECOND - THE WEAR AND TEAR OF EPISCOPACY\n\n(1)\n\n\nIT was only in the last few years that the bishop had experienced\nthese nervous and mental crises. He was a belated doubter. Whatever\nquestionings had marked his intellectual adolescence had either been\nvery slight or had been too adequately answered to leave any serious\nscars upon his convictions.\n\nAnd even now he felt that he was afflicted physically rather than\nmentally, that some protective padding of nerve-sheath or brain-case had\nworn thin and weak, and left him a prey to strange disturbances, rather\nthan that any new process of thought was eating into his mind. These\ndoubts in his mind were still not really doubts; they were rather alien\nand, for the first time, uncontrolled movements of his intelligence.\nHe had had a sheltered upbringing; he was the well-connected son of\na comfortable rectory, the only son and sole survivor of a family\nof three; he had been carefully instructed and he had been a willing\nlearner; it had been easy and natural to take many things for granted.\nIt had been very easy and pleasant for him to take the world as he found\nit and God as he found Him. Indeed for all his years up to manhood\nhe had been able to take life exactly as in his infancy he took his\ncarefully warmed and prepared bottle--unquestioningly and beneficially.\n\nAnd indeed that has been the way with most bishops since bishops began.\n\nIt is a busy continuous process that turns boys into bishops, and it\nwill stand few jars or discords. The student of ecclesiastical biography\nwill find that an early vocation has in every age been almost universal\namong them; few are there among these lives that do not display the\nincipient bishop from the tenderest years. Bishop How of Wakefield\ncomposed hymns before he was eleven, and Archbishop Benson when scarcely\nolder possessed a little oratory in which he conducted services and--a\npleasant touch of the more secular boy--which he protected from a too\ninquisitive sister by means of a booby trap. It is rare that those\nmarked for episcopal dignities go so far into the outer world\nas Archbishop Lang of York, who began as a barrister. This early\npredestination has always been the common episcopal experience.\nArchbishop Benson's early attempts at religious services remind one both\nof St. Thomas a Becket, the \u201cboy bishop,\u201d and those early ceremonies of\nSt. Athanasius which were observed and inquired upon by the good bishop\nAlexander. (For though still a tender infant, St. Athanasius with\nperfect correctness and validity was baptizing a number of his innocent\nplaymates, and the bishop who \u201chad paused to contemplate the sports of\nthe child remained to confirm the zeal of the missionary.\u201d) And as with\nthe bishop of the past, so with the bishop of the future; the Rev. H. J.\nCampbell, in his story of his soul's pilgrimage, has given us a pleasant\npicture of himself as a child stealing out into the woods to build\nhimself a little altar.\n\nSuch minds as these, settled as it were from the outset, are either\nincapable of real scepticism or become sceptical only after catastrophic\nchanges. They understand the sceptical mind with difficulty, and their\nbeliefs are regarded by the sceptical mind with incredulity. They have\ndetermined their forms of belief before their years of discretion, and\nonce those forms are determined they are not very easily changed. Within\nthe shell it has adopted the intelligence may be active and lively\nenough, may indeed be extraordinarily active and lively, but only within\nthe shell.\n\nThere is an entire difference in the mental quality of those who are\nconverts to a faith and those who are brought up in it. The former know\nit from outside as well as from within. They know not only that it is,\nbut also that it is not. The latter have a confidence in their creed\nthat is one with their apprehension of sky or air or gravitation. It\nis a primary mental structure, and they not only do not doubt but they\ndoubt the good faith of those who do. They think that the Atheist and\nAgnostic really believe but are impelled by a mysterious obstinacy to\ndeny. So it had been with the Bishop of Princhester; not of cunning\nor design but in simple good faith he had accepted all the inherited\nassurances of his native rectory, and held by Church, Crown, Empire,\ndecorum, respectability, solvency--and compulsory Greek at the Little\nGo--as his father had done before him. If in his undergraduate days he\nhad said a thing or two in the modern vein, affected the socialism\nof William Morris and learnt some Swinburne by heart, it was out of a\nconscious wildness. He did not wish to be a prig. He had taken a far\nmore genuine interest in the artistry of ritual.\n\nThrough all the time of his incumbency of the church of the Holy\nInnocents, St. John's Wood, and of his career as the bishop suffragan\nof Pinner, he had never faltered from his profound confidence in those\nstandards of his home. He had been kind, popular, and endlessly active.\nHis undergraduate socialism had expanded simply and sincerely into a\ntheory of administrative philanthropy. He knew the Webbs. He was\nas successful with working-class audiences as with fashionable\ncongregations. His home life with Lady Ella (she was the daughter of\nthe fifth Earl of Birkenholme) and his five little girls was simple,\nbeautiful, and happy as few homes are in these days of confusion. Until\nhe became Bishop of Princhester--he followed Hood, the first bishop,\nas the reign of his Majesty King Edward the Peacemaker drew to its\nclose--no anticipation of his coming distress fell across his path.\n\n(2)\n\n\nHe came to Princhester an innocent and trustful man. The home life\nat the old rectory of Otteringham was still his standard of truth and\nreality. London had not disillusioned him. It was a strange waste of\npeople, it made him feel like a missionary in infidel parts, but it was\na kindly waste. It was neither antagonistic nor malicious. He had always\nfelt there that if he searched his Londoner to the bottom, he would\nfind the completest recognition of the old rectory and all its data and\nimplications.\n\nBut Princhester was different.\n\nPrinchester made one think that recently there had been a second and\nmuch more serious Fall.\n\nPrinchester was industrial and unashamed. It was a countryside savagely\ninvaded by forges and mine shafts and gaunt black things. It was scarred\nand impeded and discoloured. Even before that invasion, when the heather\nwas not in flower it must have been a black country. Its people were\ndour uncandid individuals, who slanted their heads and knitted their\nbrows to look at you. Occasionally one saw woods brown and blistered by\nthe gases from chemical works. Here and there remained old rectories,\nclosely reminiscent of the dear old home at Otteringham, jostled and\nelbowed and overshadowed by horrible iron cylinders belching smoke and\nflame. The fine old abbey church of Princhester, which was the cathedral\nof the new diocese, looked when first he saw it like a lady Abbess who\nhad taken to drink and slept in a coal truck. She minced apologetically\nupon the market-place; the parvenu Town Hall patronized and protected\nher as if she were a poor relation....\n\nThe old aristocracy of the countryside was unpicturesquely decayed. The\nbranch of the Walshinghams, Lady Ella's cousins, who lived near Pringle,\nwas poor, proud and ignoble. And extremely unpopular. The rich people\nof the country were self-made and inclined to nonconformity, the\nworking-people were not strictly speaking a \u201cpoor,\u201d they were highly\npaid, badly housed, and deeply resentful. They went in vast droves to\nfootball matches, and did not care a rap if it rained. The prevailing\nwind was sarcastic. To come here from London was to come from\natmospheric blue-greys to ashen-greys, from smoke and soft smut to grime\nand black grimness.\n\nThe bishop had been charmed by the historical associations of\nPrinchester when first the see was put before his mind. His realization\nof his diocese was a profound shock.\n\nOnly one hint had he had of what was coming. He had met during\nhis season of congratulations Lord Gatling dining unusually at the\nAthenaeum. Lord Gatling and he did not talk frequently, but on this\noccasion the great racing peer came over to him. \u201cYou will feel like a\ncherub in a stokehole,\u201d Lord Gatling had said....\n\n\u201cThey used to heave lumps of slag at old Hood's gaiters,\u201d said Lord\nGatling.\n\n\u201cIn London a bishop's a lord and a lark and nobody minds him,\u201d said Lord\nGatling, \u201cbut Princhester is different. It isn't used to bishops....\nWell,--I hope you'll get to like 'em.\u201d\n\n(3)\n\n\nTrouble began with a fearful row about the position of the bishop's\npalace. Hood had always evaded this question, and a number of\nstrong-willed self-made men of wealth and influence, full of local\npatriotism and that competitive spirit which has made England what it\nis, already intensely irritated by Hood's prevarications, were resolved\nto pin his successor to an immediate decision. Of this the new bishop\nwas unaware. Mindful of a bishop's constant need to travel, he was\ndisposed to seek a home within easy reach of Pringle Junction, from\nwhich nearly every point in the diocese could be simply and easily\nreached. This fell in with Lady Ella's liking for the rare rural\nquiet of the Kibe valley and the neighbourhood of her cousins the\nWalshinghams. Unhappily it did not fall in with the inflexible\nresolution of each and every one of the six leading towns of the see to\nput up, own, obtrude, boast, and swagger about the biggest and showiest\nthing in episcopal palaces in all industrial England, and the new\nbishop had already taken a short lease and gone some way towards the\nacquisition of Ganford House, two miles from Pringle, before he realized\nthe strength and fury of these local ambitions.\n\nAt first the magnates and influences seemed to be fighting only among\nthemselves, and he was so ill-advised as to broach the Ganford House\nproject as a compromise that would glorify no one unfairly, and leave\nthe erection of an episcopal palace for some future date when he perhaps\nwould have the good fortune to have passed to \u201cwhere beyond these\nvoices there is peace,\u201d forgetting altogether among other oversights\nthe importance of architects and builders in local affairs. His\nproposal seemed for a time to concentrate the rich passions of the whole\ncountryside upon himself and his wife.\n\nBecause they did not leave Lady Ella alone. The Walshinghams were\nalready unpopular in their county on account of a poverty and shyness\nthat made them seem \u201cstuck up\u201d to successful captains of industry\nonly too ready with the hand of friendship, the iron grip indeed\nof friendship, consciously hospitable and eager for admission and\nendorsements. And Princhester in particular was under the sway of that\nenterprising weekly, The White Blackbird, which was illustrated by,\nwhich indeed monopolized the gifts of, that brilliant young caricaturist\n\u201cThe Snicker.\u201d\n\nIt had seemed natural for Lady Ella to acquiesce in the proposals of the\nleading Princhester photographer. She had always helped where she could\nin her husband's public work, and she had been popular upon her own\nmerits in Wealdstone. The portrait was abominable enough in itself; it\ndwelt on her chin, doubled her age, and denied her gentleness, but it\nwas a mere starting-point for the subtle extravagance of The Snicker's\npoisonous gift.... The thing came upon the bishop suddenly from the\nbook-stall at Pringle Junction.\n\nHe kept it carefully from Lady Ella.... It was only later that he found\nthat a copy of The White Blackbird had been sent to her, and that she\nwas keeping the horror from him. It was in her vein that she should\nreproach herself for being a vulnerable side to him.\n\nEven when the bishop capitulated in favour of Princhester, that decision\nonly opened a fresh trouble for him. Princhester wanted the palace to be\na palace; it wanted to combine all the best points of Lambeth and\nFulham with the marble splendours of a good modern bank. The bishop's\narchitectural tastes, on the other hand, were rationalistic. He was all\nfor building a useful palace in undertones, with a green slate roof\nand long horizontal lines. What he wanted more than anything else was\na quite remote wing with a lot of bright little bedrooms and a\nsitting-room and so on, complete in itself, examination hall and\neverything, with a long intricate connecting passage and several doors,\nto prevent the ordination candidates straying all over the place and\ngetting into the talk and the tea. But the diocese wanted a proud\narchway--and turrets, and did not care a rap if the ordination\ncandidates slept about on the carpets in the bishop's bedroom.\nOrdination candidates were quite outside the sphere of its imagination.\n\nAnd he disappointed Princhester with his equipage. Princhester had\na feeling that it deserved more for coming over to the church from\nnonconformity as it was doing. It wanted a bishop in a mitre and a gilt\ncoach. It wanted a pastoral crook. It wanted something to go with its\nmace and its mayor. And (obsessed by The Snicker) it wanted less of Lady\nElla. The cruelty and unreason of these attacks upon his wife distressed\nthe bishop beyond measure, and baffled him hopelessly. He could not see\nany means of checking them nor of defending or justifying her against\nthem.\n\nThe palace was awaiting its tenant, but the controversies and\nbitternesses were still swinging and swaying and developing when King\nGeorge was being crowned. Close upon that event came a wave of social\ndiscontent, the great railway strike, a curious sense of social and\npolitical instability, and the first beginnings of the bishop's ill\nhealth.\n\n(4)\n\n\nThere came a day of exceptional fatigue and significance.\n\nThe industrial trouble was a very real distress to the bishop. He had\na firm belief that it is a function of the church to act as mediator\nbetween employer and employed. It was a common saying of his that the\naim of socialism--the right sort of socialism--was to Christianize\nemployment. Regardless of suspicion on either hand, regardless of\nvery distinct hints that he should \u201cmind his own business,\u201d he exerted\nhimself in a search for methods of reconciliation. He sought out every\none who seemed likely to be influential on either side, and did his\nutmost to discover the conditions of a settlement. As far as possible\nand with the help of a not very efficient chaplain he tried to combine\nsuch interviews with his more normal visiting.\n\nAt times, and this was particularly the case on this day, he seemed to\nbe discovering nothing but the incurable perversity and militancy of\nhuman nature. It was a day under an east wind, when a steely-blue sky\nfull of colourless light filled a stiff-necked world with whitish high\nlights and inky shadows. These bright harsh days of barometric high\npressure in England rouse and thwart every expectation of the happiness\nof spring. And as the bishop drove through the afternoon in a hired\nfly along a rutted road of slag between fields that were bitterly wired\nagainst the Sunday trespasser, he fell into a despondent meditation upon\nthe political and social outlook.\n\nHis thoughts were of a sort not uncommon in those days. The world was\nstrangely restless. Since the passing of Victoria the Great there had\nbeen an accumulating uneasiness in the national life. It was as if some\ncompact and dignified paper-weight had been lifted from people's ideas,\nand as if at once they had begun to blow about anyhow. Not that Queen\nVictoria had really been a paper-weight or any weight at all, but\nit happened that she died as an epoch closed, an epoch of tremendous\nstabilities. Her son, already elderly, had followed as the selvedge\nfollows the piece, he had passed and left the new age stripped bare.\nIn nearly every department of economic and social life now there was\nupheaval, and it was an upheaval very different in character from the\nradicalism and liberalism of the Victorian days. There were not only\ndoubt and denial, but now there were also impatience and unreason.\nPeople argued less and acted quicker. There was a pride in rebellion for\nits own sake, an indiscipline and disposition to sporadic violence that\nmade it extremely hard to negotiate any reconciliations or compromises.\nBehind every extremist it seemed stood a further extremist prepared to\ngo one better....\n\nThe bishop had spent most of the morning with one of the big employers,\na tall dark man, lean and nervous, and obviously tired and worried\nby the struggle. He did not conceal his opinion that the church was\nmeddling with matters quite outside its sphere. Never had it been\nconveyed to the bishop before how remote a rich and established\nEnglishman could consider the church from reality.\n\n\u201cYou've got no hold on them,\u201d he said. \u201cIt isn't your sphere.\u201d\n\nAnd again: \u201cThey'll listen to you--if you speak well. But they don't\nbelieve you know anything about it, and they don't trust your good\nintentions. They won't mind a bit what you say unless you drop something\nthey can use against us.\u201d\n\nThe bishop tried a few phrases. He thought there might be something in\nco-operation, in profit-sharing, in some more permanent relationship\nbetween the business and the employee.\n\n\u201cThere isn't,\u201d said the employer compactly. \u201cIt's just the malice of\nbeing inferior against the man in control. It's just the spirit of\ninsubordination and boredom with duty. This trouble's as old as the\nDevil.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut that is exactly the business of the church,\u201d said the bishop\nbrightly, \u201cto reconcile men to their duty.\u201d\n\n\u201cBy chanting the Athanasian creed at 'em, I suppose,\u201d said the big\nemployer, betraying the sneer he had been hiding hitherto.\n\n\u201cThis thing is a fight,\u201d said the big employer, carrying on before the\nbishop could reply. \u201cReligion had better get out of the streets until\nthis thing is over. The men won't listen to reason. They don't mean\nto. They're bit by Syndicalism. They're setting out, I tell you, to be\nunreasonable and impossible. It isn't an argument; it's a fight. They\ndon't want to make friends with the employer. They want to make an end\nto the employer. Whatever we give them they'll take and press us for\nmore. Directly we make terms with the leaders the men go behind\nit.... It's a raid on the whole system. They don't mean to work the\nsystem--anyhow. I'm the capitalist, and the capitalist has to go. I'm to\nbe bundled out of my works, and some--some \u201c--he seemed to be rejecting\nunsuitable words--\u201cconfounded politician put in. Much good it would do\nthem. But before that happens I'm going to fight. You would.\u201d\n\nThe bishop walked to the window and stood staring at the brilliant\nspring bulbs in the big employer's garden, and at a long vista of\nnewly-mown lawn under great shapely trees just budding into green.\n\n\u201cI can't admit,\u201d he said, \u201cthat these troubles lie outside the sphere of\nthe church.\u201d\n\nThe employer came and stood beside him. He felt he was being a little\nhard on the bishop, but he could not see any way of making things\neasier.\n\n\u201cOne doesn't want Sacred Things,\u201d he tried, \u201cin a scrap like this.\n\n\u201cWe've got to mend things or end things,\u201d continued the big employer.\n\u201cNothing goes on for ever. Things can't last as they are going on\nnow....\u201d\n\nThen he went on abruptly to something that for a time he had been\nkeeping back.\n\n\u201cOf course just at present the church may do a confounded lot of harm.\nSome of you clerical gentlemen are rather too fond of talking socialism\nand even preaching socialism. Don't think I want to be overcritical.\nI admit there's no end of things to be said for a proper sort of\nsocialism, Ruskin, and all that. We're all Socialists nowadays.\nIdeals--excellent. But--it gets misunderstood. It gives the men a sense\nof moral support. It makes them fancy that they are It. Encourages them\nto forget duties and set up preposterous claims. Class war and all that\nsort of thing. You gentlemen of the clergy don't quite realize that\nsocialism may begin with Ruskin and end with Karl Marx. And that from\nthe Class War to the Commune is just one step.\u201d\n\n(5)\n\n\nFrom this conversation the bishop had made his way to the vicarage of\nMogham Banks. The vicar of Mogham Banks was a sacerdotal socialist of\nthe most advanced type, with the reputation of being closely in touch\nwith the labour extremists. He was a man addicted to banners, prohibited\nornaments, special services at unusual hours, and processions in the\nstreets. His taste in chasubles was loud, he gardened in a cassock\nand, it was said, he slept in his biretta; he certainly slept in a hair\nshirt, and he littered his church with flowers, candles, side altars,\nconfessional boxes, requests for prayers for the departed, and the like.\nThere had already been two Kensitite demonstrations at his services, and\naltogether he was a source of considerable anxiety to the bishop. The\nbishop did his best not to know too exactly what was going on at Mogham\nBanks. Sooner or later he felt he would be forced to do something--and\nthe longer he could put that off the better. But the Rev. Morrice Deans\nhad promised to get together three or four prominent labour leaders for\ntea and a frank talk, and the opportunity was one not to be missed.\nSo the bishop, after a hasty and not too digestible lunch in the\nrefreshment room at Pringle, was now in a fly that smelt of straw\nand suggested infectious hospital patients, on his way through the\nindustry-scarred countryside to this second conversation.\n\nThe countryside had never seemed so scarred to him as it did that day.\n\nIt was probably the bright hard spring sunshine that emphasized\nthe contrast between that dear England of hedges and homes and the\nsouth-west wind in which his imagination lived, and the crude presences\nof a mechanical age. Never before had the cuttings and heapings, the\nsmashing down of trees, the obtrusion of corrugated iron and tar, the\nbelchings of smoke and the haste, seemed so harsh and disregardful\nof all the bishop's world. Across the fields a line of gaunt iron\nstandards, abominably designed, carried an electric cable to some\nunknown end. The curve of the hill made them seem a little out of the\nstraight, as if they hurried and bent forward furtively.\n\n\u201cWhere are they going?\u201d asked the bishop, leaning forward to look out of\nthe window of the fly, and then: \u201cWhere is it all going?\u201d\n\nAnd presently the road was under repair, and was being done at a great\npace with a huge steam-roller, mechanically smashed granite, and kettles\nof stinking stuff, asphalt or something of that sort, that looked\nand smelt like Milton's hell. Beyond, a gaunt hoarding advertised\nextensively the Princhester Music Hall, a mean beastly place that\ncorrupted boys and girls; and also it clamoured of tyres and potted\nmeats....\n\nThe afternoon's conference gave him no reassuring answer to his\nquestion, \u201cWhere is it all going?\u201d\n\nThe afternoon's conference did no more than intensify the new and\nstrange sense of alienation from the world that the morning's talk had\nevoked.\n\nThe three labour extremists that Morrice Deans had assembled obviously\nliked the bishop and found him picturesque, and were not above a certain\nsnobbish gratification at the purple-trimmed company they were in, but\nit was clear that they regarded his intervention in the great dispute\nas if it were a feeble waving from the bank across the waters of a great\nriver.\n\n\u201cThere's an incurable misunderstanding between the modern employer and\nthe modern employed,\u201d the chief labour spokesman said, speaking in a\nbroad accent that completely hid from him and the bishop and every one\nthe fact that he was by far the best-read man of the party. \u201cDisraeli\ncalled them the Two Nations, but that was long ago. Now it's a case\nof two species. Machinery has made them into different species. The\nemployer lives away from his work-people, marries a wife foreign, out of\na county family or suchlike, trains his children from their very birth\nin a different manner. Why, the growth curve is different for the two\nspecies. They haven't even a common speech between them. One looks east\nand the other looks west. How can you expect them to agree? Of course\nthey won't agree. We've got to fight it out. They say we're their\nslaves for ever. Have you ever read Lady Bell's 'At the Works'? A\nwell-intentioned woman, but she gives the whole thing away. We say,\nNo! It's our sort and not your sort. We'll do without you. We'll get a\nlittle more education and then we'll do without you. We're pressing for\nall we can get, and when we've got that we'll take breath and press\nfor more. We're the Morlocks. Coming up. It isn't our fault that we've\ndifferentiated.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you haven't understood the drift of Christianity,\u201d said the bishop.\n\u201cIt's just to assert that men are One community and not two.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere's not much of that in the Creeds,\u201d said a second labour leader\nwho was a rationalist. \u201cThere's not much of that in the services of the\nchurch.\u201d\n\nThe vicar spoke before his bishop, and indeed he had plenty of time\nto speak before his bishop. \u201cBecause you will not set yourselves to\nunderstand the symbolism of her ritual,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cIf the church chooses to speak in riddles,\u201d said the rationalist.\n\n\u201cSymbols,\u201d said Morrice Deans, \u201cneed not be riddles,\u201d and for a time the\ntalk eddied about this minor issue and the chief labour spokesman and\nthe bishop looked at one another. The vicar instanced and explained\ncertain apparently insignificant observances, his antagonist was\ncontemptuously polite to these explanations. \u201cThat's all very pratty,\u201d\n he said....\n\nThe bishop wished that fine points of ceremonial might have been left\nout of the discussion.\n\nSomething much bigger than that was laying hold of his intelligence, the\nrealization of a world extravagantly out of hand. The sky, the wind,\nthe telegraph poles, had been jabbing in the harsh lesson of these men's\nvoices, that the church, as people say, \u201cwasn't in it.\u201d And that at\nthe same time the church held the one remedy for all this ugliness and\ncontention in its teaching of the universal fatherhood of God and the\nuniversal brotherhood of men. Only for some reason he hadn't the phrases\nand he hadn't the voice to assert this over their wrangling and their\nstiff resolution. He wanted to think the whole business out thoroughly,\nfor the moment he had nothing to say, and there was the labour leader\nopposite waiting smilingly to hear what he had to say so soon as the\nbout between the vicar and the rationalist was over.\n\n(6)\n\n\nThat morning in the long galleries of the bishop's imagination a fresh\npainting had been added. It was a big wall painting rather in the manner\nof Puvis de Chavannes. And the central figure had been the bishop of\nPrinchester himself. He had been standing upon the steps of the\ngreat door of the cathedral that looks upon the marketplace where the\ntram-lines meet, and he had been dressed very magnificently and rather\nafter the older use. He had been wearing a tunicle and dalmatic under a\nchasuble, a pectoral cross, purple gloves, sandals and buskins, a mitre\nand his presentation ring. In his hand he had borne his pastoral staff.\nAnd the clustering pillars and arches of the great doorway were painted\nwith a loving flat particularity that omitted nothing but the sooty\ntinge of the later discolourations.\n\nOn his right hand had stood a group of employers very richly dressed\nin the fashion of the fifteenth century, and on the left a rather more\nnumerous group of less decorative artisans. With them their wives and\nchildren had been shown, all greatly impressed by the canonicals. Every\none had been extremely respectful.\n\nHe had been reconciling the people and blessing them and calling them\nhis \u201csheep\u201d and his \u201clittle children.\u201d\n\nBut all this was so different.\n\nNeither party resembled sheep or little children in the least degree. .\n\nThe labour leader became impatient with the ritualistic controversy; he\nset his tea-cup aside out of danger and leant across the corner of the\ntable to the bishop and spoke in a sawing undertone. \u201cYou see,\u201d he said,\n\u201cthe church does not talk our language. I doubt if it understands our\nlanguage. I doubt if we understand clearly where we are ourselves. These\nthings have to be fought out and hammered out. It's a big dusty dirty\nnoisy job. It may be a bloody job before it's through. You can't\nsuddenly call a halt in the middle of the scrap and have a sort of\nmillennium just because you want it....\n\n\u201cOf course if the church had a plan,\u201d he said, \u201cif it had a proposal to\nmake, if it had anything more than a few pious palliatives to suggest,\nthat might be different. But has it?\u201d\n\nThe bishop had a bankrupt feeling. On the spur of the moment he could\nsay no more than: \u201cIt offers its mediation.\u201d\n\n(7)\n\n\nFull as he was with the preoccupation of these things and so a little\nslow and inattentive in his movements, the bishop had his usual luck\nat Pringle Junction and just missed the 7.27 for Princhester. He might\nperhaps have got it by running through the subway and pushing past\npeople, but bishops must not run through subways and push past people.\nHis mind swore at the mischance, even if his lips refrained.\n\nHe was hungry and, tired; he would not get to the palace now until long\nafter nine; dinner would be over and Lady Ella would naturally suppose\nhe had dined early with the Rev. Morrice Deans. Very probably there\nwould be nothing ready for him at all.\n\nHe tried to think he was exercising self-control, but indeed all his\nsub-conscious self was busy in a manner that would not have disgraced\nTertullian with the eternal welfare of those city fathers whose\nobstinacy had fixed the palace at Princhester. He walked up and down the\nplatform, gripping his hands very tightly behind him, and maintaining\na serene upcast countenance by a steadfast effort. It seemed a small\nmatter to him that the placards of the local evening papers should\nproclaim \u201cLloyd George's Reconciliation Meeting at Wombash Broken up\nby Suffragettes.\u201d For a year now he had observed a strict rule against\nbuying the products of the local press, and he saw no reason for varying\nthis protective regulation.\n\nHis mind was full of angry helplessness.\n\nWas he to blame, was the church to blame, for its powerlessness in these\nsocial disputes? Could an abler man with a readier eloquence have done\nmore?\n\nHe envied the cleverness of Cardinal Manning. Manning would have got\nright into the front of this affair. He would have accumulated credit\nfor his church and himself....\n\nBut would he have done much?...\n\nThe bishop wandered along the platform to its end, and stood\ncontemplating the convergent ways that gather together beyond the\nstation and plunge into the hillside and the wilderness of sidings and\ntrucks, signal-boxes, huts, coal-pits, electric standards, goods sheds,\nturntables, and engine-houses, that ends in a bluish bricked-up cliff\nagainst the hill. A train rushed with a roar and clatter into the\nthroat of the great tunnel and was immediately silenced; its rear lights\ntwinkled and vanished, and then out of that huge black throat came wisps\nof white steam and curled slowly upward like lazy snakes until they\ncaught the slanting sunshine. For the first time the day betrayed\na softness and touched this scene of black energy to gold. All late\nafternoons are beautiful, whatever the day has been--if only there is a\ngleam of sun. And now a kind of mechanical greatness took the place of\nmere black disorder in the bishop's perception of his see. It was harsh,\nit was vast and strong, it was no lamb he had to rule but a dragon.\nWould it ever be given to him to overcome his dragon, to lead it home,\nand bless it?\n\nHe stood at the very end of the platform, with his gaitered legs wide\napart and his hands folded behind him, staring beyond all visible\nthings.\n\nShould he do something very bold and striking? Should he invite both men\nand masters to the cathedral, and preach tremendous sermons to them upon\nthese living issues?\n\nShort sermons, of course.\n\nBut stating the church's attitude with a new and convincing vigour.\n\nHe had a vision of the great aisle strangely full and alive and astir.\nThe organ notes still echoed in the fretted vaulting, as the preacher\nmade his way from the chancel to the pulpit. The congregation was tense\nwith expectation, and for some reason his mind dwelt for a long time\nupon the figure of the preacher ascending the steps of the pulpit.\nOutside the day was dark and stormy, so that the stained-glass windows\nlooked absolutely dead. For a little while the preacher prayed. Then in\nthe attentive silence the tenor of the preacher would begin, a thin jet\nof sound, a ray of light in the darkness, speaking to all these men as\nthey had never been spoken to before....\n\nSurely so one might call a halt to all these harsh conflicts. So one\nmight lay hands afresh upon these stubborn minds, one might win them\nround to look at Christ the Master and Servant....\n\nThat, he thought, would be a good phrase: \u201cChrist the Master and\nServant.\u201d....\n\n\u201cMembers of one Body,\u201d that should be his text.... At last it was\nfinished. The big congregation, which had kept so still, sighed and\nstirred. The task of reconciliation was as good as done. \u201cAnd now to God\nthe Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost....\u201d\n\nOutside the day had become suddenly bright, the threatening storm had\ndrifted away, and great shafts of coloured light from the pictured\nwindows were smiting like arrows amidst his hearers....\n\nThis idea of a great sermon upon capital and labour did so powerfully\ngrip the bishop's imagination that he came near to losing the 8.27 train\nalso.\n\nHe discovered it when it was already in the station. He had to walk down\nthe platform very quickly. He did not run, but his gaiters, he felt,\ntwinkled more than a bishop's should.\n\n(8)\n\n\nDirectly he met his wife he realized that he had to hear something\nimportant and unpleasant.\n\nShe stood waiting for him in the inner hall, looking very grave and\nstill. The light fell upon her pale face and her dark hair and her long\nwhite silken dress, making her seem more delicate and unworldly than\nusual and making the bishop feel grimy and sordid.\n\n\u201cI must have a wash,\u201d he said, though before he had thought of nothing\nbut food. \u201cI have had nothing to eat since tea-time--and that was mostly\ntalk.\u201d\n\nLady Ella considered. \u201cThere are cold things.... You shall have a tray\nin the study. Not in the dining-room. Eleanor is there. I want to tell\nyou something. But go upstairs first and wash your poor tired face.\u201d\n\n\u201cNothing serious, I hope?\u201d he asked, struck by an unusual quality in her\nvoice.\n\n\u201cI will tell you,\u201d she evaded, and after a moment of mutual scrutiny he\nwent past her upstairs.\n\nSince they had come to Princhester Lady Ella had changed very markedly.\nShe seemed to her husband to have gained in dignity; she was stiller\nand more restrained; a certain faint arrogance, a touch of the \u201cruling\nclass\u201d manner had dwindled almost to the vanishing point. There had been\na time when she had inclined to an authoritative hauteur, when she had\nseemed likely to develop into one of those aggressive and interfering\nold ladies who play so overwhelming a part in British public affairs.\nShe had been known to initiate adverse judgments, to exercise the snub,\nto cut and humiliate. Princhester had done much to purge her of such\ntendencies. Princhester had made her think abundantly, and had put a new\nand subtler quality into her beauty. It had taken away the least little\ndisposition to rustle as she moved, and it had softened her voice.\n\nNow, when presently she stood in the study, she showed a new\ncircumspection in her treatment of her husband. She surveyed the tray\nbefore him.\n\n\u201cYou ought not to drink that Burgundy,\u201d she said. \u201cI can see you\nare dog-tired. It was uncorked yesterday, and anyhow it is not very\ndigestible. This cold meat is bad enough. You ought to have one of those\nquarter bottles of champagne you got for my last convalescence. There's\nmore than a dozen left over.\u201d\n\nThe bishop felt that this was a pretty return of his own kindly thoughts\n\u201cafter many days,\u201d and soon Dunk, his valet-butler, was pouring out the\nprecious and refreshing glassful....\n\n\u201cAnd now, dear?\u201d said the bishop, feeling already much better.\n\nLady Ella had come round to the marble fireplace. The mantel-piece was\na handsome work by a Princhester artist in the Gill style--with\ncontemplative ascetics as supporters.\n\n\u201cI am worried about Eleanor,\u201d said Lady Ella.\n\n\u201cShe is in the dining-room now,\u201d she said, \u201chaving some dinner. She came\nin about a quarter past eight, half way through dinner.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere had she been?\u201d asked the bishop.\n\n\u201cHer dress was torn--in two places. Her wrist had been twisted and a\nlittle sprained.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy dear!\u201d\n\n\u201cHer face--Grubby! And she had been crying.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, my dear, what had happened to her? You don't mean--?\u201d\n\nHusband and wife stared at one another aghast. Neither of them said the\nhorrid word that flamed between them.\n\n\u201cMerciful heaven!\u201d said the bishop, and assumed an attitude of despair.\n\n\u201cI didn't know she knew any of them. But it seems it is the second\nWalshingham girl--Phoebe. It's impossible to trace a girl's thoughts and\nfriends. She persuaded her to go.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut did she understand?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat's the serious thing,\u201d said Lady Ella.\n\nShe seemed to consider whether he could bear the blow.\n\n\u201cShe understands all sorts of things. She argues.... I am quite unable\nto argue with her.\u201d\n\n\u201cAbout this vote business?\u201d\n\n\u201cAbout all sorts of things. Things I didn't imagine she had heard of.\nI knew she had been reading books. But I never imagined that she could\nhave understood....\u201d\n\nThe bishop laid down his knife and fork.\n\n\u201cOne may read in books, one may even talk of things, without fully\nunderstanding,\u201d he said.\n\nLady Ella tried to entertain this comforting thought. \u201cIt isn't like\nthat,\u201d she said at last. \u201cShe talks like a grown-up person. This--this\nescapade is just an accident. But things have gone further than that.\nShe seems to think--that she is not being educated properly here, that\nshe ought to go to a College. As if we were keeping things from her....\u201d\n\nThe bishop reconsidered his plate.\n\n\u201cBut what things?\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cShe says we get all round her,\u201d said Lady Ella, and left the\nimplications of that phrase to unfold.\n\n(9)\n\n\nFor a time the bishop said very little.\n\nLady Ella had found it necessary to make her first announcement standing\nbehind him upon the hearthrug, but now she sat upon the arm of the great\narmchair as close to him as possible, and spoke in a more familiar tone.\n\nThe thing, she said, had come to her as a complete surprise. Everything\nhad seemed so safe. Eleanor had been thoughtful, it was true, but it had\nnever occurred to her mother that she had really been thinking--about\nsuch things as she had been thinking about. She had ranged in the\nlibrary, and displayed a disposition to read the weekly papers and the\nmonthly reviews. But never a sign of discontent.\n\n\u201cBut I don't understand,\u201d said the bishop. \u201cWhy is she discontented?\nWhat is there that she wants different?\u201d\n\n\u201cExactly,\u201d said Lady Ella.\n\n\u201cShe has got this idea that life here is secluded in some way,\u201d she\nexpanded. \u201cShe used words like 'secluded' and 'artificial' and--what was\nit?--'cloistered.' And she said--\u201d\n\nLady Ella paused with an effect of exact retrospection.\n\n\u201c'Out there,' she said, 'things are alive. Real things are happening.'\nIt is almost as if she did not fully believe--\u201d\n\nLady Ella paused again.\n\nThe bishop sat with his arm over the back of his chair, and his face\ndowncast.\n\n\u201cThe ferment of youth,\u201d he said at last. \u201cThe ferment of youth. Who has\ngiven her these ideas?\u201d\n\nLady Ella did not know. She could have thought a school like St. Aubyns\nwould have been safe, but nowadays nothing was safe. It was clear the\ngirls who went there talked as girls a generation ago did not talk.\nTheir people at home encouraged them to talk and profess opinions about\neverything. It seemed that Phoebe Walshingham and Lady Kitty Kingdom\nwere the leaders in these premature mental excursions. Phoebe aired\nreligious doubts.\n\n\u201cBut little Phoebe!\u201d said the bishop.\n\n\u201cKitty,\u201d said Lady Ella, \u201chas written a novel.\u201d\n\n\u201cAlready!\u201d\n\n\u201cWith elopements in it--and all sorts of things. She's had it typed.\nYou'd think Mary Crosshampton would know better than to let her daughter\ngo flourishing the family imagination about in that way.\u201d\n\n\u201cEleanor told you?\u201d\n\n\u201cBy way of showing that they think of--things in general.\u201d\n\nThe bishop reflected. \u201cShe wants to go to College.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey want to go in a set.\u201d\n\n\u201cI wonder if college can be much worse than school.... She's eighteen--?\nBut I will talk to her....\u201d\n\n(10)\n\n\nAll our children are changelings. They are perpetually fresh strangers.\nEvery day they vanish and a new person masquerades as yesterday's child\nuntil some unexpected development betrays the cheat.\n\nThe bishop had still to learn this perennial newness of the young. He\nlearnt it in half an hour at the end of a fatiguing day.\n\nHe went into the dining-room. He went in as carelessly as possible and\nsmoking a cigarette. He had an honourable dread of being portentous in\nhis family; almost ostentatiously he laid the bishop aside. Eleanor had\nfinished her meal, and was sitting in the arm-chair by the fire with one\nhand holding her sprained wrist.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d he said, and strolled to the hearthrug. He had had an odd idea\nthat he would find her still dirty, torn, and tearful, as her mother had\ndescribed her, a little girl in a scrape. But she had changed into\nher best white evening frock and put up her hair, and became in the\nfirelight more of a lady, a very young lady but still a lady, than she\nhad ever been to him before. She was dark like her mother, but not of\nthe same willowy type; she had more of her father's sturdy build, and\nshe had developed her shoulders at hockey and tennis. The firelight\nbrought out the gracious reposeful lines of a body that ripened in\nadolescence. And though there was a vibration of resolution in her voice\nshe spoke like one who is under her own control.\n\n\u201cMother has told you that I have disgraced myself,\u201d she began.\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d said the bishop, weighing it. \u201cNo. But you seem to have been\nindiscreet, little Norah.\u201d\n\n\u201cI got excited,\u201d she said. \u201cThey began turning out the other\nwomen--roughly. I was indignant.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou didn't go to interrupt?\u201d he asked.\n\nShe considered. \u201cNo,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I went.\u201d\n\nHe liked her disposition to get it right. \u201cOn that side,\u201d he assisted.\n\n\u201cIt isn't the same thing as really meaning, Daddy,\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cAnd then things happened?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d she said to the fire.\n\nA pause followed. If they had been in a law-court, her barrister would\nhave said, \u201cThat is my case, my lord.\u201d The bishop prepared to open the\nnext stage in the proceedings.\n\n\u201cI think, Norah, you shouldn't have been there at all,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cMother says that.\u201d\n\n\u201cA man in my position is apt to be judged by his family. You commit\nmore than yourself when you commit an indiscretion. Apart from that, it\nwasn't the place for a girl to be at. You are not a child now. We give\nyou freedom--more freedom than most girls get--because we think you\nwill use it wisely. You knew--enough to know that there was likely to be\ntrouble.\u201d\n\nThe girl looked into the fire and spoke very carefully. \u201cI don't think\nthat I oughtn't to know the things that are going on.\u201d\n\nThe bishop studied her face for an instant. It struck him that they\nhad reached something very fundamental as between parent and child. His\nmodernity showed itself in the temperance of his reply.\n\n\u201cDon't you think, my dear, that on the whole your mother and I, who have\nlived longer and know more, are more likely to know when it is best that\nyou should begin to know--this or that?\u201d\n\nThe girl knitted her brows and seemed to be reading her answer out of\nthe depths of the coals. She was on the verge of speaking, altered her\nmind and tried a different beginning.\n\n\u201cI think that every one must do their thinking--his\nthinking--for--oneself,\u201d she said awkwardly.\n\n\u201cYou mean you can't trust--?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt isn't trusting. But one knows best for oneself when one is hungry.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you find yourself hungry?\u201d\n\n\u201cI want to find out for myself what all this trouble about votes and\nthings means.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd we starve you--intellectually?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou know I don't think that. But you are busy....\u201d\n\n\u201cAren't you being perhaps a little impatient, Eleanor? After all--you\nare barely eighteen.... We have given you all sorts of liberties.\u201d\n\nHer silence admitted it. \u201cBut still,\u201d she said after a long pause,\n\u201cthere are other girls, younger than I am, in these things. They talk\nabout--oh, all sorts of things. Freely....\u201d\n\n\u201cYou've been awfully good to me,\u201d she said irrelevantly. \u201cAnd of course\nthis meeting was all pure accident.\u201d\n\nFather and daughter remained silent for awhile, seeking a better grip.\n\n\u201cWhat exactly do you want, Eleanor?\u201d he asked.\n\nShe looked up at him. \u201cGenerally?\u201d she asked.\n\n\u201cYour mother has the impression that you are discontented.\u201d\n\n\u201cDiscontented is a horrid word.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell--unsatisfied.\u201d\n\nShe remained still for a time. She felt the moment had come to make her\ndemand.\n\n\u201cI would like to go to Newnham or Somerville--and work. I feel--so\nhorribly ignorant. Of all sorts of things. If I were a son I should\ngo--\u201d\n\n\u201cYe--es,\u201d said the bishop and reflected.\n\nHe had gone rather far in the direction of the Woman Suffrage people;\nhe had advocated equality of standard in all sorts of matters, and the\nmemory of these utterances hampered him.\n\n\u201cYou could read here,\u201d he tried.\n\n\u201cIf I were a son, you wouldn't say that.\u201d\n\nHis reply was vague. \u201cBut in this home,\u201d he said, \u201cwe have a certain\natmosphere.\u201d\n\nHe left her to imply her differences in sensibility and response from\nthe hardier male.\n\nHer hesitation marked the full gravity of her reply. \u201cIt's just that,\u201d\n she said. \u201cOne feels--\u201d She considered it further. \u201cAs if we were living\nin a kind of magic world--not really real. Out there--\u201d she glanced\nover her shoulder at the drawn blind that hid the night. \u201cOne meets with\ndifferent sorts of minds and different--atmospheres. All this is very\nbeautiful. I've had the most wonderful home. But there's a sort of\nfeeling as though it couldn't really go on, as though all these strikes\nand doubts and questionings--\u201d\n\nShe stopped short at questionings, for the thing was said.\n\nThe bishop took her meaning gallantly and honestly.\n\n\u201cThe church of Christ, little Norah, is built upon a rock.\u201d\n\nShe made no answer. She moved her head very slightly so that he could\nnot see her face, and remained sitting rather stiffly and awkwardly with\nher eyes upon the fire.\n\nHer silence was the third and greatest blow the bishop received that\nday....\n\nIt seemed very long indeed before either of them spoke. At last he said:\n\u201cWe must talk about these things again, Norah, when we are less tired\nand have more time.... You have been reading books.... When Caxton set\nup his printing-press he thrust a new power between church and disciple\nand father and child.... And I am tired. We must talk it over a little\nlater.\u201d\n\nThe girl stood up. She took her father's hands. \u201cDear, dear Daddy,\u201d\n she said, \u201cI am so sorry to be a bother. I am so sorry I went to that\nmeeting.... You look tired out.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe must talk--properly,\u201d said the bishop, patting one hand, then\ndiscovering from her wincing face that it was the sprained one. \u201cYour\npoor wrist,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cIt's so hard to talk, but I want to talk to you, Daddy. It isn't that I\nhave hidden things....\u201d\n\nShe kissed him, and the bishop had the odd fancy that she kissed him as\nthough she was sorry for him....\n\nIt occurred to him that really there could be no time like the present\nfor discussing these \u201cquestionings\u201d of hers, and then his fatigue and\nshyness had the better of him again.\n\n(11)\n\n\nThe papers got hold of Eleanor's share in the suffragette disturbance.\nThe White Blackbird said things about her.\n\nIt did not attack her. It did worse. It admired her ...impudently.\n\nIt spoke of her once as \u201cNorah,\u201d and once as \u201cthe Scrope Flapper.\u201d\n\nIts headline proclaimed: \u201cPlucky Flappers Hold Up L. G.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE THIRD - INSOMNIA\n\n(1)\n\n\nTHE night after his conversation with Eleanor was the first night of the\nbishop's insomnia. It was the definite beginning of a new phase in his\nlife.\n\nDoctors explain to us that the immediate cause of insomnia is always\nsome poisoned or depleted state of the body, and no doubt the\nfatigues and hasty meals of the day had left the bishop in a state of\nunprecedented chemical disorder, with his nerves irritated by strange\ncompounds and unsoothed by familiar lubricants. But chemical disorders\nfollow mental disturbances, and the core and essence of his trouble was\nan intellectual distress. For the first time in his life he was\nreally in doubt, about himself, about his way of living, about all his\npersuasions. It was a general doubt. It was not a specific suspicion\nupon this point or that. It was a feeling of detachment and unreality at\nonce extraordinarily vague and extraordinarily oppressive. It was as\nif he discovered himself flimsy and transparent in a world of minatory\nsolidity and opacity. It was as if he found himself made not of flesh\nand blood but of tissue paper.\n\nBut this intellectual insecurity extended into his physical sensations.\nIt affected his feeling in his skin, as if it were not absolutely his\nown skin.\n\nAnd as he lay there, a weak phantom mentally and bodily, an endless\nsuccession and recurrence of anxieties for which he could find no\nreassurance besieged him.\n\nChief of this was his distress for Eleanor.\n\nShe was the central figure in this new sense of illusion in familiar and\ntrusted things. It was not only that the world of his existence which\nhad seemed to be the whole universe had become diaphanous and betrayed\nvast and uncontrollable realities beyond it, but his daughter had as it\nwere suddenly opened a door in this glassy sphere of insecurity that had\nbeen his abiding refuge, a door upon the stormy rebel outer world, and\nshe stood there, young, ignorant, confident, adventurous, ready to step\nout.\n\n\u201cCould it be possible that she did not believe?\u201d\n\nHe saw her very vividly as he had seen her in the dining-room, slender\nand upright, half child, half woman, so fragile and so fearless. And the\ndoor she opened thus carelessly gave upon a stormy background like one\nof the stormy backgrounds that were popular behind portrait Dianas in\neighteenth century paintings. Did she believe that all he had taught\nher, all the life he led was--what was her phrase?--a kind of magic\nworld, not really real?\n\nHe groaned and turned over and repeated the words: \u201cA kind of magic\nworld--not really real!\u201d\n\nThe wind blew through the door she opened, and scattered everything in\nthe room. And still she held the door open.\n\nHe was astonished at himself. He started up in swift indignation. Had\nhe not taught the child? Had he not brought her up in an atmosphere\nof faith? What right had she to turn upon him in this matter? It\nwas--indeed it was--a sort of insolence, a lack of reverence....\n\nIt was strange he had not perceived this at the time.\n\nBut indeed at the first mention of \u201cquestionings\u201d he ought to have\nthundered. He saw that quite clearly now. He ought to have cried out and\nsaid, \u201cOn your knees, my Norah, and ask pardon of God!\u201d\n\nBecause after all faith is an emotional thing....\n\nHe began to think very rapidly and copiously of things he ought to have\nsaid to Eleanor. And now the eloquence of reverie was upon him. In a\nlittle time he was also addressing the tea-party at Morrice Deans'. Upon\nthem too he ought to have thundered. And he knew now also all that he\nshould have said to the recalcitrant employer. Thunder also. Thunder is\nsurely the privilege of the higher clergy--under Jove.\n\nBut why hadn't he thundered?\n\nHe gesticulated in the darkness, thrust out a clutching hand.\n\nThere are situations that must be gripped--gripped firmly. And without\ndelay. In the middle ages there had been grip enough in a purple glove.\n\n(2)\n\n\nFrom these belated seizures of the day's lost opportunities the bishop\npassed to such a pessimistic estimate of the church as had never entered\nhis mind before.\n\nIt was as if he had fallen suddenly out of a spiritual balloon into\na world of bleak realism. He found himself asking unprecedented and\ndevastating questions, questions that implied the most fundamental\nshiftings of opinion. Why was the church such a failure? Why had it\nno grip upon either masters or men amidst this vigorous life of modern\nindustrialism, and why had it no grip upon the questioning young? It was\na tolerated thing, he felt, just as sometimes he had felt that the\nCrown was a tolerated thing. He too was a tolerated thing; a curious\nsurvival....\n\nThis was not as things should be. He struggled to recover a proper\nattitude. But he remained enormously dissatisfied....\n\nThe church was no Levite to pass by on the other side away from the\nstruggles and wrongs of the social conflict. It had no right when the\nchildren asked for the bread of life to offer them Gothic stone....\n\nHe began to make interminable weak plans for fulfilling his duty to his\ndiocese and his daughter.\n\nWhat could he do to revivify his clergy? He wished he had more personal\nmagnetism, he wished he had a darker and a larger presence. He wished he\nhad not been saddled with Whippham's rather futile son as his chaplain.\nHe wished he had a dean instead of being his own dean. With an\nunsympathetic rector. He wished he had it in him to make some resounding\nappeal. He might of course preach a series of thumping addresses and\nsermons, rather on the lines of \u201cFors Clavigera,\u201d to masters and men,\nin the Cathedral. Only it was so difficult to get either masters or men\ninto the Cathedral.\n\nWell, if the people will not come to the bishop the bishop must go out\nto the people. Should he go outside the Cathedral--to the place where\nthe trains met?\n\nInterweaving with such thoughts the problem of Eleanor rose again into\nhis consciousness.\n\nWeren't there books she ought to read? Weren't there books she ought to\nbe made to read? And books--and friends--that ought to be imperatively\nforbidden? Imperatively!\n\nBut how to define the forbidden?\n\nHe began to compose an address on Modern Literature (so-called).\n\nIt became acrimonious.\n\nBefore dawn the birds began to sing.\n\nHis mind had seemed to be a little tranquillized, there had been a\ndistinct feeling of subsidence sleepwards, when first one and then\nanother little creature roused itself and the bishop to greet the\ngathering daylight.\n\nIt became a little clamour, a misty sea of sound in which individuality\nappeared and disappeared. For a time a distant cuckoo was very\nperceptible, like a landmark looming up over a fog, like the cuckoo in\nthe Pastoral Symphony.\n\nThe bishop tried not to heed these sounds, but they were by their very\nnature insistent sounds. He lay disregarding them acutely.\n\nPresently he pulled the coverlet over his ears.\n\nA little later he sat up in bed.\n\nAgain in a slight detail he marked his strange and novel detachment from\nthe world of his upbringing. His hallucination of disillusionment had\nspread from himself and his church and his faith to the whole animate\ncreation. He knew that these were the voices of \u201cour feathered\nsongsters,\u201d that this was \u201ca joyous chorus\u201d greeting the day. He knew\nthat a wakeful bishop ought to bless these happy creatures, and join\nwith them by reciting Ken's morning hymn. He made an effort that was\nmore than half habit, to repeat and he repeated with a scowling face and\nthe voice of a schoolmaster:\n\n\n\u201cAwake my soul, and with the sun\nThy daily stage of duty run....\u201d\n\n\nHe got no further. He stopped short, sat still, thinking what utterly\ndetestable things singing birds were. A. blackbird had gripped his\nattention. Never had he heard such vain repetitions. He struggled\nagainst the dark mood of criticism. \u201cHe prayeth best who loveth best--\u201d\n\nNo, he did not love the birds. It was useless to pretend. Whatever one\nmay say about other birds a cuckoo is a low detestable cad of a bird.\n\nThen the bishop began to be particularly tormented by a bird that made a\nshort, insistent, wheezing sound at regular intervals of perhaps twenty\nseconds. If a bird could have whooping-cough, that, he thought, was the\nsort of whoop it would have. But even if it had whooping-cough he could\nnot pity it. He hung in its intervals waiting for the return of the\nwheeze.\n\nAnd then that blackbird reasserted itself. It had a rich boastful note;\nit seemed proud of its noisy reiteration of simple self-assertion. For\nsome obscure reason the phrase \u201coleographic sounds\u201d drifted into the\nbishop's thoughts. This bird produced the peculiar and irrational\nimpression that it had recently made a considerable sum of money by\nshrewd industrialism. It was, he thought grimly, a genuine Princhester\nblackbird.\n\nThis wickedly uncharitable reference to his diocese ran all unchallenged\nthrough the bishop's mind. And others no less wicked followed it.\n\nOnce during his summer holidays in Florence he and Lady Ella had\nsubscribed to an association for the protection of song-birds. He\nrecalled this now with a mild wonder. It seemed to him that perhaps\nafter all it was as well to let fruit-growers and Italians deal with\nsinging-birds in their own way. Perhaps after all they had a wisdom....\n\nHe passed his hands over his face. The world after all is not made\nentirely for singing-birds; there is such a thing as proportion.\nSinging-birds may become a luxury, an indulgence, an excess.\n\nDid the birds eat the fruit in Paradise?\n\nPerhaps there they worked for some collective musical effect, had some\nsort of conductor in the place of this--hullabaloo....\n\nHe decided to walk about the room for a time and then remake his bed....\n\nThe sunrise found the bishop with his head and shoulders out of the\nwindow trying to see that blackbird. He just wanted to look at it. He\nwas persuaded it was a quite exceptional blackbird.\n\nAgain came that oppressive sense of the futility of the contemporary\nchurch, but this time it came in the most grotesque form. For hanging\nhalf out of the casement he was suddenly reminded of St. Francis of\nAssisi, and how at his rebuke the wheeling swallow stilled their cries.\n\nBut it was all so different then.\n\n(3)\n\n\nIt was only after he had passed four similar nights, with intervening\ndays of lassitude and afternoon siestas, that the bishop realized that\nhe was in the grip of insomnia.\n\nHe did not go at once to a doctor, but he told his trouble to every one\nhe met and received much tentative advice. He had meant to have his\ntalk with Eleanor on the morning next after their conversation in the\ndining-room, but his bodily and spiritual anaemia prevented him.\n\nThe fifth night was the beginning of the Whitsuntide Ember week, and\nhe wore a red cassock and had a distracting and rather interesting day\nwelcoming his ordination candidates. They had a good effect upon him; we\nspiritualize ourselves when we seek to spiritualize others, and he went\nto bed in a happier frame of mind than he had done since the day of the\nshock. He woke in the night, but he woke much more himself than he had\nbeen since the trouble began. He repeated that verse of Ken's:\n\n\u201cWhen in the night I sleepless lie, My soul with heavenly thoughts\nsupply; Let no ill dreams disturb my rest, No powers of darkness me\nmolest.\u201d\n\n\nAlmost immediately after these there floated into his mind, as if it\nwere a message, the dear familiar words:\n\n\u201cHe giveth his Beloved sleep.\u201d\n\n\nThese words irradiated and soothed him quite miraculously, the clouds of\ndoubt seemed to dissolve and vanish and leave him safe and calm under a\nclear sky; he knew those words were a promise, and very speedily he fell\nasleep and slept until he was called.\n\nBut the next day was a troubled one. Whippham had muddled his timetable\nand crowded his afternoon; the strike of the transport workers had\nbegun, and the ugly noises they made at the tramway depot, where they\nwere booing some one, penetrated into the palace. He had to snatch a\nmeal between services, and the sense of hurry invaded his afternoon\nlectures to the candidates. He hated hurry in Ember week. His ideal was\none of quiet serenity, of grave things said slowly, of still, kneeling\nfigures, of a sort of dark cool spiritual germination. But what sort of\ndark cool spiritual germination is possible with an ass like Whippham\nabout?\n\nIn the fresh courage of the morning the bishop had arranged for that\ntalk with Eleanor he had already deferred too long, and this had proved\nless satisfactory than he had intended it to be.\n\nThe bishop's experience with the ordination candidates was following\nthe usual course. Before they came there was something bordering upon\ndistaste for the coming invasion; then always there was an effect of\nsurprise at the youth and faith of the neophytes and a real response of\nthe spirit to the occasion. Throughout the first twenty-four hours\nthey were all simply neophytes, without individuality to break up their\nuniformity of self-devotion. Then afterwards they began to develop\nlittle personal traits, and scarcely ever were these pleasing traits.\nAlways one or two of them would begin haunting the bishop, giving way\nto an appetite for special words, special recognitions. He knew the\nexpression of that craving on their faces. He knew the way-laying\nmovements in room and passage that presently began.\n\nThis time in particular there was a freckled underbred young man who\nhanded in what was evidently a carefully prepared memorandum upon what\nhe called \u201cmy positions.\u201d Apparently he had a muddle of doubts about\nthe early fathers and the dates of the earlier authentic copies of the\ngospels, things of no conceivable significance.\n\nThe bishop glanced through this bale of papers--it had of course no\nindex and no synopsis, and some of the pages were not numbered--handed\nit over to Whippham, and when he proved, as usual, a broken reed, the\nbishop had the brilliant idea of referring the young man to Canon Bliss\n(of Pringle), \u201cwho has a special knowledge quite beyond my own in this\nfield.\u201d\n\nBut he knew from the young man's eye even as he said this that it was\nnot going to put him off for more than a day or so.\n\nThe immediate result of glancing over these papers was, however, to\nenhance in the bishop's mind a growing disposition to minimize the\nimportance of all dated and explicit evidences and arguments for\northodox beliefs, and to resort to vague symbolic and liberal\ninterpretations, and it was in this state that he came to his talk with\nEleanor.\n\nHe did not give her much time to develop her objections. He met her\nhalf way and stated them for her, and overwhelmed her with sympathy\nand understanding. She had been \u201ctoo literal.\u201d \u201cToo literal\u201d was his\nkeynote. He was a little astonished at the liberality of his own views.\nHe had been getting along now for some years without looking into his\nown opinions too closely and he was by no means prepared to discover\nhow far he had come to meet his daughter's scepticisms. But he did meet\nthem. He met them so thoroughly that he almost conveyed that hers was a\nneedlessly conservative and oldfashioned attitude.\n\nOccasionally he felt he was being a little evasive, but she did not\nseem to notice it. As she took his drift, her relief and happiness were\nmanifest. And he had never noticed before how clear and pretty her eyes\nwere; they were the most honest eyes he had ever seen. She looked at him\nvery steadily as he explained, and lit up at his points. She brightened\nwonderfully as she realized that after all they were not apart, they had\nnot differed; simply they had misunderstood....\n\nAnd before he knew where he was, and in a mere parenthetical declaration\nof liberality, he surprised himself by conceding her demand for Newnham\neven before she had repeated it. It helped his case wonderfully.\n\n\u201cCall in every exterior witness you can. The church will welcome\nthem.... No, I want you to go, my dear....\u201d\n\nBut his mind was stirred again to its depths by this discussion. And\nin particular he was surprised and a little puzzled by this Newnham\nconcession and the necessity of making his new attitude clear to Lady\nElla....\n\nIt was with a sense of fatality that he found himself awake again that\nnight, like some one lying drowned and still and yet perfectly conscious\nat the bottom of deep cold water.\n\nHe repeated, \u201cHe giveth his Beloved sleep,\u201d but all the conviction had\ngone out of the words.\n\n(4)\n\n\nNeither the bishop's insomnia nor his incertitudes about himself and his\nfaith developed in a simple and orderly manner. There were periods of\nsustained suffering and periods of recovery; it was not for a year or\nso that he regarded these troubles as more than acute incidental\ninterruptions of his general tranquillity or realized that he was\npassing into a new phase of life and into a new quality of thought.\nHe told every one of the insomnia and no one of his doubts; these he\nbetrayed only by an increasing tendency towards vagueness, symbolism,\npoetry and toleration. Eleanor seemed satisfied with his exposition; she\ndid not press for further enlightenment. She continued all her outward\nconformities except that after a time she ceased to communicate; and in\nSeptember she went away to Newnham. Her doubts had not visibly affected\nClementina or her other sisters, and the bishop made no further attempts\nto explore the spiritual life of his family below the surface of its\nformal acquiescence.\n\nAs a matter of fact his own spiritual wrestlings were almost exclusively\nnocturnal. During his spells of insomnia he led a curiously double\nexistence. In the daytime he was largely the self he had always been,\nable, assured, ecclesiastical, except that he was a little jaded and\nirritable or sleepy instead of being quick and bright; he believed in\nGod and the church and the Royal Family and himself securely; in\nthe wakeful night time he experienced a different and novel self, a\nbare-minded self, bleakly fearless at its best, shamelessly weak at its\nworst, critical, sceptical, joyless, anxious. The anxiety was quite the\nworst element of all. Something sat by his pillow asking grey questions:\n\u201cWhat are you doing? Where are you going? Is it really well with the\nchildren? Is it really well with the church? Is it really well with the\ncountry? Are you indeed doing anything at all? Are you anything more\nthan an actor wearing a costume in an archaic play? The people turn\ntheir backs on you.\u201d\n\nHe would twist over on his pillow. He would whisper hymns and prayers\nthat had the quality of charms.\n\n\u201cHe giveth his Beloved sleep\u201d; that answered many times, and many times\nit failed.\n\nThe labour troubles of 1912 eased off as the year wore on, and the\nbitterness of the local press over the palace abated very considerably.\nIndeed there was something like a watery gleam of popularity when he\nbrought down his consistent friend, the dear old Princess Christiana of\nHoch and Unter, black bonnet, deafness, and all, to open a new wing of\nthe children's hospital. The Princhester conservative paper took the\noccasion to inform the diocese that he was a fluent German scholar and\nconsequently a persona grata with the royal aunts, and that the Princess\nChristiana was merely just one of a number of royalties now practically\nat the beck and call of Princhester. It was not true, but it was very\neffective locally, and seemed to justify a little the hauteur of which\nLady Ella was so unjustly suspected. Yet it involved a possibility of\ndisappointments in the future.\n\nHe went to Brighton-Pomfrey too upon the score of his general health,\nand Brighton-Pomfrey revised his general regimen, discouraged indiscreet\nfasting, and suggested a complete abstinence from red wine except white\nport, if indeed that can be called a red wine, and a moderate use of\nEgyptian cigarettes.\n\nBut 1913 was a strenuous year. The labour troubles revived, the\nsuffragette movement increased greatly in violence and aggressiveness,\nand there sprang up no less than three ecclesiastical scandals in\nthe diocese. First, the Kensitites set themselves firmly to make\npresentations and prosecutions against Morrice Deans, who was reserving\nthe sacrament, wearing, they said, \u201cBabylonish garments,\u201d going beyond\nall reason in the matter of infant confession, and generally brightening\nup Mogham Banks; next, a popular preacher in Wombash, published a book\nunder the exasperating title, \u201cThe Light Under the Altar,\u201d in which\nhe showed himself as something between an Arian and a Pantheist, and\ntreated the dogma of the Trinity with as little respect as one would\nshow to an intrusive cat; while thirdly, an obscure but overworked\nmissioner of a tin mission church in the new working-class district at\nPringle, being discovered in some sort of polygamous relationship, had\nseen fit to publish in pamphlet form a scandalous admission and defence,\na pamphlet entitled \u201cMarriage True and False,\u201d taking the public\nneedlessly into his completest confidence and quoting the affairs of\nAbraham and Hosea, reviving many points that are better forgotten about\nLuther, and appealing also to such uncanonical authorities as\nMilton, Plato, and John Humphrey Noyes. This abnormal concurrence of\nindiscipline was extremely unlucky for the bishop. It plunged him into\nstrenuous controversy upon three fronts, so to speak, and involved\na great number of personal encounters far too vivid for his mental\nserenity.\n\nThe Pringle polygamist was the most moving as Morrice Deans was the most\nexacting and troublesome and the Wombash Pantheist the most insidiously\ndestructive figure in these three toilsome disputes. The Pringle man's\nsoul had apparently missed the normal distribution of fig-leaves; he\nwas an illiterate, open-eyed, hard-voiced, freckled, rational-minded\ncreature, with large expository hands, who had come by a side way into\nthe church because he was an indefatigable worker, and he insisted upon\ntelling the bishop with an irrepressible candour and completeness just\nexactly what was the matter with his intimate life. The bishop very\nearnestly did not want these details, and did his utmost to avoid the\ncontroversial questions that the honest man pressed respectfully but\nobstinately upon him.\n\n\u201cEven St. Paul, my lord, admitted that it is better to marry than burn,\u201d\n said the Pringle misdemeanant, \u201cand here was I, my lord, married and\nstill burning!\u201d and, \u201cI think you would find, my lord, considering\nall Charlotte's peculiarities, that the situation was really much more\ntrying than the absolute celibacy St. Paul had in view.\u201d...\n\nThe bishop listened to these arguments as little as possible, and did\nnot answer them at all. But afterwards the offender came and wept and\nsaid he was ruined and heartbroken and unfairly treated because\nhe wasn't a gentleman, and that was distressing. It was so exactly\ntrue--and so inevitable. He had been deprived, rather on account of\nhis voice and apologetics than of his offence, and public opinion was\nsolidly with the sentence. He made a gallant effort to found what\nhe called a Labour Church in Pringle, and after some financial\nmisunderstandings departed with his unambiguous menage to join the\nadvanced movement on the Clyde.\n\nThe Morrice Deans enquiry however demanded an amount of erudition that\ngreatly fatigued the bishop. He had a very fair general knowledge of\nvestments, but he had never really cared for anything but the poetry of\nornaments, and he had to work strenuously to master the legal side\nof the question. Whippham, his chaplain, was worse than useless as a\nhelper. The bishop wanted to end the matter as quickly, quietly, and\nfavourably to Morrice Deans as possible; he thought Morrice Deans a\nthoroughly good man in his parish, and he believed that the substitution\nof a low churchman would mean a very complete collapse of church\ninfluence in Mogham Banks, where people were now thoroughly accustomed\nto a highly ornate service. But Morrice Deans was intractable and his\npursuers indefatigable, and on several occasions the bishop sat far into\nthe night devising compromises and equivocations that should make the\nKensitites think that Morrice Deans wasn't wearing vestments when he\nwas, and that should make Morrice Deans think he was wearing vestments\nwhen he wasn't. And it was Whippham who first suggested green tea as\na substitute for coffee, which gave the bishop indigestion, as his\nstimulant for these nocturnal bouts.\n\nNow green tea is the most lucid of poisons.\n\nAnd while all this extra activity about Morrice Deans, these vigils and\ncrammings and writings down, were using all and more energy than the\nbishop could well spare, he was also doing his quiet utmost to keep \u201cThe\nLight under the Altar\u201d ease from coming to a head.\n\nThis man he hated.\n\nAnd he dreaded him as well as hated him. Chasters, the author of \u201cThe\nLight under the Altar,\u201d was a man who not only reasoned closely\nbut indelicately. There was a demonstrating, jeering, air about his\npreaching and writing, and everything he said and did was saturated by\nthe spirit of challenge. He did not so much imitate as exaggerate the\nstyle of Matthew Arnold. And whatever was done publicly against him\nwould have to be done very publicly because his book had got him a\nLondon reputation.\n\nFrom the bishop's point of view Chasters was one of nature's ignoblemen.\nHe seemed to have subscribed to the Thirty-Nine Articles and passed all\nthe tests and taken all the pledges that stand on the way to ordination,\nchiefly for the pleasure of attacking them more successfully from the\nrear; he had been given the living of Wombash by a cousin, and filled it\nvery largely because it was not only more piquant but more remunerative\nand respectable to be a rationalist lecturer in a surplice. And in a\nhard kind of ultra-Protestant way his social and parochial work was not\nbadly done. But his sermons were terrible. \u201cHe takes a text,\u201d said one\ninformant, \u201cand he goes on firstly, secondly, thirdly, fourthly, like\nsomebody tearing the petals from a flower. 'Finally,' he says, and\nthrows the bare stalk into the dustbin.\u201d\n\nThe bishop avoided \u201cThe Light under the Altar\u201d for nearly a year. It\nwas only when a second book was announced with the winning title of \u201cThe\nCore of Truth in Christianity\u201d that he perceived he must take action.\nHe sat up late one night with a marked copy, a very indignantly marked\ncopy, of the former work that an elderly colonel, a Wombash parishioner,\nan orthodox Layman of the most virulent type, had sent him. He perceived\nthat he had to deal with a dialectician of exceptional ability, who had\nconcentrated a quite considerable weight of scholarship upon the task of\nexplaining away every scrap of spiritual significance in the Eucharist.\nFrom Chasters the bishop was driven by reference to the works of Legge\nand Frazer, and for the first time he began to measure the dimensions\nand power of the modern criticism of church doctrine and observance.\nGreen tea should have lit his way to refutation; instead it lit up the\nwhole inquiry with a light of melancholy confirmation. Neither by night\nnor by day could the bishop find a proper method of opening a counter\nattack upon Chasters, who was indisputably an intellectually abler man\nand a very ruthless beast indeed to assail, and meanwhile the demand\nthat action should be taken increased.\n\nThe literature of church history and the controversies arising out of\ndoctrinal development became the employment of the bishop's leisure and\na commanding preoccupation. He would have liked to discuss with some one\nelse the network of perplexities in which he was entangling himself, and\nmore particularly with Canon Bliss, but his own positions were becoming\nso insecure that he feared to betray them by argument. He had grown up\nwith a kind of intellectual modesty. Some things he had never yet talked\nabout; it made his mind blench to think of talking about them. And his\ngreat aching gaps of wakefulness began now, thanks to the green tea, to\nbe interspersed with theological dreams and visions of an extravagant\nvividness. He would see Frazer's sacrificial kings butchered\npicturesquely and terribly amidst strange and grotesque rituals; he\nwould survey long and elaborate processions and ceremonials in which\nthe most remarkable symbols were borne high in the sight of all men; he\nwould cower before a gigantic and threatening Heaven. These\ngreen-tea dreams and visions were not so much phases of sleep as an\nintensification and vivid furnishing forth of insomnia. It added\ngreatly to his disturbance that--exceeding the instructions of\nBrighton-Pomfrey--he had now experimented ignorantly and planlessly\nwith one or two narcotics and sleeping mixtures that friends and\nacquaintances had mentioned in his hearing. For the first time in his\nlife he became secretive from his wife. He knew he ought not to take\nthese things, he knew they were physically and morally evil, but\na tormenting craving drove him to them. Subtly and insensibly his\ncharacter was being undermined by the growing nervous trouble.\n\nHe astonished himself by the cunning and the hypocritical dignity he\ncould display in procuring these drugs. He arranged to have a tea-making\nset in his bedroom, and secretly substituted green tea, for which he\ndeveloped a powerful craving, in the place of the delicate China tea\nLady Ella procured him.\n\n(5)\n\n\nThese doctrinal and physical anxieties and distresses were at their\nworst in the spring and early summer of 1914. That was a time of great\nmental and moral disturbance. There was premonition in the air of those\ndays. It was like the uneasiness sensitive people experience before a\nthunderstorm. The moral atmosphere was sullen and close. The whole\nworld seemed irritable and mischievous. The suffragettes became\nextraordinarily malignant; the democratic movement went rotten with\nsabotage and with a cant of being \u201crebels\u201d; the reactionary Tories and a\ncrew of noisy old peeresses set themselves to create incurable confusion\nagain in the healing wounds of Ireland, and feuds and frantic folly\nbroke out at every point of the social and political edifice. And then\na bomb burst at Sarajevo that silenced all this tumult. The unstable\npolity of Europe heeled over like a ship that founders.\n\nThrough the swiftest, tensest week in history Europe capsized into war.\n\n(6)\n\n\nThe first effect of the war upon the mind of the bishop, as upon\nmost imaginative minds, was to steady and exalt it. Trivialities and\nexasperations seemed swept out of existence. Men lifted up their eyes\nfrom disputes that had seemed incurable and wrangling that promised to\nbe interminable, and discovered a plain and tragic issue that involved\nevery one in a common call for devotion. For a great number of men and\nwomen who had been born and bred in security, the August and September\nof 1914 were the supremely heroic period of their lives. Myriads\nof souls were born again to ideas of service and sacrifice in those\ntremendous days.\n\nBlack and evil thing as the war was, it was at any rate a great thing;\nit did this much for countless minds that for the first time they\nrealized the epic quality of history and their own relationship to the\ndestinies of the race. The flimsy roof under which we had been living\nour lives of comedy fell and shattered the floor under our feet; we saw\nthe stars above and the abyss below. We perceived that life was insecure\nand adventurous, part of one vast adventure in space and time....\n\nPresently the smoke and dust of battle hid the great distances again,\nbut they could not altogether destroy the memories of this revelation.\n\nFor the first two months the bishop's attention was so detached from\nhis immediate surroundings and employments, so absorbed by great events,\nthat his history if it were told in detail would differ scarcely at all\nfrom the histories of most comparatively unemployed minds during those\nfirst dramatic days, the days when the Germans made their great rush\nupon Paris and it seemed that France was down, France and the whole\nfabric of liberal civilization. He emerged from these stunning\napprehensions after the Battle of the Marne, to find himself busy upon a\nscore of dispersed and disconnected war jobs, and trying to get all the\nnew appearances and forces and urgencies of the war into relations with\nhimself. One thing became very vivid indeed, that he wasn't being used\nin any real and effective way in the war. There was a mighty going\nto and fro upon Red Cross work and various war committees, a vast\npreparation for wounded men and for the succour of dislocated\nfamilies; a preparation, that proved to be needless, for catastrophic\nunemployment. The war problem and the puzzle of German psychology ousted\nfor a time all other intellectual interests; like every one else the\nbishop swam deep in Nietzsche, Bernhardi, Houston Stewart Chamberlain,\nand the like; he preached several sermons upon German materialism\nand the astonishing decay of the German character. He also read every\nnewspaper he could lay his hands on--like any secular man. He signed\nan address to the Russian Orthodox church, beginning \u201cBrethren,\u201d and\nhe revised his impressions of the Filioque controversy. The idea of a\nreunion of the two great state churches of Russia and England had always\nattracted him. But hitherto it had been a thing quite out of scale,\nvisionary, utopian. Now in this strange time of altered perspectives it\nseemed the most practicable of suggestions. The mayor and corporation\nand a detachment of the special reserve in uniform came to a great\nintercession service, and in the palace there were two conferences of\nlocal influential people, people of the most various types, people\nwho had never met tolerantly before, expressing now opinions of\nunprecedented breadth and liberality.\n\nAll this sort of thing was fresh and exciting at first, and then it\nbegan to fall into a routine and became habitual, and as it became\nhabitual he found that old sense of detachment and futility was creeping\nback again. One day he realized that indeed the whole flood and tumult\nof the war would be going on almost exactly as it was going on now if\nthere had been neither cathedral nor bishop in Princhester. It came to\nhim that if archbishops were rolled into patriarchs and patriarchs into\narchbishops, it would matter scarcely more in the world process that was\nafoot than if two men shook hands while their house was afire. At times\nall of us have inappropriate thoughts. The unfortunate thought that\nstruck the bishop as a bullet might strike a man in an exposed trench,\nas he was hurrying through the cloisters to a special service and\naddress upon that doubly glorious day in our English history, the day of\nSt. Crispin, was of Diogenes rolling his tub.\n\nIt was a poisonous thought.\n\nIt arose perhaps out of an article in a weekly paper at which he had\nglanced after lunch, an article written by one of those sceptical\nspirits who find all too abundant expression in our periodical\nliterature. The writer boldly charged the \u201cChristian churches\u201d with\nabsolute ineffectiveness. This war, he declared, was above all other\nwars a war of ideas, of material organization against rational freedom,\nof violence against law; it was a war more copiously discussed than any\nwar had ever been before, the air was thick with apologetics. And what\nwas the voice of the church amidst these elemental issues? Bishops and\ndivines who were patriots one heard discordantly enough, but where were\nthe bishops and divines who spoke for the Prince of Peace? Where was the\nblessing of the church, where was the veto of the church? When it\ncame to that one discovered only a broad preoccupied back busied in\nsupplementing the Army Medical Corps with Red Cross activities, good\nwork in its way--except that the canonicals seemed superfluous. Who\nindeed looked to the church for any voice at all? And so to Diogenes.\n\nThe bishop's mind went hunting for an answer to that indictment. And\ncame back and came back to the image of Diogenes.\n\nIt was with that image dangling like a barbed arrow from his mind that\nthe bishop went into the pulpit to preach upon St. Crispin's day, and\nlooked down upon a thin and scattered congregation in which the elderly,\nthe childless, and the unoccupied predominated.\n\nThat night insomnia resumed its sway.\n\nOf course the church ought to be controlling this great storm, the\ngreatest storm of war that had ever stirred mankind. It ought to be\nstanding fearlessly between the combatants like a figure in a wall\npainting, with the cross of Christ uplifted and the restored memory of\nChristendom softening the eyes of the armed nations. \u201cPut down those\nweapons and listen to me,\u201d so the church should speak in irresistible\ntones, in a voice of silver trumpets.\n\nInstead it kept a long way from the fighting, tucked up its vestments,\nand was rolling its local tubs quite briskly.\n\n(7)\n\n\nAnd then came the aggravation of all these distresses by an abrupt\nabandonment of smoking and alcohol. Alcoholic relaxation, a necessary\nmitigation of the unreality of peacetime politics, becomes a grave\ndanger in war, and it was with an understandable desire to forward the\ninterests of his realm that the King decided to set his statesmen an\nexample--which unhappily was not very widely followed--by abstaining\nfrom alcohol during the continuance of the struggle. It did however\nswing over the Bishop of Princhester to an immediate and complete\nabandonment of both drink and tobacco. At that time he was finding\ncomfort for his nerves in Manila cheroots, and a particularly big and\nheavy type of Egyptian cigarette with a considerable amount of opium,\nand his disorganized system seized upon this sudden change as a\ngrievance, and set all his jangling being crying aloud for one\ncigarette--just one cigarette.\n\nThe cheroots, it seemed, he could better spare, but a cigarette became\nhis symbol for his lost steadiness and ease.\n\nIt brought him low.\n\nThe reader has already been told the lamentable incident of the stolen\ncigarette and the small boy, and how the bishop, tormented by that\nshameful memory, cried aloud in the night.\n\nThe bishop rolled his tub, and is there any tub-rolling in the world\nmore busy and exacting than a bishop's? He rolled in it spite of\nill-health and insomnia, and all the while he was tormented by the\nenormous background of the world war, by his ineffective realization\nof vast national needs, by his passionate desire, for himself and his\nchurch, not to be ineffective.\n\nThe distressful alternation between nights of lucid doubt and days of\ndull acquiescence was resumed with an intensification of its contrasts.\nThe brief phase of hope that followed the turn of the fighting upon the\nMaine, the hope that after all the war would end swiftly, dramatically,\nand justly, and everything be as it had been before--but pleasanter,\ngave place to a phase that bordered upon despair. The fall of Antwerp\nand the doubts and uncertainties of the Flanders situation weighed\nterribly upon the bishop. He was haunted for a time by nightmares of\nZeppelins presently raining fire upon London. These visions became\nApocalyptic. The Zeppelins came to England with the new year, and with\nthe close of the year came the struggle for Ypres that was so near\nto being a collapse of the allied defensive. The events of the early\nspring, the bloody failure of British generalship at Neuve Chapelle,\nthe naval disaster in the Dardanelles, the sinking of the Falaba,\nthe Russian defeat in the Masurian Lakes, all deepened the bishop's\nimpression of the immensity of the nation's difficulties and of his\nown unhelpfulness. He was ashamed that the church should hold back its\ncurates from enlistment while the French priests were wearing their\nuniforms in the trenches; the expedition of the Bishop of London to\nhold open-air services at the front seemed merely to accentuate the\ntub-rolling. It was rolling the tub just where it was most in the way.\n\nWhat was wrong? What was wanting?\n\nThe Westminster Gazette, The Spectator, and several other of the most\ntrusted organs of public opinion were intermittently discussing the same\nquestion. Their discussions implied at once the extreme need that\nwas felt for religion by all sorts of representative people, and the\nuniversal conviction that the church was in some way muddling and\nmasking her revelation. \u201cWhat is wrong with the Churches?\u201d was,\nfor example, the general heading of The Westminster Gazette's\ncorrespondence.\n\nOne day the bishop skimmed a brief incisive utterance by Sir Harry\nJohnston that pierced to the marrow of his own shrinking convictions.\nSir Harry is one of those people who seem to write as well as speak in\na quick tenor. \u201cInstead of propounding plainly and without the acereted\nmythology of Asia Minor, Greece and Rome, the pure Gospel of Christ....\nthey present it overloaded with unbelievable myths (such as, among\na thousand others, that Massacre of the Innocents which never took\nplace).... bore their listeners by a Tibetan repetition of creeds that\nhave ceased to be credible.... Mutually contradictory propositions....\nPrayers and litanies composed in Byzantine and mediaeval times....\nthe want of actuality, the curious silliness which has, ever since the\ndestruction of Jerusalem, hung about the exposition of Christianity....\nBut if the Bishops continue to fuss about the trappings of religion....\nthe maintenance of codes compiled by people who lived sixteen hundred\nor two thousand five hundred years ago.... the increasingly educated\nand practical-minded working classes will not come to church, weekday or\nSunday.\u201d\n\nThe bishop held the paper in his hand, and with a mind that he felt to\nbe terribly open, asked himself how true that sharp indictment might be,\nand, granting its general truth, what was the duty of the church, that\nis to say of the bishops, for as Cyprian says, ecelesia est in episcopo.\nWe say the creeds; how far may we unsay them?\n\nSo far he had taken no open action against Chasters. Suppose now he\nwere to side with Chasters and let the whole diocese, the church of\nPrinchester, drift as far as it chose under his inaction towards an\nextreme modernism, risking a conflict with, and if necessary fighting,\nthe archbishop.... It was but for a moment that his mind swung to this\npossibility and then recoiled. The Laymen, that band of bigots, would\nfight. He could not contemplate litigation and wrangling about the\nteaching of the church. Besides, what were the \u201ctrappings of religion\u201d\n and what the essentials? What after all was \u201cthe pure gospel of Christ\u201d\n of which this writer wrote so glibly? He put the paper down and took a\nNew Testament from his desk and opened it haphazard. He felt a curious\nwish that he could read it for the first time. It was over-familiar.\nEverything latterly in his theology and beliefs had become\nover-familiar. It had all become mechanical and dead and unmeaning to\nhis tired mind....\n\nWhippham came with a reminder of more tub-rolling, and the bishop's\nspeculations were broken off.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FOURTH - THE SYMPATHY OF LADY SUNDERBUND\n\n(1)\n\n\nTHAT night when he cried aloud at the memory of his furtive cigarette,\nthe bishop was staying with a rich man named Garstein Fellows. These\nGarstein Fellows people were steel people with a financial side to them;\nyoung Garstein Fellows had his fingers in various chemical businesses,\nand the real life of the firm was in various minor partners called\nHartstein and Blumenhart and so forth, who had acquired a considerable\namount of ungentlemanly science and energy in Germany and German\nSwitzerland. But the Fellows element was good old Princhester stuff.\nThere had been a Fellows firm in Princhester in 1819. They were not\npeople the bishop liked and it was not a house the bishop liked staying\nat, but it had become part of his policy to visit and keep in touch with\nas many of the local plutocracy as he could, to give and take with them,\nin order to make the presence of the church a reality to them. It had\nbeen not least among the negligences and evasions of the sainted but\nindolent Hood that he had invariably refused overnight hospitality\nwhenever it was possible for him to get back to his home. The morning\nwas his working time. His books and hymns had profited at the cost of\nmissing many a generous after-dinner subscription, and at the expense\nof social unity. From the outset Scrope had set himself to alter this.\nA certain lack of enthusiasm on Lady Ella's part had merely provoked\nhim to greater effort on his own. His ideal of what was needed with the\npeople was something rather jolly and familiar, something like a very\ngood and successful French or Irish priest, something that came\neasily and readily into their homes and laid a friendly hand on their\nshoulders. The less he liked these rich people naturally the more\nfamiliar his resolution to be successfully intimate made him. He put\ndown the names and brief characteristics of their sons and daughters in\na little note-book and consulted it before every visit so as to get\nhis most casual enquiries right. And he invited himself to the Garstein\nFellows house on this occasion by telegram.\n\n\n\u201cA special mission and some business in Wombash may I have a scrap of\nsupper and a bed?\u201d\n\n\nNow Mrs. Garstein Fellows was a thoroughly London woman; she was one of\nthe banking Grunenbaums, the fair tall sort, and she had a very decided\ntendency to smartness. She had a little party in the house, a sort of\nlong week-end party, that made her hesitate for a minute or so before\nshe framed a reply to the bishop's request.\n\n\nIt was the intention of Mrs. Garstein Fellows to succeed very\nconspicuously in the British world, and the British world she felt was\na complicated one; it is really not one world but several, and if you\nwould surely succeed you must keep your peace with all the systems and\nbe a source of satisfaction to all of them. So at least Mrs. Garstein\nFellows saw it, and her method was to classify her acquaintances\naccording to their systems, to keep them in their proper bundles, and\nto give every one the treatment he or she was accustomed to receive. And\nsince all things British are now changing and passing away, it may not\nbe uninteresting to record the classification Mrs. Garstein Fellows\nadopted. First she set apart as most precious and desirable, and\nrequiring the most careful treatment, the \u201ccourt dowdies \u201c--for so it\nwas that the dignity and quiet good taste that radiated from Buckingham\nPalace impressed her restless, shallow mind--the sort of people who\nprefer pair horse carriages to automobiles, have quiet friendships in\nthe highest quarters, quietly do not know any one else, busy themselves\nwith charities, dress richly rather than impressively, and have either\nlittle water-colour accomplishments or none at all, and no other\nrelations with \u201cart.\u201d At the skirts of this crowning British world Mrs.\nGarstein Fellows tugged industriously and expensively. She did not keep\na carriage and pair and an old family coachman because that, she felt,\nwould be considered pushing and presumptuous; she had the sense to stick\nto her common unpretending 80 h.p. Daimler; but she wore a special sort\nof blackish hat-bonnet for such occasions as brought her near the centre\nof honour, which she got from a little good shop known only to very few\noutside the inner ring, which hat-bonnet she was always careful to\nsit on for a few minutes before wearing. And it was to this first and\nhighest and best section of her social scheme that she considered that\nbishops properly belonged. But some bishops, and in particular such\na comparatively bright bishop as the Bishop of Princhester, she also\nthought of as being just as comfortably accommodated in her second\nsystem, the \u201cserious liberal lot,\u201d which was more fatiguing and less\nboring, which talked of books and things, visited the Bells, went to all\nfirst-nights when Granville Barker was the producer, and knew and valued\npeople in the grey and earnest plains between the Cecils and the Sidney\nWebbs. And thirdly there were the smart intellectual lot, again not very\nwell marked off, and on the whole practicable to bishops, of whom fewer\nparticulars are needed because theirs is a perennial species, and then\nfinally there was that fourth world which was paradoxically at once very\nbrilliant and a little shady, which had its Night Club side, and seemed\nto set no limit to its eccentricities. It seemed at times to be aiming\nto shock and yet it had its standards, but here it was that the dancers\nand actresses and forgiven divorcees came in--and the bishops as a rule,\na rule hitherto always respected, didn't. This was the ultimate world of\nMrs. Garstein Fellows; she had no use for merely sporting people and\nthe merely correct smart and the duller county families, sets that led\nnowhere, and it was from her fourth system of the Glittering Doubtfuls\nthat this party which made her hesitate over the bishop's telegram, was\nderived.\n\nShe ran over their names as she sat considering her reply.\n\nWhat was there for a bishop to object to? There was that admirable\nAmerican widow, Lady Sunderbund. She was enormously rich, she was\nenthusiastic. She was really on probation for higher levels; it was her\ndecolletage delayed her. If only she kept off theosophy and the Keltic\nrenascence and her disposition to profess wild intellectual passions,\nthere would be no harm in her. Provided she didn't come down to dinner\nin anything too fantastically scanty--but a word in season was possible.\nNo! there was no harm in Lady Sunderbund. Then there were Ridgeway Kelso\nand this dark excitable Catholic friend of his, Paidraig O'Gorman. Mrs.\nGarstein Fellows saw no harm in them. Then one had to consider Lord\nGatling and Lizzie Barusetter. But nothing showed, nothing was likely to\nshow even if there was anything. And besides, wasn't there a Church and\nStage Guild?\n\nExcept for those people there seemed little reason for alarm. Mrs.\nGarstein Fellows did not know that Professor Hoppart, who so amusingly\ncombined a professorship of political economy with the writing of\nmusic-hall lyrics, was a keen amateur theologian, nor that Bent, the\nsentimental novelist, had a similar passion. She did not know that her\nown eldest son, a dark, romantic-looking youngster from Eton, had also\ncome to the theological stage of development. She did however weigh\nthe possibilities of too liberal opinions on what are called social\nquestions on the part of Miss Sharsper, the novelist, and decided that\nif that lady was watched nothing so terrible could be said even in an\nundertone; and as for the Mariposa, the dancer, she had nothing but\nSpanish and bad French, she looked all right, and it wasn't very likely\nshe would go out of her way to startle an Anglican bishop. Simply she\nneedn't dance. Besides which even if a man does get a glimpse of a\nlittle something--it isn't as if it was a woman.\n\nBut of course if the party mustn't annoy the bishop, the bishop must\ndo his duty by the party. There must be the usual purple and the silver\nbuckles.\n\nShe wired back:\n\n\n\u201cA little party but it won't put you out send your man with your\nchange.\u201d\n\n(2)\n\n\nIn making that promise Mrs. Garstein Fellows reckoned without the\nmorbid sensibility of the bishop's disorganized nervous system and the\nunsuspected theological stirrings beneath the apparent worldliness of\nHoppart and Bent.\n\nThe trouble began in the drawing-room after dinner. Out of deference to\nthe bishop's abstinence the men did not remain to smoke, but came in to\nfind the Mariposa and Lady Sunderbund smoking cigarettes, which these\nladies continued to do a little defiantly. They had hoped to finish them\nbefore the bishop came up. The night was chilly, and a cheerful wood\nfire cracking and banging on the fireplace emphasized the ordinary\nheating. Mrs. Garstein Fellows, who had not expected so prompt an\nappearance of the men, had arranged her chairs in a semicircle for a\nlittle womanly gossip, and before she could intervene she found her\nparty, with the exception of Lord Gatling, who had drifted just a little\ntoo noticeably with Miss Barnsetter into a window, sitting round with\na conscious air, that was perhaps just a trifle too apparent, of being\n\u201cgood.\u201d\n\nAnd Mr. Bent plunged boldly into general conversation.\n\n\u201cAre you reading anything now, Mrs. Garstein Fellows?\u201d he asked. \u201cI'm an\ninterested party.\u201d\n\nShe was standing at the side of the fireplace. She bit her lip and\nlooked at the cornice and meditated with a girlish expression. \u201cYes,\u201d\n she said. \u201cI am reading again. I didn't think I should but I am.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor a time,\u201d said Hoppart, \u201cI read nothing but the papers. I bought\nfrom a dozen to twenty a day.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is wearing off,\u201d said the bishop.\n\n\u201cThe first thing I began to read again,\u201d said Mrs. Garstein Fellows,\n\u201c--I'm not saying it for your sake, Bishop--was the Bible.\u201d\n\n\u201cI went to the Bible,\u201d said Bent as if he was surprised.\n\n\u201cI've heard that before,\u201d said Ridgeway Kelso, in that slightly\nexplosive manner of his. \u201cAll sorts of people who don't usually read the\nBible--\u201d\n\n\u201cBut Mr. Kelso!\u201d protested their hostess with raised eyebrows.\n\n\u201cI was thinking of Bent. But anyhow there's been a great wave of\nseriousness, a sudden turning to religion and religious things. I don't\nknow if it comes your way, Bishop....\u201d\n\n\u201cI've had no rows of penitents yet.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe may be coming,\u201d said Hoppart.\n\nHe turned sideways to face the bishop. \u201cI think we should be coming\nif--if it wasn't for old entangled difficulties. I don't know if you\nwill mind my saying it to you, but....\u201d\n\nThe bishop returned his frank glance. \u201cI'd like to know above all\nthings,\u201d he said. \u201cIf Mrs. Garstein Fellow will permit us. It's my\nbusiness to know.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe all want to know,\u201d said Lady Sunderbund, speaking from the low chair\non the other side of the fireplace. There was a vibration in her voice\nand a sudden gleam of enthusiasm in her face. \u201cWhy shouldn't people talk\nse'iously sometimes?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, take my own case,\u201d said Hoppart. \u201cIn the last few weeks, I've\nbeen reading not only in the Bible but in the Fathers. I've read most of\nAthanasius, most of Eusebius, and--I'll confess it--Gibbon. I find all\nmy old wonder come back. Why are we pinned to--to the amount of creed we\nare pinned to? Why for instance must you insist on the Trinity?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said the Eton boy explosively, and flushed darkly to find he had\nspoken.\n\n\u201cHere is a time when men ask for God,\u201d said Hoppart. \u201cAnd you give them\nthree!\u201d cried Bent rather cheaply. \u201cI confess I find the way encumbered\nby these Alexandrian elaborations,\u201d Hoppart completed.\n\n\u201cNeed it be?\u201d whispered Lady Sunderbund very softly.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said the bishop, and leant back in his armchair and knitted his\nbrow at the fire. \u201cI do not think,\u201d he said, \u201cthat men coming to God\nthink very much of the nature of God. Nevertheless,\u201d he spoke slowly\nand patted the arm of his chair, \u201cnevertheless the church insists that\ncertain vitally important truths have to be conveyed, certain mortal\nerrors are best guarded against, by these symbols.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou admit they are symbols.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo the church has always called them.\u201d\n\nHoppart showed by a little movement and grimace that he thought the\nbishop quibbled.\n\n\u201cIn every sense of the word,\u201d the bishop hastened to explain, \u201cthe\ncreeds are symbolical. It is clear they seek to express ineffable things\nby at least an extended use of familiar words. I suppose we are all\nagreed nowadays that when we speak of the Father and of the Son we mean\nsomething only in a very remote and exalted way parallel with--with\nbiological fatherhood and sonship.\u201d\n\nLady Sunderbund nodded eagerly. \u201cYes,\u201d she said, \u201coh, yes,\u201d and held up\nan expectant face for more.\n\n\u201cOur utmost words, our most elaborately phrased creeds, can at the best\nbe no better than the shadow of something unseen thrown upon the screen\nof experience.\u201d\n\nHe raised his rather weary eyes to Hoppart as if he would know what else\nneeded explanation. He was gratified by Lady Sunderbund's approval, but\nhe affected not to see or hear it. But it was Bent who spoke.\n\nHe spoke in the most casual way. He made the thing seem the most\nincidental of observations.\n\n\u201cWhat puzzles me,\u201d he said, \u201cis why the early Christians identified the\nSpermaticos Logos of the Stoics with the second and not with the third\nperson of the Trinity.\u201d\n\nTo which the bishop, rising artlessly to the bait, replied, \u201cAh! that\nindeed is the unfortunate aspect of the whole affair.\u201d\n\nAnd then the Irish Catholic came down on him....\n\n(3)\n\n\nHow the bishop awakened in the night after this dispute has been\ntold already in the opening section of this story. To that night of\ndiscomfort we now return after this comprehensive digression. He\nawoke from nightmares of eyes and triangles to bottomless remorse and\nperplexity. For the first time he fully measured the vast distances\nhe had travelled from the beliefs and attitudes of his early training,\nsince his coming to Princhester. Travelled--or rather slipped and fallen\ndown the long slopes of doubt.\n\nThat clear inky dimness that comes before dawn found his white face at\nthe window looking out upon the great terrace and the park.\n\n(4)\n\n\nAfter a bout of mental distress and sleeplessness the bishop would\nsometimes wake in the morning not so much exhausted as in a state of\nthin mental and bodily activity. This was more particularly so if the\nnight had produced anything in the nature of a purpose. So it was\non this occasion. The day was clear before him; at least it could be\ncleared by sending three telegrams; his man could go back to Princhester\nand so leave him perfectly free to go to Brighton-Pomfrey in London and\nsecure that friendly dispensation to smoke again which seemed the only\nalternative to a serious mental breakdown. He would take his bag, stay\nthe night in London, smoke, sleep well, and return the next morning.\nDunk, his valet-butler, found him already bathed and ready for a cup of\ntea and a Bradshaw at half-past seven. He went on dressing although the\ngood train for London did not start until 10.45.\n\nMrs. Garstein Fellows was by nature and principle a late riser; the\nbreakfast-room showed small promise yet of the repast, though the table\nwas set and bright with silver and fresh flowers, and a wood fire popped\nand spurted to greet and encourage the March sunshine. But standing in\nthe doorway that led to the promise and daffodils and crocuses of Mrs.\nGarstein Fellows' garden stood Lady Sunderbund, almost with an effect\nof waiting, and she greeted the bishop very cheerfully, doubted the\nimmediate appearance of any one else, and led him in the most natural\nmanner into the new but already very pleasant shrubbery.\n\nIn some indefinable special way the bishop had been aware of Lady\nSunderbund's presence since first he had met her, but it was only now\nthat he could observe her with any particularity. She was tall like his\nown Lady Ella but not calm and quiet; she was electric, her eyes, her\nsmiles, her complexion had as it were an established brightness that\nexceeded the common lustre of things. This morning she was dressed in\ngrey that was nevertheless not grey but had an effect of colour, and\nthere was a thread of black along the lines of her body and a gleam of\ngold. She carried her head back with less dignity than pride; there was\na little frozen movement in her dark hair as if it flamed up out of her\nhead. There were silver ornaments in her hair. She spoke with a pretty\nlittle weakness of the r's that had probably been acquired abroad. And\nshe lost no time in telling him, she was eager to tell him, that she had\nbeen waylaying him. \u201cI did so want to talk to you some maw,\u201d she said.\n\u201cI was shy last night and they we' all so noisy and eaga'. I p'ayed that\nyou might come down early.\n\n\u201cIt's an oppo'tunity I've longed for,\u201d she said.\n\nShe did her very pretty best to convey what it was had been troubling\nher. 'iligion bad been worrying her for years. Life was--oh--just\nornaments and games and so wea'isome, so wea'isome, unless it was\n'iligious. And she couldn't get it 'iligious.\n\nThe bishop nodded his head gravely.\n\n\u201cYou unde'stand?\u201d she pressed.\n\n\u201cI understand too well--the attempt to get hold--and keep hold.\u201d\n\n\u201cI knew you would!\u201d she cried.\n\nShe went on with an impulsive rapidity. O'thodoxy had always 'ipelled\nher,--always. She had felt herself confronted by the most insurmountable\ndifficulties, and yet whenever she had gone away from Christianity--she\nhad gone away from Christianity, to the Theosophists and the Christian\nScientists--she had felt she was only \u201cst'aying fu'tha.\u201d And then\nsuddenly when he was speaking last night, she had felt he knew. It was\nso wonderful to hear the \u201ck'eed was only a symbol.\u201d\n\n\u201cSymbol is the proper name for it,\u201d said the bishop. \u201cIt wasn't for\ncenturies it was called the Creed.\u201d\n\nYes, and so what it really meant was something quite different from what\nit did mean.\n\nThe bishop felt that this sentence also was only a symbol, and nodded\nencouragingly--but gravely, warily.\n\nAnd there she was, and the point was there were thousands and thousands\nand thousands of educated people like her who were dying to get through\nthese old-fashioned symbols to the true faith that lay behind them. That\nthey knew lay behind them. She didn't know if he had read \u201cThe Light\nunder the Altar\u201d?\n\n\u201cHe's vicar of Wombash--in my diocese,\u201d said the bishop with restraint.\n\n\u201cIt's wonde'ful stuff,\u201d said Lady Sunderbund. \u201cIt's spi'tually cold,\nbut it's intellectually wonde'ful. But we want that with spi'tuality. We\nwant it so badly. If some one--\u201d\n\nShe became daring. She bit her under lip and flashed her spirit at him.\n\n\u201cIf you--\u201d she said and paused.\n\n\u201cCould think aloud,\u201d said the bishop.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d she said, nodding rapidly, and became breathless to hear.\n\nIt would certainly be an astonishing end to the Chasters difficulty if\nthe bishop went over to the heretic, the bishop reflected.\n\n\u201cMy dear lady, I won't disguise,\u201d he began; \u201cin fact I don't see how\nI could, that for some years I have been growing more and more\ndiscontented with some of our most fundamental formulae. But it's been\nvery largely a shapeless discontent--hitherto. I don't think I've said a\nword to a single soul. No, not a word. You are the first person to\nwhom I've ever made the admission that even my feelings are at times\nunorthodox.\u201d\n\nShe lit up marvellously at his words. \u201cGo on,\u201d she whispered.\n\nBut she did not need to tell him to go on. Now that he had once broached\nthe casket of his reserves he was only too glad of a listener. He talked\nas if they were intimate and loving friends, and so it seemed to both\nof them they were. It was a wonderful release from a long and painful\nsolitude.\n\nTo certain types it is never quite clear what has happened to them until\nthey tell it. So that now the bishop, punctuated very prettily by\nLady Sunderbund, began to measure for the first time the extent of his\ndeparture from the old innate convictions of Otteringham Rectory. He\nsaid that it was strange to find doubt coming so late in life, but\nperhaps it was only in recent years that his faith had been put to any\nreally severe tests. It had been sheltered and unchallenged.\n\n\u201cThis fearful wa',\u201d Lady Sunderbund interjected.\n\nBut Princhester had been a critical and trying change, and \u201cThe Light\nunder the Altar\u201d case had ploughed him deeply. It was curious that\nhis doubts always seemed to have a double strand; there was a moral\nobjection based on the church's practical futility and an intellectual\nstrand subordinated to this which traced that futility largely to its\nunconvincing formulae.\n\n\u201cAnd yet you know,\u201d said the bishop, \u201cI find I can't go with Chasters.\nHe beats at the church; he treats her as though she were wrong. I feel\nlike a son, growing up, who finds his mother isn't quite so clear-spoken\nnor quite so energetic as she seemed to be once. She's right, I feel\nsure. I've never doubted her fundamental goodness.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said Lady Sunderbund, very eagerly, \u201cyes.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd yet there's this futility.... You know, my dear lady, I don't\nknow what to do. One feels on the one hand, that here is a cloud of\nwitnesses, great men, sainted men, subtle men, figures permanently\nhistorical, before whom one can do nothing but bow down in the utmost\nhumility, here is a great instrument and organization--what would the\nworld be without the witness of the church?--and on the other hand here\nare our masses out of hand and hostile, our industrial leaders equally\nhostile; there is a failure to grip, and that failure to grip is so\nclearly traceable to the fact that our ideas are not modern ideas, that\nwhen we come to profess our faith we find nothing in our mouths but\nantiquated Alexandrian subtleties and phrases and ideas that may have\nbeen quite alive, quite significant, quite adequate in Asia Minor or\nEgypt, among men essentially orientals, fifteen hundred years ago, but\nwhich now--\u201d\n\nHe expressed just what they came to now by a gesture.\n\nShe echoed his gesture.\n\n\u201cProbably I'm not alone among my brethren,\u201d he went on, and then: \u201cBut\nwhat is one to do?\u201d\n\nWith her hands she acted her sense of his difficulty.\n\n\u201cOne may be precipitate,\u201d he said. \u201cThere's a kind of loyalty and\ndiscipline that requires one to keep the ranks until one's course of\naction is perfectly clear. One owes so much to so many. One has to\nconsider how one may affect--oh! people one has never seen.\u201d\n\nHe was lugging things now into speech that so far had been scarcely\nabove the threshold of his conscious thought. He went on to discuss the\nentire position of the disbelieving cleric. He discovered a fine point.\n\n\u201cIf there was something else, an alternative, another religion, another\nChurch, to which one could go, the whole case would be different. But to\ngo from the church to nothingness isn't to go from falsehood to truth.\nIt's to go from truth, rather badly expressed, rather conservatively\nhidden by its protections, truth in an antiquated costume, to the\nblackest lie--in the world.\u201d\n\nShe took that point very brightly.\n\n\u201cOne must hold fast to 'iligion,\u201d she said, and looked earnestly at him\nand gripped fiercely, pink thumbs out, with her beautiful hands held up.\n\nThat was it, exactly. He too was gripping. But while on the outside the\nMidianites of denial were prowling for these clinging souls, within\nthe camp they were assailed by a meticulous orthodoxy that was only too\neager to cast them forth. The bishop dwelt for a time upon the curious\nfierceness orthodoxy would sometimes display. Nowadays atheism can be\ncivil, can be generous; it is orthodoxy that trails a scurrilous fringe.\n\n\u201cWho was that young man with a strong Irish accent--who contradicted me\nso suddenly?\u201d he asked.\n\n\u201cThe dark young man?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe noisy young man.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat was Mist' Pat'ick O'Go'man. He is a Kelt and all that. Spells\nPat'ick with eva so many letters. You know. They say he spends ouas and\nouas lea'ning E'se. He wo'ies about it. They all t'y to lea'n E'se, and\nit wo'ies them and makes them hate England moa and moa.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe is orthodox. He--is what I call orthodox to the ridiculous extent.\u201d\n\n\u201c'idiculous.\u201d\n\nA deep-toned gong proclaimed breakfast over a square mile or so of\nterritory, and Lady Sunderbund turned about mechanically towards the\nhouse. But they continued their discussion.\n\nShe started indeed a new topic. \u201cShall we eva, do 'ou think, have a new\n'iligion--t'ua and betta?\u201d\n\nThat was a revolutionary idea to him.\n\nHe was still fending it off from him when a gap in the shrubs brought\nthem within sight of the house and of Mrs. Garstein Fellows on the\nportico waving a handkerchief and crying \u201cBreak-fast.\u201d\n\n\u201cI wish we could talk for houas,\u201d said Lady Sunderbund.\n\n\u201cI've been glad of this talk,\u201d said the bishop. \u201cVery glad.\u201d\n\nShe lifted her soft abundant skirts and trotted briskly across the still\ndewy lawn towards the house door. The bishop followed gravely and slowly\nwith his hands behind his back and an unusually peaceful expression upon\nhis face. He was thinking how rare and precious a thing it is to find\nintelligent friendship in women. More particularly when they were\ndazzlingly charming and pretty. It was strange, but this was really his\nfirst woman friend. If, as he hoped, she became his friend.\n\nLady Sunderbund entered the breakfast room in a gusty abundance like\nBotticelli's Primavera, and kissed Mrs. Garstein Fellows good-morning.\nShe exhaled a glowing happiness. \u201cHe is wondyful,\u201d she panted. \u201cHe is\nmost wondyful.\u201d\n\n\u201cMr. Hidgeway Kelso?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, the dee' bishop! I love him. Are those the little sausages I like?\nMay I take th'ee? I've been up houas.\u201d\n\nThe dee' bishop appeared in the sunlit doorway.\n\n(5)\n\n\nThe bishop felt more contentment in the London train than he had felt\nfor many weeks. He had taken two decisive and relieving steps. One was\nthat he had stated his case to another human being, and that a very\ncharming and sympathetic human being, he was no longer a prey to a\ncurrent of secret and concealed thoughts running counter to all the\nappearances of his outward life; and the other was that he was now\nwithin an hour or so of Brighton-Pomfrey and a cigarette. He would lunch\non the train, get to London about two, take a taxi at once to the wise\nold doctor, catch him over his coffee in a charitable and understanding\nmood, and perhaps be smoking a cigarette publicly and honourably and\naltogether satisfyingly before three.\n\nSo far as Brighton-Pomfrey's door this program was fulfilled without\na hitch. The day was fine and he had his taxi opened, and noted with a\npatriotic satisfaction as he rattled through the streets, the glare of\nthe recruiting posters on every vacant piece of wall and the increasing\nnumber of men in khaki in the streets. But at the door he had a\ndisappointment. Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey was away at the front--of all\nplaces; he had gone for some weeks; would the bishop like to see Dr.\nDale?\n\nThe bishop hesitated. He had never set eyes on this Dr. Dale.\n\nIndeed, he had never heard of Dr. Dale.\n\nSeeing his old friend Brighton-Pomfrey and being gently and tactfully\ntold to do exactly what he was longing to do was one thing; facing some\nstrange doctor and going slowly and elaborately through the whole\nstory of his illness, his vow and his breakdown, and perhaps having his\nreaction time tested and all sorts of stripping and soundings done, was\nquite another. He was within an ace of turning away.\n\nIf he had turned away his whole subsequent life would have been\ndifferent. It was the very slightest thing in the world tipped the\nbeam. It was the thought that, after all, whatever inconvenience and\nunpleasantness there might be in this interview, there was at the end of\nit a very reasonable prospect of a restored and legitimate cigarette.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FIFTH - THE FIRST VISION\n\n(1)\n\n\nDr. DALE exceeded the bishop's worst apprehensions. He was a lean, lank,\ndark young man with long black hair and irregular, rather prolonged\nfeatures; his chin was right over to the left; he looked constantly at\nthe bishop's face with a distinctly sceptical grey eye; he could not\nhave looked harder if he had been a photographer or a portrait painter.\nAnd his voice was harsh, and the bishop was particularly sensitive to\nvoices.\n\nHe began by understanding far too much of the bishop's illness, and he\ninsisted on various familiarities with the bishop's heart and tongue and\neye and knee that ruffled the bishop's soul.\n\n\u201cBrighton-Pomfrey talked of neurasthenia?\u201d he asked. \u201cThat was his\ndiagnosis,\u201d said the bishop. \u201cNeurasthenia,\u201d said the young man as\nthough he despised the word.\n\nThe bishop went on buttoning up his coat.\n\n\u201cYou don't of course want to break your vows about drinking and\nsmoking,\u201d said the young man with the very faintest suggestion of\nderision in his voice.\n\n\u201cNot if it can possibly be avoided,\u201d the bishop asserted. \u201cWithout a\nloss, that is, of practical efficiency,\u201d he added. \u201cFor I have much to\ndo.\u201d\n\n\u201cI think that it is possible to keep your vow,\u201d said the young man,\nand the bishop could have sworn at him. \u201cI think we can manage that all\nright.\u201d\n\n(2)\n\n\nThe bishop sat at the table resting his arm upon it and awaiting the\nnext development of this unsatisfactory interview. He was on the verge\nof asking as unpleasantly as possible when Brighton-Pomfrey would\nreturn.\n\nThe young man stood upon Brighton-Pomfrey's hearth-rug and was evidently\ncontemplating dissertations.\n\n\u201cOf course,\u201d he said, as though he discussed a problem with himself,\n\u201cyou must have some sort of comfort. You must get out of this state, one\nway or another.\u201d\n\nThe bishop nodded assent. He had faint hopes of this young man's ideas\nof comfort.\n\nDr. Dale reflected. Then he went off away from the question of comfort\naltogether. \u201cYou see, the trouble in such a case as this is peculiarly\ndifficult to trace to its sources because it comes just upon the\nborder-line of bodily and mental things. You may take a drug or alter\nyour regimen and it disturbs your thoughts, you may take an idea and\nit disturbs your health. It is easy enough to say, as some do, that all\nideas have a physical substratum; it is almost as easy to say with the\nChristian Scientist that all bodily states are amenable to our ideas.\nThe truth doesn't, I think, follow the border between those opposite\nopinions very exactly on either side. I can't, for instance, tell you to\ngo home and pray against these uncertainties and despairs, because it\nis just these uncertainties and despairs that rob you of the power of\nefficient prayer.\u201d\n\nHe did not seem to expect anything from the bishop.\n\n\u201cI don't see that because a case brings one suddenly right up against\nthe frontier of metaphysics, why a doctor should necessarily pull\nup short at that, why one shouldn't go on into either metaphysics or\npsychology if such an extension is necessary for the understanding of\nthe case. At any rate if you'll permit it in this consultation....\u201d\n\n\u201cGo on,\u201d said the bishop, holding on to that promise of comfort. \u201cThe\nbest thing is to thrash out the case in your own way. And then come to\nwhat is practical.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is really the matter here--the matter with you that is--is a\ndisorganization of your tests of reality. It's one of a group of states\nhitherto confused. Neurasthenia, that comprehensive phrase--well, it is\none of the neurasthenias. Here, I confess, I begin to talk of work I am\ndoing, work still to be published, finished first and then published....\nBut I go off from the idea that every living being lives in a state\nnot differing essentially from a state of hallucination concerning the\nthings about it. Truth, essential truth, is hidden. Always. Of course\nthere must be a measure of truth in our working illusions, a working\nmeasure of truth, or the creature would smash itself up and end itself,\nbut beyond that discretion of the fire and the pitfall lies a wide\nmargin of error about which we may be deceived for years. So long as it\ndoesn't matter, it doesn't matter. I don't know if I make myself clear.\u201d\n\n\u201cI follow you,\u201d said the bishop a little wearily, \u201cI follow you.\nPhenomena and noumena and so on and so on. Kant and so forth.\nPragmatism. Yes.\u201d\n\nWith a sigh.\n\n\u201cAnd all that,\u201d completed Dr. Dale in a voice that suggested mockery.\n\u201cBut you see we grow into a way of life, we settle down among habits and\nconventions, we say 'This is all right' and 'That is always so.' We\nget more and more settled into our life as a whole and more and more\nconfident. Unless something happens to shake us out of our sphere of\nillusion. That may be some violent contradictory fact, some accident,\nor it may be some subtle change in one's health and nerves that makes\nus feel doubtful. Or a change of habits. Or, as I believe, some subtle\nquickening of the critical faculty. Then suddenly comes the feeling as\nthough we were lost in a strange world, as though we had never really\nseen the world before.\u201d\n\nHe paused.\n\nThe bishop was reluctantly interested. \u201cThat does describe something--of\nthe mental side,\u201d he admitted. \u201cI never believe in concealing my own\nthoughts from an intelligent patient,\u201d said Dr. Dale, with a quiet\noffensiveness. \u201cThat sort of thing belongs to the dark ages of the\n'pothecary's art. I will tell you exactly my guesses and suppositions\nabout you. At the base of it all is a slight and subtle kidney trouble,\ndue I suggest to your going to Princhester and drinking the local\nwater--\u201d\n\n\u201cBut it's excellent water. They boast of it.\u201d\n\n\u201cBy all the established tests. As a matter of fact many of our best\ndrinking waters have all sorts of unspecified qualities. Burton water,\nfor example, is radioactive by Beetham's standards up to the ninth\ndegree. But that is by the way. My theory about your case is that this\nproduced a change in your blood, that quickened your sensibilities and\nyour critical faculties just at a time when a good many bothers--I don't\nof course know what they were, but I can, so to speak, see the marks all\nover you--came into your life.\u201d\n\nThe bishop nodded.\n\n\u201cYou were uprooted. You moved from house to house, and failed to get\nthat curled up safe feeling one has in a real home in any of them.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf you saw the fireplaces and the general decoration of the new\npalace!\u201d admitted the bishop. \u201cI had practically no control.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat confirms me,\u201d said Dr. Dale. \u201cInsomnia followed, and increased the\nfeeling of physical strangeness by increasing the bodily disturbance. I\nsuspect an intellectual disturbance.\u201d\n\nHe paused.\n\n\u201cThere was,\u201d said the bishop.\n\n\u201cYou were no longer at home anywhere. You were no longer at home in your\ndiocese, in your palace, in your body, in your convictions. And then\ncame the war. Quite apart from everything else the mind of the whole\nworld is suffering profoundly from the shock of this war--much more\nthan is generally admitted. One thing you did that you probably did not\nobserve yourself doing, you drank rather more at your meals, you smoked\na lot more. That was your natural and proper response to the shock.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d said the bishop, and brightened up.\n\n\u201cIt was remarked by Tolstoy, I think, that few intellectual men would\nreally tolerate the world as it is if it were not for smoking and\ndrinking. Even novelists have their moments of lucidity. Certainly these\nthings soothe the restlessness in men's minds, deaden their sceptical\nsensibilities. And just at the time when you were getting most\ndislodged--you gave them up.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd the sooner I go back to them the better,\u201d said the bishop brightly.\n\u201cI quite see that.\u201d\n\n\u201cI wouldn't say that,\u201d said Dr. Dale....\n\n(3)\n\n\n\u201cThat,\u201d said Dr. Dale, \u201cis just where my treatment of this case differs\nfrom the treatment of \u201c--he spoke the name reluctantly as if he disliked\nthe mere sound of it--\u201cDr. Brighton-Pomfrey.\u201d\n\n\u201cHitherto, of course,\u201d said the bishop, \u201cI've been in his hands.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe,\u201d said Dr. Dale, \u201cwould certainly set about trying to restore your\nold sphere of illusion, your old familiar sensations and ideas and\nconfidences. He would in fact turn you back. He would restore all your\nhabits. He would order you a rest. He would send you off to some holiday\nresort, fresh in fact but familiar in character, the High lands, North\nItaly, or Switzerland for example. He would forbid you newspapers and\norder you to botanize and prescribe tranquillizing reading; Trollope's\nnovels, the Life of Gladstone, the works of Mr. A. C. Benson, memoirs\nand so on. You'd go somewhere where there was a good Anglican chaplain,\nand you'd take some of the services yourself. And we'd wash out the\neffects of the Princhester water with Contrexeville, and afterwards\nput you on Salutaris or Perrier. I don't know whether I shouldn't have\ninclined to some such treatment before the war began. Only--\u201d\n\nHe paused.\n\n\u201cYou think--?\u201d\n\nDr. Dale's face betrayed a sudden sombre passion. \u201cIt won't do now,\u201d he\nsaid in a voice of quiet intensity. \u201cIt won't do now.\u201d\n\nHe remained darkly silent for so long that at last the bishop spoke.\n\u201cThen what,\u201d he asked, \u201cdo you suggest?\n\n\u201cSuppose we don't try to go back,\u201d said Dr. Dale. \u201cSuppose we go on and\ngo through.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere?\u201d\n\n\u201cTo reality.\n\n\u201cI know it's doubtful, I know it's dangerous,\u201d he went on, \u201cbut I am\nconvinced that now we can no longer keep men's minds and souls in these\nfeathered nests, these spheres of illusion. Behind these veils there is\neither God or the Darkness.... Why should we not go on?\u201d\n\nThe bishop was profoundly perplexed. He heard himself speaking. \u201cIt\nwould be unworthy of my cloth,\u201d he was saying.\n\nDr. Dale completed the sentence: \u201cto go back.\u201d\n\n\u201cLet me explain a little more,\u201d he said, \u201cwhat I mean by 'going on.' I\nthink that this loosening of the ties of association that bind a man to\nhis everyday life and his everyday self is in nine cases out of ten a\nloosening of the ties that bind him to everyday sanity. One common form\nof this detachment is the form you have in those cases of people who\nare found wandering unaware of their names, unaware of their places\nof residence, lost altogether from themselves. They have not only lost\ntheir sense of identity with themselves, but all the circumstances of\ntheir lives have faded out of their minds like an idle story in a book\nthat has been read and put aside. I have looked into hundreds of such\ncases. I don't think that loss of identity is a necessary thing; it's\njust another side of the general weakening of the grip upon reality, a\nkind of anaemia of the brain so that interest fades and fails. There\nis no reason why you should forget a story because you do not believe\nit--if your brain is strong enough to hold it. But if your brain is\ntired and weak, then so soon as you lose faith in your records, your\nmind is glad to let them go. When you see these lost identity people\nthat is always your first impression, a tired brain that has let go.\u201d\n\nThe bishop felt extremely like letting go.\n\n\u201cBut how does this apply to my case?\u201d\n\n\u201cI come to that,\u201d said Dr. Dale, holding up a long large hand. \u201cWhat\nif we treat this case of yours in a new way? What if we give you not\nnarcotics but stimulants and tonics? What if we so touch the blood that\nwe increase your sense of physical detachment while at the same time\nfeeding up your senses to a new and more vivid apprehension of things\nabout you?\u201d He looked at his patient's hesitation and added: \u201cYou'd lose\nall that craving feeling, that you fancy at present is just the need\nof a smoke. The world might grow a trifle--transparent, but you'd keep\nreal. Instead of drugging oneself back to the old contentment--\u201d\n\n\u201cYou'd drug me on to the new,\u201d said the bishop.\n\n\u201cBut just one word more!\u201d said Dr. Dale. \u201cHear why I would do this! It\nwas easy and successful to rest and drug people back to their old states\nof mind when the world wasn't changing, wasn't spinning round in the\nwildest tornado of change that it has ever been in. But now--Where can\nI send you for a rest? Where can I send you to get you out of sight and\nhearing of the Catastrophe? Of course old Brighton-Pomfrey would go on\nsending people away for rest and a nice little soothing change if the\nDay of Judgment was coming in the sky and the earth was opening and the\nsea was giving up its dead. He'd send 'em to the seaside. Such things as\nthat wouldn't shake his faith in the Channel crossing. My idea is that\nit's not only right for you to go through with this, but that it's the\nonly thing to do. If you go right on and right through with these doubts\nand intimations--\u201d\n\nHe paused.\n\n\u201cYou may die like a madman,\u201d he said, \u201cbut you won't die like a tame\nrabbit.\u201d\n\n(4)\n\n\nThe bishop sat reflecting. What fascinated and attracted him was the\nending of all the cravings and uneasinesses and restlessness that had\ndistressed his life for over four years; what deterred him was the\npersonality of this gaunt young man with his long grey face, his excited\nmanner, his shock of black hair. He wanted that tonic--with grave\nmisgivings. \u201cIf you think this tonic is the wiser course,\u201d he began.\n\u201cI'd give it you if you were my father,\u201d said Dr. Dale. \u201cI've got\neverything for it,\u201d he added.\n\n\u201cYou mean you can make it up--without a prescription.\u201d\n\n\u201cI can't give you a prescription. The essence of it--It's a distillate I\nhave been trying. It isn't in the Pharmacopeia.\u201d\n\nAgain the bishop had a twinge of misgiving.\n\nBut in the end he succumbed. He didn't want to take the stuff, but also\nhe did not want to go without his promised comfort.\n\nPresently Dale had given him a little phial--and was holding up to the\nwindow a small medicine glass into which he was pouring very carefully\ntwenty drops of the precious fluid. \u201cTake it only,\u201d he said, \u201cwhen you\nfeel you must.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is the most golden of liquids,\u201d said the bishop, peering at it.\n\n\u201cWhen you want more I will make you more. Later of course, it will be\npossible to write a prescription. Now add the water--so.\n\n\u201cIt becomes opalescent. How beautifully the light plays in it!\n\n\u201cTake it.\u201d\n\nThe bishop dismissed his last discretion and drank.\n\n\u201cWell?\u201d said Dr. Dale.\n\n\u201cI am still here,\u201d said the bishop, smiling, and feeling a joyous\ntingling throughout his body. \u201cIt stirs me.\u201d\n\n(5)\n\n\nThe bishop stood on the pavement outside Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey's house.\nThe massive door had closed behind him.\n\nIt had been an act of courage, of rashness if you will, to take this\ndraught. He was acutely introspective, ready for anything, for the most\ndisagreeable or the most bizarre sensations. He was asking himself, Were\nhis feet steady? Was his head swimming?\n\nHis doubts glowed into assurance.\n\nSuddenly he perceived that he was sure of God.\n\nNot perhaps of the God of Nicaea, but what did these poor little\nquibblings and definitions of the theologians matter? He had been\nworrying about these definitions and quibblings for four long restless\nyears. Now they were just failures to express--what surely every one\nknew--and no one would ever express exactly. Because here was God, and\nthe kingdom of God was manifestly at hand. The visible world hung before\nhim as a mist might hang before the rising sun. He stood proudly and\nmasterfully facing a universe that had heretofore bullied him into doubt\nand apologetics, a universe that had hitherto been opaque and was now\nbetrayed translucent.\n\nThat was the first effect of the new tonic, complete reassurance,\ncomplete courage. He turned to walk towards Mount Street and Berkeley\nSquare as a sultan might turn to walk among his slaves.\n\nBut the tonic was only beginning.\n\nBefore he had gone a dozen steps he was aware that he seemed more solid\nand larger than the people about him. They had all a curious miniature\neffect, as though he was looking at them through the wrong end of an\nopera glass. The houses on either side of the street and the traffic\nshared this quality in an equal measure. It was as if he was looking at\nthe world through apertures in a miniature cinematograph peep-show. This\nsurprised him and a little dashed his first glow of satisfaction.\n\nHe passed a man in khaki who, he fancied, looked at him with an odd\nexpression. He observed the next passers-by narrowly and suspiciously, a\ncouple of smartish young men, a lady with a poodle, a grocer's boy with\na basket, but none seemed to observe anything remarkable about him. Then\nhe caught the eye of a taxi-driver and became doubtful again.\n\nHe had a feeling that this tonic was still coming in like a tide. It\nseemed to be filling him and distending him, in spite of the fact that\nhe was already full. After four years of flaccidity it was pleasant to\nbe distended again, but already he felt more filled than he had ever\nbeen before. At present nothing was showing, but all his body seemed\nbraced and uplifted. He must be careful not to become inflated in his\nbearing.\n\nAnd yet it was difficult not to betray a little inflation. He was so\nfilled with assurance that things were right with him and that God was\nthere with him. After all it was not mere fancy; he was looking through\nthe peepholes of his eyes at the world of illusion and appearance. The\nworld that was so intent upon its immediate business, so regardless of\neternal things, that had so dominated him but a little while ago, was\nafter all a thing more mortal than himself.\n\nAnother man in khaki passed him.\n\nFor the first time he saw the war as something measurable, as something\nwith a beginning and an end, as something less than the immortal spirit\nin man. He had been too much oppressed by it. He perceived all these\npeople in the street were too much oppressed by it. He wanted to tell\nthem as much, tell them that all was well with them, bid them be of good\ncheer. He wanted to bless them. He found his arm floating up towards\ngestures of benediction. Self-control became increasingly difficult.\n\nAll the way down Berkeley Square the bishop was in full-bodied struggle\nwith himself. He was trying to control himself, trying to keep within\nbounds. He felt that he was stepping too high, that his feet were not\nproperly reaching the ground, that he was walking upon cushions of air.\n\nThe feeling of largeness increased, and the feeling of transparency in\nthings about him. He avoided collision with passers-by--excessively. And\nhe felt his attention was being drawn more and more to something that\nwas going on beyond the veil of visible things. He was in Piccadilly\nnow, but at the same time Piccadilly was very small and he was walking\nin the presence of God.\n\nHe had a feeling that God was there though he could not see him. And at\nthe same time he was in this transitory world, with people going to and\nfro, men with umbrellas tucked dangerously under their arms, men in a\nhurry, policemen, young women rattling Red Cross collecting boxes, smart\npeople, loafers. They distracted one from God.\n\nHe set out to cross the road just opposite Prince's, and jumping\nneedlessly to give way to an omnibus had the narrowest escape from a\ntaxicab.\n\nHe paused on the pavement edge to recover himself. The shock of his near\nescape had, as people say, pulled him together.\n\nWhat was he to do? Manifestly this opalescent draught was overpowering\nhim. He ought never to have taken it. He ought to have listened to the\nvoice of his misgivings. It was clear that he was not in a fit state to\nwalk about the streets. He was--what had been Dr. Dale's term?--losing\nhis sense of reality. What was he to do? He was alarmed but not\ndismayed. His thoughts were as full-bodied as the rest of his being,\nthey came throbbing and bumping into his mind. What was he to do?\n\nBrighton-Pomfrey ought never to have left his practice in the hands of\nthis wild-eyed experimenter.\n\nStrange that after a lifetime of discretion and men's respect one should\nbe standing on the Piccadilly pavement--intoxicated!\n\nIt came into his head that he was not so very far from the Athenaeum,\nand surely there if anywhere a bishop may recover his sense of\nbeing--ordinary.\n\nAnd behind everything, behind the tall buildings and the swarming people\nthere was still the sense of a wide illuminated space, of a light of\nwonder and a Presence. But he must not give way to that again! He had\nalready given way altogether too much. He repeated to himself in a\nwhisper, \u201cI am in Piccadilly.\u201d\n\nIf he kept tight hold upon himself he felt he might get to the Athenaeum\nbefore--before anything more happened.\n\nHe murmured directions to himself. \u201cKeep along the pavement. Turn to\nthe right at the Circus. Now down the hill. Easily down the hill. Don't\nfloat! Junior Army and Navy Stores. And the bookseller.\u201d\n\nAnd presently he had a doubt of his name and began to repeat it.\n\n\u201cEdward Princhester. Edward Scrope, Lord Bishop of Princhester.\u201d\n\nAnd all the while voices within him were asserting, \u201cYou are in the\nkingdom of Heaven. You are in the presence of God. Place and time are a\ntexture of illusion and dreamland. Even now, you are with God.\u201d\n\n(6)\n\n\nThe porter of the Athenaeum saw him come in, looking well--flushed\nindeed--but queer in expression; his blue eyes were wide open and\nunusually vague and blue.\n\nHe wandered across towards the dining-room, hesitated, went to look at\nthe news, seemed in doubt whether he would not go into the smoking-room,\nand then went very slowly upstairs, past the golden angel up to the\ngreat drawing-room.\n\nIn the drawing-room he found only Sir James Mounce, the man who knew\nthe novels of Sir Walter Scott by heart and had the minutest and most\nunsparing knowledge of every detail in the life of that supreme giant of\nEnglish literature. He had even, it was said, acquired a Scotch burr in\nthe enthusiasm of his hero-worship. It was usually sufficient only to\nturn an ear towards him for him to talk for an hour or so. He was now\nstudying Bradshaw.\n\nThe bishop snatched at him desperately. He felt that if he went away\nthere would be no hold left upon the ordinary things of life.\n\n\u201cSir James,\u201d he said, \u201cI was wondering the other day when was the exact\ndate of the earliest public ascription of Waverley to Scott.\u201d\n\n\u201cEh!\u201d said Sir James, \u201cbut I'd like to talk that over with ye. Indeed\nI would. It would be depending very largely on what ye called 'public.'\nBut--\u201d\n\nHe explained something about an engagement in Birmingham that night, a\ntrain to catch. Reluctantly but relentlessly he abandoned the proffered\near. But he promised that the next time they met in the club he would go\ninto the matter \u201cexhausteevely.\u201d\n\nThe door closed upon him. The bishop was alone. He was flooded with\nthe light of the world that is beyond this world. The things about him\nbecame very small and indistinct.\n\nHe would take himself into a quiet corner in the library of this doll's\nhouse, and sit his little body down in one of the miniature armchairs.\nThen if he was going to faint or if the trancelike feeling was to become\naltogether a trance--well, a bishop asleep in an armchair in the library\nof the Athenaeum is nothing to startle any one.\n\nHe thought of that convenient hidden room, the North Library, in which\nis the bust of Croker. There often one can be quite alone.... It was\nempty, and he went across to the window that looks out upon Pall Mall\nand sat down in the little uncomfortable easy chair by the desk with its\nback to the Benvenuto Cellini.\n\nAnd as he sat down, something snapped--like the snapping of a lute\nstring--in his brain.\n\n(7)\n\n\nWith a sigh of deep relief the bishop realized that this world had\nvanished.\n\nHe was in a golden light.\n\nHe perceived it as a place, but it was a place without buildings or\ntrees or any very definite features. There was a cloudy suggestion of\ndistant hills, and beneath his feet were little gem-like flowers, and\na feeling of divinity and infinite friendliness pervaded his being. His\nimpressions grew more definite. His feet seemed to be bare. He was no\nlonger a bishop nor clad as a bishop. That had gone with the rest of the\nworld. He was seated on a slab of starry rock.\n\nThis he knew quite clearly was the place of God.\n\nHe was unable to disentangle thoughts from words. He seemed to be\nspeaking in his mind.\n\n\u201cI have been very foolish and confused and perplexed. I have been like a\ncreature caught among thorns.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou served the purpose of God among those thorns.\u201d It seemed to him at\nfirst that the answer also was among his thoughts.\n\n\u201cI seemed so silly and so little. My wits were clay.\u201d\n\n\u201cClay full of desires.\u201d\n\n\u201cSuch desires!\u201d\n\n\u201cBlind desires. That will presently come to the light.\u201d\n\n\u201cShall we come to the light?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut here it is, and you see it!\u201d\n\n(8)\n\n\nIt became clearer in the mind of the bishop that a figure sat beside\nhim, a figure of great strength and beauty, with a smiling face and\nkindly eyes. A strange thought and a strange courage came to the bishop.\n\n\u201cTell me,\u201d he whispered, \u201care you God?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am the Angel of God.\u201d\n\nThe bishop thought over that for some moments.\n\n\u201cI want,\u201d he said, \u201cto know about God.\n\n\u201cI want,\u201d he said, with a deepening passion of the soul, \u201cto know about\nGod. Slowly through four long years I have been awakening to the need\nof God. Body and soul I am sick for the want of God and the knowledge of\nGod. I did not know what was the matter with me, why my life had become\nso disordered and confused that my very appetites and habits are all\nastray. But I am perishing for God as a waterless man upon a raft\nperishes for drink, and there is nothing but madness if I touch the seas\nabout me. Not only in my thoughts but in my under thoughts and in my\nnerves and bones and arteries I have need of God. You see I grew up in\nthe delusion that I knew God, I did not know that I was unprovisioned\nand unprovided against the tests and strains and hardships of life. I\nthought that I was secure and safe. I was told that we men--who were\napes not a quarter of a million years ago, who still have hair upon\nour arms and ape's teeth in our jaws--had come to the full and perfect\nknowledge of God. It was all put into a creed. Not a word of it was to\nbe altered, not a sentence was to be doubted any more. They made me a\nteacher of this creed. They seemed to explain it to me. And when I came\nto look into it, when my need came and I turned to my creed, it was old\nand shrivelled up, it was the patched-up speculations of vanished Greeks\nand Egyptians, it was a mummy of ancient disputes, old and dry, that\nfell to dust as I unwrapped it. And I was dressed up in the dress of old\ndead times and put before an altar of forgotten sacrifices, and I went\nthrough ceremonies as old as the first seedtime; and suddenly I knew\nclearly that God was not there, God was not in my Creed, not in my\ncathedral, not in my ceremonies, nowhere in my life. And at the same\ntime I knew, I knew as I had never known before, that certainly there\nwas God.\u201d\n\nHe paused. \u201cTell me,\u201d said the friend at his side; \u201ctell me.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt was as if a child running beside its mother, looked up and saw that\nhe had never seen her face before, that she was not his mother, and that\nthe words he had seemed to understand were--now that he listened--words\nin an unknown tongue.\n\n\u201cYou see, I am but a common sort of man, dear God; I have neither lived\nnor thought in any way greatly, I have gone from one day to the next day\nwithout looking very much farther than the end of the day, I have gone\non as life has befallen; if no great trouble had come into my life, so\nI should have lived to the end of my days. But life which began for me\neasily and safely has become constantly more difficult and strange.\nI could have held my services and given my benedictions, I could have\nbelieved I believed in what I thought I believed.... But now I am lost\nand astray--crying out for God....\u201d\n\n(9)\n\n\n\u201cLet us talk a little about your troubles,\u201d said the Angel. \u201cLet us talk\nabout God and this creed that worries you and this church of yours.\u201d\n\n\u201cI feel as though I had been struggling to this talk through all the\nyears--since my doubts began.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe story your Creed is trying to tell is much the same story that\nall religions try to tell. In your heart there is God, beyond the stars\nthere is God. Is it the same God?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don't know,\u201d said the bishop.\n\n\u201cDoes any one know?\u201d\n\n\u201cI thought I knew.\u201d\n\n\u201cYour creed is full of Levantine phrases and images, full of the patched\ncontradictions of the human intelligence utterly puzzled. It is about\nthose two Gods, the God beyond the stars and the God in your heart. It\nsays that they are the same God, but different. It says that they have\nexisted together for all time, and that one is the Son of the other. It\nhas added a third Person--but we won't go into that.\u201d\n\nThe bishop was reminded suddenly of the dispute at Mrs. Garstein\nFellows'. \u201cWe won't go into that,\u201d he agreed. \u201cNo!\u201d\n\n\u201cOther religions have told the story in a different way. The Cathars and\nGnostics did. They said that the God in your heart is a rebel against\nthe God beyond the stars, that the Christ in your heart is like\nPrometheus--or Hiawatha--or any other of the sacrificial gods, a rebel.\nHe arises out of man. He rebels against that high God of the stars and\ncrystals and poisons and monsters and of the dead emptiness of space....\nThe Manicheans and the Persians made out our God to be fighting\neternally against that Being of silence and darkness beyond the stars.\nThe Buddhists made the Lord Buddha the leader of men out of the futility\nand confusion of material existence to the great peace beyond. But it is\nall one story really, the story of the two essential Beings, always the\nsame story and the same perplexity cropping up under different names,\nthe story of one being who stirs us, calls to us, and leads us, and\nof another who is above and outside and in and beneath all things,\ninaccessible and incomprehensible. All these religions are trying to\ntell something they do not clearly know--of a relationship between these\ntwo, that eludes them, that eludes the human mind, as water escapes from\nthe hand. It is unity and opposition they have to declare at the same\ntime; it is agreement and propitiation, it is infinity and effort.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd the truth?\u201d said the bishop in an eager whisper. \u201cYou can tell me\nthe truth.\u201d\n\nThe Angel's answer was a gross familiarity. He thrust his hand through\nthe bishop's hair and ruffled it affectionately, and rested for a moment\nholding the bishop's cranium in his great palm.\n\n\u201cBut can this hold it?\u201d he said....\n\n\u201cNot with this little box of brains,\u201d said the Angel. \u201cYou could as soon\nmake a meal of the stars and pack them into your belly. You haven't the\nthings to do it with inside this.\u201d\n\nHe gave the bishop's head a little shake and relinquished it.\n\nHe began to argue as an elder brother might.\n\n\u201cIsn't it enough for you to know something of the God that comes down to\nthe human scale, who has been born on your planet and arisen out of Man,\nwho is Man and God, your leader? He's more than enough to fill your mind\nand use up every faculty of your being. He is courage, he is adventure,\nhe is the King, he fights for you and with you against death....\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd he is not infinite? He is not the Creator?\u201d asked the bishop.\n\n\u201cSo far as you are concerned, no,\u201d said the Angel.\n\n\u201cSo far as I am concerned?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat have you to do with creation?\u201d\n\nAnd at that question it seemed that a great hand swept carelessly across\nthe blackness of the farther sky, and smeared it with stars and suns and\nshining nebulas as a brush might smear dry paint across a canvas.\n\nThe bishop stared in front of him. Then slowly he bowed his head, and\ncovered his face with his hands.\n\n\u201cAnd I have been in orders,\u201d he murmured; \u201cI have been teaching people\nthe only orthodox and perfect truth about these things for seven and\ntwenty years.\u201d\n\nAnd suddenly he was back in his gaiters and his apron and his shovel\nhat, a little black figure exceedingly small in a very great space....\n\n(10)\n\n\nIt was a very great space indeed because it was all space, and the roof\nwas the ebony of limitless space from which the stars swung flaming,\nheld by invisible ties, and the soil beneath his feet was a dust of\natoms and the little beginnings of life. And long before the bishop\nbared his face again, he knew that he was to see his God.\n\nHe looked up slowly, fearing to be dazzled.\n\nBut he was not dazzled. He knew that he saw only the likeness and\nbodying forth of a being inconceivable, of One who is greater than the\nearth and stars and yet no greater than a man. He saw a being for ever\nyoung, for ever beginning, for ever triumphant. The quality and texture\nof this being was a warm and living light like the effulgence at\nsunrise; He was hope and courage like a sunlit morning in spring. He\nwas adventure for ever, and His courage and adventure flowed into and\nsubmerged and possessed the being of the man who beheld him. And this\npresence of God stood over the bishop, and seemed to speak to him in a\nwordless speech.\n\nHe bade him surrender himself. He bade him come out upon the Adventure\nof Life, the great Adventure of the earth that will make the atoms our\nbond-slaves and subdue the stars, that will build up the white fires of\necstasy to submerge pain for ever, that will overcome death. In Him\nthe spirit of creation had become incarnate, had joined itself to men,\nsummoning men to Him, having need of them, having need of them, having\nneed of their service, even as great kings and generals and leaders need\nand use men. For a moment, for an endless age, the bishop bowed himself\nin the being and glory of God, felt the glow of the divine courage and\nconfidence in his marrow, felt himself one with God.\n\nFor a timeless interval....\n\nNever had the bishop had so intense a sense of reality. It seemed that\nnever before had he known anything real. He knew certainly that God was\nhis King and master, and that his unworthy service could be acceptable\nto God. His mind embraced that idea with an absolute conviction that was\nalso absolute happiness.\n\n(11)\n\n\nThe thoughts and sensations of the bishop seemed to have lifted for\na time clean away from the condition of time, and then through a vast\norbit to be returning to that limitation.\n\nHe was aware presently that things were changing, that the light was\nlosing its diviner rays, that in some indescribable manner the glory and\nthe assurance diminished.\n\nThe onset of the new phase was by imperceptible degrees. From a glowing,\nserene, and static realization of God, everything relapsed towards\nchange and activity. He was in time again and things were happening, it\nwas as if the quicksands of time poured by him, and it was as if God\nwas passing away from him. He fell swiftly down from the heaven\nof self-forgetfulness to a grotesque, pathetic and earthly\nself-consciousness.\n\nHe became acutely aware of his episcopal livery. And that God was\npassing away from him.\n\nIt was as if God was passing, and as if the bishop was unable to rise up\nand follow him.\n\nThen it was as if God had passed, and as if the bishop was in headlong\npursuit of him and in a great terror lest he should be left behind. And\nhe was surely being left behind.\n\nHe discovered that in some unaccountable way his gaiters were loose;\nmost of their buttons seemed to have flown off, and his episcopal\nsash had slipped down about his feet. He was sorely impeded. He kept\nsnatching at these things as he ran, in clumsy attempts to get them off.\n\nAt last he had to stop altogether and kneel down and fumble with the\nlast obstinate button.\n\n\u201cOh God!\u201d he cried, \u201cGod my captain! Wait for me! Be patient with me!\u201d\n\nAnd as he did so God turned back and reached out his hand. It was indeed\nas if he stood and smiled. He stood and smiled as a kind man might do;\nhe dazzled and blinded his worshipper, and yet it was manifest that he\nhad a hand a man might clasp.\n\nUnspeakable love and joy irradiated the whole being of the bishop as he\nseized God's hand and clasped it desperately with both his own. It was\nas if his nerves and arteries and all his substance were inundated with\ngolden light....\n\nIt was again as if he merged with God and became God....\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE SIXTH - EXEGETICAL\n\n(1)\n\n\nWITHOUT any sense of transition the bishop found himself seated in the\nlittle North Library of the Athenaeum club and staring at the bust of\nJohn Wilson Croker. He was sitting motionless and musing deeply. He was\nquestioning with a cool and steady mind whether he had seen a vision\nor whether he had had a dream. If it had been a dream it had been an\nextraordinarily vivid and convincing dream. He still seemed to be in the\npresence of God, and it perplexed him not at all that he should also\nbe in the presence of Croker. The feeling of mental rottenness and\ninsecurity that had weakened his thought through the period of his\nillness, had gone. He was secure again within himself.\n\nIt did not seem to matter fundamentally whether it was an experience of\nthings without or of things within him that had happened to him. It was\nclear to him that much that he had seen was at most expressive, that\nsome was altogether symbolical. For example, there was that sudden\nabsurd realization of his sash and gaiters, and his perception of them\nas encumbrances in his pursuit of God. But the setting and essential of\nthe whole thing remained in his mind neither expressive nor symbolical,\nbut as real and immediately perceived, and that was the presence and\nkingship of God. God was still with him and about him and over him and\nsustaining him. He was back again in his world and his ordinary life,\nin his clothing and his body and his club, but God had been made and\nremained altogether plain and manifest.\n\nWhether an actual vision had made his conviction, or whether the\nconviction of his own subconscious mind had made the dream, seemed but\na small matter beside the conviction that this was indeed the God he had\ndesired and the God who must rule his life.\n\n\u201cThe stuff? The stuff had little to do with it. It just cleared my\nhead.... I have seen. I have seen really. I know.\u201d\n\n(2)\n\n\nFor a long time as it seemed the bishop remained wrapped in clouds of\nluminous meditation. Dream or vision it did not matter; the essential\nthing was that he had made up his mind about God, he had found God.\nMoreover, he perceived that his theological perplexities had gone. God\nwas higher and simpler and nearer than any theological God, than the\nGod of the Three Creeds. Those creeds lay about in his mind now like\ngarments flung aside, no trace nor suspicion of divinity sustained them\nany longer. And now--Now he would go out into the world.\n\nThe little Library of the Athenaeum has no visible door. He went to the\nbook-masked entrance in the corner, and felt among the bookshelves\nfor the hidden latch. Then he paused, held by a curious thought. What\nexactly was the intention of that symbolical struggle with his sash and\ngaiters, and why had they impeded his pursuit of God?\n\nTo what particularly significant action was he going out?\n\nThe Three Creeds were like garments flung aside. But he was still\nwearing the uniform of a priest in the service of those three creeds.\n\nAfter a long interval he walked into the big reading-room. He ordered\nsome tea and dry toast and butter, and sat down very thoughtfully in a\ncorner. He was still sitting and thinking at half-past eight.\n\nIt may seem strange to the reader that this bishop who had been doubting\nand criticizing the church and his system of beliefs for four long\nyears had never before faced the possibility of a severance from his\necclesiastical dignity. But he had grown up in the church, his life had\nbeen so entirely clerical and Anglican, that the widest separation he\nhad hitherto been able to imagine from this past had left him still a\nbishop, heretical perhaps, innovating in the broadening of beliefs and\nthe liberalizing of practice, defensive even as Chasters was defensive,\nbut still with the palace and his dignities, differing in opinion rather\nthan in any tangible reality from his previous self. For a bishop,\ndisbelief in the Church is a far profounder scepticism than mere\ndisbelief in God. God is unseen, and in daily things unfelt; but\nthe Church is with the predestined bishop always. His concept of the\nextremest possible departure from orthodoxy had been something that\nChasters had phrased as \u201ca restatement of Christ.\u201d It was a new idea, an\nidea that had come with an immense effect of severance and novelty, that\nGod could be other than the God of the Creed, could present himself\nto the imagination as a figure totally unlike the white, gentle, and\ncompromising Redeemer of an Anglican's thought. That the bishop should\ntreat the whole teaching of the church and the church itself as wrong,\nwas an idea so new that it fell upon him now like a thunderbolt out of a\ncloudless sky. But here, clear in his mind now, was a feeling, amounting\nto conviction, that it was the purpose and gesture of the true God that\nhe should come right out of the church and all his professions.\n\nAnd in the first glow of his vision he felt this gesture imperative. He\nmust step right out.... Whither? how? And when?\n\nTo begin with it seemed to him that an immediate renunciation was\ndemanded. But it was a momentous step. He wanted to think. And to go\non thinking. Rather than to act precipitately. Although the imperative\nseemed absolute, some delaying and arresting instinct insisted that he\nmust \u201cthink\u201d If he went back to Princhester, the everyday duties of\nhis position would confront him at once with an effect of a definite\nchallenge. He decided to take one of the Reform club bedrooms for two or\nthree days, and wire to Princhester that he was \u201cunavoidably delayed in\ntown,\u201d without further explanations. Then perhaps this inhibitory force\nwould give way.\n\nIt did not, however, give way. His mind sat down for two days in a blank\namazement at the course before him, and at the end of that time this\nreasonless and formless institution was as strong as ever. During that\ntime, except for some incidental exchanges at his clubs, he talked to no\none. At first he did not want to talk to any one. He remained mentally\nand practically active, with a still intensely vivid sense that God,\nthe true God, stood watching him and waiting for him to follow. And to\nfollow meant slipping right out of all the world he had ever known.\nTo thrust his foot right over the edge of a cliff would scarcely have\ndemanded more from the bishop's store of resolution. He stood on the\nvery verge. The chief secretion of his mind was a shadowy experiment or\nso in explanation of why he did not follow.\n\n(3)\n\n\nInsensibly the extreme vividness of his sense of God's nearness\ndecreased. But he still retained a persuasion of the reality of an\nimmediate listener waiting, and of the need of satisfying him.\n\nOn the third day he found his mind still further changed. He no longer\nfelt that God was in Pall Mall or St. James's Park, whither he\nresorted to walk and muse. He felt now that God was somewhere about the\nhorizon....\n\nHe felt too no longer that he thought straight into the mind of God. He\nthought now of what he would presently say to God. He turned over and\nrehearsed phrases. With that came a desire to try them first on some\nother hearer. And from that to the attentive head of Lady Sunderbund,\nprettily bent towards him, was no great leap. She would understand,\nif any one could understand, the great change that had happened in his\nmind.\n\nHe found her address in the telephone book. She could be quite alone\nto him if he wouldn't mind \u201cjust me.\u201d It was, he said, exactly what he\ndesired.\n\nBut when he got to her great airy flat overlooking Hyde Park, with its\nOmega Workshop furniture and its arresting decoration, he was not so\nsure whether this encounter was so exactly the thing he had desired as\nhe had supposed.\n\nThe world had become opaque and real again as he walked up St. James's\nStreet and past the Ritz. He had a feeling that he was taking an\nafternoon off from God. The adventurous modernity of the room in which\nhe waited intensified that. One whole white wall was devoted to a small\npicture by Wyndham Lewis. It was like a picture of an earthquake in a\ncity of aniline pink and grey and keen green cardboard, and he wished it\nhad never existed.\n\nHe turned his back upon it and stared out of the window over the trees\nand greenery. The balcony was decorated with white and pink geraniums in\npots painted black and gold, and the railings of the balcony were black\nand gold with crimson shape like squares wildly out of drawing.\n\nLady Sunderbund kept him waiting perhaps five minutes. Then she came\nsailing in to him.\n\nShe was dressed in a way and moved across the room in a way that was\nmore reminiscent of Botticelli's Spring than ever--only with a kind\nof superadded stiffish polonaise of lace--and he did not want to be\nreminded of Botticelli's Spring or wonder why she had taken to stiff\nlace polonaises. He did not enquire whether he had met Lady Sunderbund\nto better advantage at Mrs. Garstein Fellows' or whether his memory had\noverrated her or whether anything had happened to his standard of taste,\nbut his feeling now was decidedly one of disappointment, and all the\ntalk and self-examination he had promised himself seemed to wither and\nhide away within him. For a time he talked of her view, and then\nadmired her room and its arrangement, which he thought really were quite\nunbecomingly flippant and undignified for a room. Then came the black\ntea-things on their orange tray, and he searched in his mind for small\ntalk to sustain their interview.\n\nBut he had already betrayed his disposition to \u201cgo on with our talk\u201d\n in his telephone enquiry, and Lady Sunderbund, perceiving his shyness,\nbegan to make openings for him, at first just little hinting openings,\nand then larger and larger ones, until at last one got him.\n\n\u201cI'm so glad,\u201d she said, \u201cto see you again. I'm so glad to go on with\nour talk. I've thought about it and thought about it.\u201d\n\nShe beamed at him happily.\n\n\u201cI've thought ova ev'y wo'd you said,\u201d she went on, when she had\nfinished conveying her pretty bliss to him. \u201cI've been so helped by\nthinking the k'eeds are symbols. And all you said. And I've felt time\nafter time, you couldn't stay whe' you we'. That what you we' saying to\nme, would have to be said 'ight out.\u201d\n\nThat brought him in. He could not very well evade that opening without\nincivility. After all he had asked to see her, and it was a foolish\nthing to let little decorative accidentals put him off his friendly\npurpose. A woman may have flower-pots painted gold with black checkers\nand still be deeply understanding. He determined to tell her what was in\nhis mind. But he found something barred him from telling that he had\nhad an actual vision of God. It was as if that had been a private and\nconfidential meeting. It wasn't, he felt, for him either to boast a\nprivilege or tell others of things that God had not chosen to show them.\n\n\u201cSince I saw you,\u201d he said, \u201cI have thought a great deal--of the subject\nof our conversation.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have been t'ying to think,\u201d she said in a confirmatory tone, as if\nshe had co-operated.\n\n\u201cMy faith in God grows,\u201d he said.\n\nShe glowed. Her lips fell apart. She flamed attention.\n\n\u201cBut it grows less like the faith of the church, less and less. I was\nborn and trained in Anglicanism, and it is with a sort of astonishment I\nfind myself passing now out of every sort of Catholicism--seeing it from\nthe outside....\u201d\n\n\u201cJust as one might see Buddhism,\u201d she supplied.\n\n\u201cAnd yet feeling nearer, infinitely nearer to God,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d she panted; \u201cyes.\u201d\n\n\u201cI thought if one went out, one went out just to doubt and darkness.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you don't?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have gone at one step to a new 'iligion!\u201d\n\nHe stared for a moment at the phrase.\n\n\u201cTo religion,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cIt is so wondyful,\u201d she said, with her hands straight down upon the\ncouch upon which she was sitting, and leaning forward at him, so as to\nseem almost as much out of drawing as a modern picture.\n\n\u201cIt seems,\u201d he reflected; \u201c--as if it were a natural thing.\u201d\n\nShe came back to earth very slowly. She turned to the tea-things with\nhushed and solemn movements as though she administered a ceremony of\npeculiar significance. The bishop too rose slowly out of the profundity\nof his confession. \u201cNo sugar please,\u201d he said, arresting the lump in mid\nair.\n\nIt was only when they were embarked upon cups of tea and had a little\nrefreshed themselves, that she carried the talk further.\n\n\u201cDoes it mean that you must leave the church?\u201d she asked.\n\n\u201cIt seemed so at first,\u201d he said. \u201cBut now I do not know. I do not know\nwhat I ought to do.\u201d\n\nShe awaited his next thought.\n\n\u201cIt is as if one had lived in a room all one's life and thought it the\nworld--and then suddenly walked out through a door and discovered the\nsea and the mountains and stars. So it was with me and the Anglican\nChurch. It seems so extraordinary now--and it would have seemed the\nmost natural thing a year ago--to think that I ever believed that the\nAnglican Compromise was the final truth of religion, that nothing more\nuntil the end of the world could ever be known that Cosmo Gordon Lang\ndid not know, that there could be no conception of God and his quality\nthat Randall Davidson did not possess.\u201d\n\nHe paused.\n\n\u201cI did,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cI did,\u201d she responded with round blue eyes of wonder.\n\n\u201cAt the utmost the Church of England is a tabernacle on a road.\u201d\n\n\u201cA 'oad that goes whe'?\u201d she rhetorized.\n\n\u201cExactly,\u201d said the bishop, and put down his cup.\n\n\u201cYou see, my dear Lady Sunderbund,\u201d he resumed, \u201cI am exactly in the\nsame position of that man at the door.\u201d\n\nShe quoted aptly and softly: \u201cThe wo'ld was all befo' them whe' to\nchoose.\u201d\n\nHe was struck by the aptness of the words.\n\n\u201cI feel I have to come right out into the bare truth. What exactly then\ndo I become? Do I lose my priestly function because I discover how great\nGod is? But what am I to do?\u201d\n\nHe opened a new layer of his thoughts to her.\n\n\u201cThere is a saying,\u201d he remarked, \u201conce a priest, always a priest. I\ncannot imagine myself as other than what I am.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut o'thodox no maw,\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cOrthodox--self-satisfied, no longer. A priest who seeks, an exploring\npriest.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn a Chu'ch of P'og'ess and B'othe'hood,\u201d she carried him on.\n\n\u201cAt any rate, in a progressive and learning church.\u201d\n\nShe flashed and glowed assent.\n\n\u201cI have been haunted,\u201d he said, \u201cby those words spoken at Athens. 'Whom\ntherefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.' That comes\nto me with an effect of--guidance is an old-fashioned word--shall I\nsay suggestion? To stand by the altar bearing strange names and ancient\nsymbols, speaking plainly to all mankind of the one true God--!\u201d\n\n(4)\n\n\nHe did not get much beyond this point at the time, though he remained\ntalking with Lady Sunderbund for nearly an hour longer. The rest was\nmerely a beating out of what had already been said. But insensibly she\nrenewed her original charm, and as he became accustomed to her he forgot\na certain artificiality in her manner and the extreme modernity of her\ncostume and furniture. She was a wonderful listener; nobody else could\nhave helped him to expression in quite the same way, and when he left\nher he felt that now he was capable of stating his case in a coherent\nand acceptable form to almost any intelligent hearer. He had a point of\nview now that was no longer embarrassed by the immediate golden\npresence of God; he was no longer dazzled nor ecstatic; his problem had\ndiminished to the scale of any other great human problem, to the scale\nof political problems and problems of integrity and moral principle,\nproblems about which there is no such urgency as there is about a house\non fire, for example.\n\nAnd now the desire for expression was running strong. He wanted to\nstate his situation; if he did not state he would have to act; and as he\nwalked back to the club dinner he turned over possible interlocutors\nin his thoughts. Lord Rampound sat with him at dinner, and he came near\nbroaching the subject with him. But Lord Rampound that evening had\nthat morbid running of bluish legal anecdotes which is so common an\naffliction with lawyers, and theology sinks and dies in that turbid\nstream.\n\nBut as he lay in bed that night he thought of his old friend and helper\nBishop Likeman, and it was borne in upon him that he should consult him.\nAnd this he did next day.\n\nSince the days when the bishop had been only plain Mr. Scrope, the\nyoungest and most helpful of Likeman's historical band of curates, their\nfriendship had continued. Likeman had been a second father to him; in\nparticular his tact and helpfulness had shone during those days of doubt\nand anxiety when dear old Queen Victoria, God's representative on earth,\nhad obstinately refused, at the eleventh hour, to make him a bishop. She\nhad those pigheaded fits, and she was touchy about the bishops. She had\nliked Scrope on account of the excellence of his German pronunciation,\nbut she had been irritated by newspaper paragraphs--nobody could ever\nfind out who wrote them and nobody could ever find out who showed them\nto the old lady--anticipating his elevation. She had gone very red\nin the face and stiffened in the Guelphic manner whenever Scrope was\nmentioned, and so a rich harvest of spiritual life had remained untilled\nfor some months. Likeman had brought her round.\n\nIt seemed arguable that Scrope owed some explanation to Likeman before\nhe came to any open breach with the Establishment.\n\nHe found Likeman perceptibly older and more shrivelled on account of the\nwar, but still as sweet and lucid and subtle as ever. His voice sounded\nmore than ever like a kind old woman's.\n\nHe sat buried in his cushions--for \u201cnowadays I must save every scrap\nof vitality\u201d--and for a time contented himself with drawing out his\nvisitor's story.\n\nOf course, one does not talk to Likeman of visions or intuitions. \u201cI am\ndisturbed, I find myself getting out of touch;\u201d that was the bishop's\ntone.\n\nOccasionally Likeman nodded slowly, as a physician might do at the\nrecital of familiar symptoms. \u201cYes,\u201d he said, \u201cI have been through most\nof this.... A little different in the inessentials.... How clear you\nare!\u201d\n\n\u201cYou leave our stupid old Trinities--as I left them long ago,\u201d said old\nLikeman, with his lean hand feeling and clawing at the arm of his chair.\n\n\u201cBut--!\u201d\n\nThe old man raised his hand and dropped it. \u201cYou go away from it\nall--straight as a line. I did. You take the wings of the morning and\nfly to the uttermost parts of the earth. And there you find--\u201d\n\nHe held up a lean finger, and inclined it to tick off each point.\n\n\u201cFate--which is God the Father, the Power of the Heart, which is God\nthe Son, and that Light which comes in upon us from the inaccessible\nGodhead, which is God the Holy Spirit.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I know of no God the Holy Spirit, and Fate is not God at all. I\nsaw in my vision one sole God, uncrucified, militant--conquering and to\nconquer.\u201d\n\nOld Likeman stared. \u201cYou saw!\u201d\n\nThe Bishop of Princhester had not meant to go so far. But he stuck to\nhis words. \u201cAs if I saw with my eyes. A God of light and courage.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have had visions, Scrope?\u201d\n\n\u201cI seemed to see.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, you have just been dreaming dreams.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut why should one not see?\u201d\n\n\u201cSee! The things of the spirit. These symbols as realities! These\nmetaphors as men walking!\u201d\n\n\u201cYou talk like an agnostic.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe are all agnostics. Our creeds are expressions of ourselves and our\nattitude and relationship to the unknown. The triune God is just the\nform of our need and disposition. I have always assumed that you took\nthat for granted. Who has ever really seen or heard or felt God? God\nis neither of the senses nor of the mind; he is of the soul. You are\nrealistic, you are materialistic....\u201d\n\nHis voice expostulated.\n\nThe Bishop of Princhester reflected. The vision of God was far off\namong his memories now, and difficult to recall. But he said at last: \u201cI\nbelieve there is a God and that he is as real a person as you or I. And\nhe is not the theological God we set out before the world.\u201d\n\n\u201cPersonification,\u201d said Likeman. \u201cIn the eighteenth century they used to\ndraw beautiful female figures as Science and Mathematics. Young men have\nloved Science--and Freedom--as Pygmalion loved Galatea. Have it so\nif you will. Have a visible person for your Deity. But let me keep up\nmy--spirituality.\u201d\n\n\u201cYour spirituality seems as thin as a mist. Do you really\nbelieve--anything?\u201d\n\n\u201cEverything!\u201d said Likeman emphatically, sitting up with a transitory\nvigour. \u201cEverything we two have ever professed together. I believe that\nthe creeds of my church do express all that can possibly be expressed in\nthe relationship of--That\u201d--he made a comprehensive gesture with a twist\nof his hand upon its wrist--\u201cto the human soul. I believe that they\nexpress it as well as the human mind can express it. Where they seem\nto be contradictory or absurd, it is merely that the mystery is\nparadoxical. I believe that the story of the Fall and of the Redemption\nis a complete symbol, that to add to it or to subtract from it or to\nalter it is to diminish its truth; if it seems incredible at this point\nor that, then simply I admit my own mental defect. And I believe in our\nChurch, Scrope, as the embodied truth of religion, the divine instrument\nin human affairs. I believe in the security of its tradition, in\nthe complete and entire soundness of its teaching, in its essential\nauthority and divinity.\u201d\n\nHe paused, and put his head a little on one side and smiled sweetly.\n\u201cAnd now can you say I do not believe?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut the historical Christ, the man Jesus?\u201d\n\n\u201cA life may be a metaphor. Why not? Yes, I believe it all. All.\u201d\n\nThe Bishop of Princhester was staggered by this complete acceptance. \u201cI\nsee you believe all you profess,\u201d he said, and remained for a moment or\nso rallying his forces.\n\n\u201cYour vision--if it was a vision--I put it to you, was just some single\naspect of divinity,\u201d said Likeman. \u201cWe make a mistake in supposing that\nHeresy has no truth in it. Most heresies are only a disproportionate\napprehension of some essential truth. Most heretics are men who have\nsuddenly caught a glimpse through the veil of some particular verity....\nThey are dazzled by that aspect. All the rest has vanished.... They are\nobsessed. You are obsessed clearly by this discovery of the militancy of\nGod. God the Son--as Hero. And you want to go out to the simple worship\nof that one aspect. You want to go out to a Dissenter's tent in the\nwilderness, instead of staying in the Great Temple of the Ages.\u201d\n\nWas that true?\n\nFor some moments it sounded true.\n\nThe Bishop of Princhester sat frowning and looking at that. Very far\naway was the vision now of that golden Captain who bade him come. Then\nat a thought the bishop smiled.\n\n\u201cThe Great Temple of the Ages,\u201d he repeated. \u201cBut do you remember the\ntrouble we had when the little old Queen was so pigheaded?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! I remember, I remember,\u201d said Likeman, smiling with unshaken\nconfidence. \u201cWhy not?\u201d\n\n\u201cFor sixty years all we bishops in what you call the Great Temple of\nthe Ages, were appointed and bullied and kept in our places by that\npink irascible bit of dignity. I remember how at the time I didn't dare\nbetray my boiling indignation even to you--I scarcely dared admit it to\nmyself....\u201d\n\nHe paused.\n\n\u201cIt doesn't matter at all,\u201d and old Likeman waved it aside.\n\n\u201cNot at all,\u201d he confirmed, waving again.\n\n\u201cI spoke of the whole church of Christ on earth,\u201d he went on.\n\u201cThese things, these Victorias and Edwards and so on, are temporary\naccidents--just as the severance of an Anglican from a Roman communion\nand a Greek orthodox communion are temporary accidents. You will remark\nthat wise men in all ages have been able to surmount the difficulty of\nthese things. Why? Because they knew that in spite of all these splits\nand irregularities and defacements--like the cracks and crannies and\nlichens on a cathedral wall--the building held good, that it was shelter\nand security. There is no other shelter and security. And so I come to\nyour problem. Suppose it is true that you have this incidental vision\nof the militant aspect of God, and he isn't, as you see him now that\nis,--he isn't like the Trinity, he isn't like the Creed, he doesn't seem\nto be related to the Church, then comes the question, are you going out\nfor that? And whither do you go if you do go out? The Church remains. We\nalter doctrines not by changing the words but by shifting the accent. We\ncan under-accentuate below the threshold of consciousness.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut can we?\u201d\n\n\u201cWe do. Where's Hell now? Eighty years ago it warmed the whole Church.\nIt was--as some atheist or other put it the other day--the central\nheating of the soul. But never mind that point now. Consider the\nessential question, the question of breaking with the church. Ask\nyourself, whither would you go? To become an oddity! A Dissenter. A\nNegative. Self emasculated. The spirit that denies. You would just go\nout. You would just cease to serve Religion. That would be all. You\nwouldn't do anything. The Church would go on; everything else would go\non. Only you would be lost in the outer wilderness.\n\n\u201cBut then--\u201d\n\nOld Likeman leant forward and pointed a bony finger. \u201cStay in the Church\nand modify it. Bring this new light of yours to the altar.\u201d\n\nThere was a little pause.\n\n\u201cNo man,\u201d the bishop thought aloud, \u201cputteth new wine into old bottles.\u201d\n\nOld Likeman began to speak and had a fit of coughing. \u201cSome of these\ntexts--whuff, whuff--like a conjuror's hat--whuff--make 'em--fit\nanything.\u201d\n\nA man-servant appeared and handed a silver box of lozenges into which\nthe old bishop dipped with a trembling hand.\n\n\u201cTricks of that sort,\u201d he said, \u201cwon't do, Scrope--among professionals.\n\n\u201cAnd besides,\u201d he was inspired; \u201ctrue religion is old wine--as old as\nthe soul.\n\n\u201cYou are a bishop in the Church of Christ on Earth,\u201d he summed it up.\n\u201cAnd you want to become a detached and wandering Ancient Mariner from\nyour shipwreck of faith with something to explain--that nobody wants to\nhear. You are going out I suppose you have means?\u201d\n\nThe old man awaited the answer to his abrupt enquiry with a handful of\nlozenges.\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d said the Bishop of Princhester, \u201cpractically--I haven't.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy dear boy!\u201d it was as if they were once more rector and curate.\n\u201cMy dear brother! do you know what the value of an ex-bishop is in the\nordinary labour market?\u201d\n\n\u201cI have never thought of that.\u201d\n\n\u201cEvidently. You have a wife and children?\u201d\n\n\u201cFive daughters.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd your wife married you--I remember, she married you soon after you\ngot that living in St. John's Wood. I suppose she took it for granted\nthat you were fixed in an ecclesiastical career. That was implicit in\nthe transaction.\u201d\n\n\u201cI haven't looked very much at that side of the matter yet,\u201d said the\nBishop of Princhester.\n\n\u201cIt shouldn't be a decisive factor,\u201d said Bishop Likeman, \u201cnot decisive.\nBut it will weigh. It should weigh....\u201d\n\nThe old man opened out fresh aspects of the case. His argument was for\ndelay, for deliberation. He went on to a wider set of considerations. A\nman who has held the position of a bishop for some years is, he held, no\nlonger a free man in matters of opinion. He has become an official part\nof a great edifice which supports the faith of multitudes of simple\nand dependant believers. He has no right to indulge recklessly in\nintellectual and moral integrities. He may understand, but how is the\nflock to understand? He may get his own soul clear, but what will happen\nto them? He will just break away their supports, astonish them, puzzle\nthem, distress them, deprive them of confidence, convince them of\nnothing.\n\n\u201cIntellectual egotism may be as grave a sin,\u201d said Bishop Likeman, \u201cas\nphysical selfishness.\n\n\u201cAssuming even that you are absolutely right,\u201d said Bishop Likeman,\n\u201caren't you still rather in the position of a man who insists upon\nSwedish exercises and a strengthening dietary on a raft?\u201d\n\n\u201cI think you have made out a case for delay,\u201d said his hearer.\n\n\u201cThree months.\u201d\n\nThe Bishop of Princhester conceded three months.\n\n\u201cIncluding every sort of service. Because, after all, even supposing\nit is damnable to repeat prayers and creeds you do not believe in, and\nadminister sacraments you think superstition, nobody can be damned\nbut yourself. On the other hand if you express doubts that are not yet\nperfectly digested--you experiment with the souls of others....\u201d\n\n(5)\n\n\nThe bishop found much to ponder in his old friend's counsels. They were\ndiscursive and many-fronted, and whenever he seemed to be penetrating or\ndefeating the particular considerations under examination the others\nin the background had a way of appearing invincible. He had a strong\npersuasion that Likeman was wrong--and unanswerable. And the true God\nnow was no more than the memory of a very vividly realized idea. It\nwas clear to the bishop that he was no longer a churchman or in the\ngenerally accepted sense of the word a Christian, and that he was bound\nto come out of the church. But all sense of urgency had gone. It was a\nmatter demanding deliberation and very great consideration for others.\n\nHe took no more of Dale's stuff because he felt bodily sound and slept\nwell. And he was now a little shy of this potent fluid. He went down\nto Princhester the next day, for his compromise of an interval of three\nmonths made it seem possible to face his episcopal routine again. It\nwas only when he was back in his own palace that the full weight of\nhis domestic responsibilities in the discussion of the course he had to\ntake, became apparent.\n\nLady Ella met him with affection and solicitude.\n\n\u201cI was tired and mentally fagged,\u201d he said. \u201cA day or so in London had\nan effect of change.\u201d\n\nShe agreed that he looked much better, and remained for a moment or so\nscrutinizing him with the faint anxiety of one resolved to be completely\nhelpful.\n\nHe regarded her with a renewed sense of her grace and dignity and\nkindliness. She was wearing a grey dress of soft silky material, touched\nwith blue and covered with what seemed to him very rich and beautiful\nlace; her hair flowed back very graciously from her broad brow, and\nabout her wrist and neck were delicate lines of gold. She seemed\ntremendously at home and right just where she was, in that big\nhospitable room, cultured but Anglican, without pretensions or\nnovelties, with a glow of bound books, with the grand piano that Miriam,\nhis third daughter, was beginning to play so well, with the tea equipage\nof shining silver and fine porcelain.\n\nHe sat down contentedly in the low armchair beside her.\n\nIt wasn't a setting that one would rashly destroy....\n\nAnd that evening at dinner this sense of his home as a complex of finely\nadjusted things not to be rashly disturbed was still more in the mind of\nthe bishop. At dinner he had all his domesticities about him. It was the\nfamily time, from eight until ten, at which latter hour he would usually\ngo back from the drawing-room to his study. He surveyed the table.\nEleanor was at home for a few days, looking a little thin and bright\nbut very keen and happy. She had taken a first in the first part of\nthe Moral Science Tripos, and she was working hard now for part two.\nClementina was to go back to Newnham with her next September. She\naspired to history. Miriam's bent was musical. She and Phoebe and Daphne\nand Clementina were under the care of skilful Mademoiselle Lafarge,\nmost tactful of Protestant French-women, Protestant and yet not too\nProtestant, one of those rare French Protestants in whom a touch of\nBergson and the Pasteur Monod\n\n     \u201cscarce suspected, animates the whole.\u201d\n\nAnd also they had lessons, so high are our modern standards of\neducation, from Mr. Blent, a brilliant young mathematician in orders,\nwho sat now next to Lady Ella. Mr. Whippham, the chaplain, was at the\nbishop's right hand, ready for any chance of making arrangements to\nclear off the small arrears of duty the little holiday in London had\naccumulated. The bishop surveyed all these bright young people between\nhimself and the calm beauty of his wife. He spoke first to one and then\nanother upon the things that interested them. It rejoiced his heart to\nbe able to give them education and opportunity, it pleased him to see\nthem in clothes that he knew were none the less expensive because of\ntheir complete simplicity. Miriam and Mr. Blent wrangled pleasantly\nabout Debussy, and old Dunk waited as though in orders of some rare and\nspecial sort that qualified him for this service.\n\nAll these people, the bishop reflected, counted upon him that this would\ngo on....\n\nEleanor was answering some question of her mother's. They were so oddly\nalike and so curiously different, and both in their several ways so\nfine. Eleanor was dark like his own mother. Perhaps she did a little\nlack Lady Ella's fine reserves; she could express more, she could feel\nmore acutely, she might easily be very unhappy or very happy....\n\nAll these people counted on him. It was indeed acutely true, as Likeman\nhad said, that any sudden breach with his position would be a breach of\nfaith--so far as they were concerned.\n\nAnd just then his eye fell upon the epergne, a very old and beautiful\npiece of silver, that graced the dinner-table. It had been given him,\ntogether with an episcopal ring, by his curates and choristers at the\nChurch of the Holy Innocents, when he became bishop of Pinner. When they\ngave it him, had any one of them dreamt that some day he might be moved\nto strike an ungracious blow at the mother church that had reared them\nall?\n\nIt was his custom to join the family in the drawing-room after dinner.\nTo-night he was a little delayed by Whippham, with some trivialities\nabout next month's confirmations in Pringle and Princhester. When he\ncame in he found Miriam playing, and playing very beautifully one of\nthose later sonatas of Beethoven, he could never remember whether it\nwas Of. 109 or Of. 111, but he knew that he liked it very much; it\nwas solemn and sombre with phases of indescribable sweetness--while\nClementina, Daphne and Mademoiselle Lafarge went on with their war\nknitting and Phoebe and Mr. Blent bent their brows over chess. Eleanor\nwas reading the evening paper. Lady Ella sat on a high chair by the\ncoffee things, and he stood in the doorway surveying the peaceful scene\nfor a moment or so, before he went across the room and sat down on the\ncouch close to her.\n\n\u201cYou look tired,\u201d she whispered softly.\n\n\u201cWorries.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat Chasters case?\u201d\n\n\u201cThings developing out of that. I must tell you later.\u201d It would be, he\nfelt, a good way of breaking the matter to her.\n\n\u201cIs the Chasters case coming on again, Daddy?\u201d asked Eleanor.\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\u201cIt's a pity,\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cWhat?\n\n\u201cThat he can't be left alone.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt's Sir Reginald Phipps. The Church would be much more tolerant if\nit wasn't for the House of Laymen. But they--they feel they must do\nsomething.\u201d\n\nHe seized the opportunity of the music ceasing to get away from the\nsubject. \u201cMiriam dear,\u201d he asked, raising his voice; \u201cis that 109 or\n111? I can never tell.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is always 111, Daddy,\u201d said Miriam. \u201cIt's the other one is 109.\u201d\n And then evidently feeling that she had been pert: \u201cWould you like me to\nplay you 109, Daddy?\u201d\n\n\u201cI should love it, my dear.\u201d And he leant back and prepared to listen in\nsuch a thorough way that Eleanor would have no chance of discussing the\nChasters' heresies. But this was interrupted by the consummation of the\ncoffee, and Mr. Blent, breaking a long silence with \u201cMate in three, if\nI'm not mistaken,\u201d leapt to his feet to be of service. Eleanor, with the\nrough seriousness of youth, would not leave the Chasters case alone.\n\n\u201cBut need you take action against Mr. Chasters?\u201d she asked at once.\n\n\u201cIt's a very complicated subject, my dear,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cHis arguments?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe practical considerations.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut what are practical considerations in such a case?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat's a post-graduate subject, Norah,\u201d her father said with a smile\nand a sigh.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d began Eleanor, gathering fresh forces.\n\n\u201cDaddy is tired,\u201d Lady Ella intervened, patting him on the head.\n\n\u201cOh, terribly!--of that,\u201d he said, and so escaped Eleanor for the\nevening.\n\nBut he knew that before very long he would have to tell his wife of\nthe changes that hung over their lives; it would be shabby to let the\navalanche fall without giving the longest possible warning; and before\nthey parted that night he took her hands in his and said: \u201cThere is much\nI have to tell you, dear. Things change, the whole world changes. The\nchurch must not live in a dream....\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d she whispered. \u201cI hope you will sleep to-night,\u201d and held up her\ngrave sweet face to be kissed.\n\n(6)\n\n\nBut he did not sleep perfectly that night.\n\nHe did not sleep indeed very badly, but he lay for some time thinking,\nthinking not onward but as if he pressed his mind against very strong\nbarriers that had closed again. His vision of God which had filled the\nheavens, had become now gem-like, a minute, hard, clear-cut conviction\nin his mind that he had to disentangle himself from the enormous\ncomplications of symbolism and statement and organization and\nmisunderstanding in the church and achieve again a simple and living\nworship of a simple and living God. Likeman had puzzled and silenced\nhim, only upon reflection to convince him that amidst such intricacies\nof explanation the spirit cannot live. Creeds may be symbolical, but\nsymbols must not prevaricate. A church that can symbolize everything and\nanything means nothing.\n\nIt followed from this that he ought to leave the church. But there came\nthe other side of this perplexing situation. His feelings as he lay in\nhis bed were exactly like those one has in a dream when one wishes to\nrun or leap or shout and one can achieve no movement, no sound. He could\nnot conceive how he could possibly leave the church.\n\nHis wife became as it were the representative of all that held him\nhelpless. She and he had never kept secret from one another any plan of\naction, any motive, that affected the other. It was clear to him that\nany movement towards the disavowal of doctrinal Christianity and the\nrenunciation of his see must be first discussed with her. He must tell\nher before he told the world.\n\nAnd he could not imagine his telling her except as an incredibly\nshattering act.\n\nSo he left things from day to day, and went about his episcopal\nroutines. He preached and delivered addresses in such phrases as he knew\npeople expected, and wondered profoundly why it was that it should be\nimpossible for him to discuss theological points with Lady Ella. And one\nafternoon he went for a walk with Eleanor along the banks of the Prin,\nand found himself, in response to certain openings of hers, talking to\nher in almost exactly the same terms as Likeman had used to him.\n\nThen suddenly the problem of this theological eclaircissement was\ncomplicated in an unexpected fashion.\n\nHe had just been taking his Every Second Thursday Talk with Diocesan\nMen Helpers. He had been trying to be plain and simple upon the needless\nnarrowness of enthusiastic laymen. He was still in the Bishop Andrews\ncap and purple cassock he affected on these occasions; the Men Helpers\nloved purple; and he was disentangling himself from two or three\nresolute bores--for our loyal laymen can be at times quite superlative\nbores--when Miriam came to him.\n\n\u201cMummy says, 'Come to the drawing-room if you can.' There is a Lady\nSunderbund who seems particularly to want to see you.\u201d\n\nHe hesitated for a moment, and then decided that this was a conversation\nhe ought to control.\n\nHe found Lady Sunderbund looking very tall and radiantly beautiful in\na sheathlike dress of bright crimson trimmed with snow-white fur and a\nwhite fur toque. She held out a long white-gloved hand to him and\ncried in a tone of comradeship and profound understanding: \u201cI've come,\nBishop!\u201d\n\n\u201cYou've come to see me?\u201d he said without any sincerity in his polite\npleasure.\n\n\u201cI've come to P'inchesta to stay!\u201d she cried with a bright triumphant\nrising note.\n\nShe evidently considered Lady Ella a mere conversational stop-gap, to\nbe dropped now that the real business could be commenced. She turned\nher pretty profile to that lady, and obliged the bishop with a compact\nsummary of all that had preceded his arrival. \u201cI have been telling\nLady Ella,\u201d she said, \u201cI've taken a house, fu'nitua and all! Hea.\nIn P'inchesta! I've made up my mind to sit unda you--as they say\nin Clapham. I've come 'ight down he' fo' good. I've taken a little\nhouse--oh! a sweet little house that will be all over 'oses next month.\nI'm living f'om 'oom to 'oom and having the othas done up. It's in that\nlittle quiet st'eet behind you' ga'den wall. And he' I am!\u201d\n\n\u201cIs it the old doctor's house?\u201d asked Lady Ella.\n\n\u201cWas it an old docta?\u201d cried Lady Sunderbund. \u201cHow delightful! And now I\nshall be a patient!\u201d\n\nShe concentrated upon the bishop.\n\n\u201cOh, I've been thinking all the time of all the things you told me. Ova\nand ova. It's all so wondyful and so--so like a G'ate Daw opening. New\nlight. As if it was all just beginning.\u201d\n\nShe clasped her hands.\n\nThe bishop felt that there were a great number of points to this\nsituation, and that it was extremely difficult to grasp them all\nat once. But one that seemed of supreme importance to his whirling\nintelligence was that Lady Ella should not know that he had gone to\nrelieve his soul by talking to Lady Sunderbund in London. It had never\noccurred to him at the time that there was any shadow of disloyalty to\nLady Ella in his going to Lady Sunderbund, but now he realized that this\nwas a thing that would annoy Lady Ella extremely. The conversation had\nin the first place to be kept away from that. And in the second place it\nhad to be kept away from the abrupt exploitation of the new theological\ndevelopments.\n\nHe felt that something of the general tension would be relieved if they\ncould all three be got to sit down.\n\n\u201cI've been talking for just upon two hours,\u201d he said to Lady Ella. \u201cIt's\ngood to see the water boiling for tea.\u201d\n\nHe put a chair for Lady Sunderbund to the right of Lady Ella, got her\ninto it by infusing an ecclesiastical insistence into his manner, and\nthen went and sat upon the music-stool on his wife's left, so as to\nestablish a screen of tea-things and cakes and so forth against her more\nintimate enthusiasm. Meanwhile he began to see his way clearer and to\ndevelop his line.\n\n\u201cWell, Lady Sunderbund,\u201d he said, \u201cI can assure you that I think you\nwill be no small addition to the church life of Princhester. But I warn\nyou this is a hard-working and exacting diocese. We shall take your\nmoney, all we can get of it, we shall take your time, we shall work you\nhard.\u201d\n\n\u201cWo'k me hard!\u201d cried Lady Sunderbund with passion.\n\n\u201cWe will, we will,\u201d said the bishop in a tone that ignored her\npassionate note.\n\n\u201cI am sure Lady Sunderbund will be a great help to us,\u201d said Lady Ella.\n\u201cWe want brightening. There's a dinginess....\u201d\n\nLady Sunderbund beamed an acknowledgment. \u201cI shall exact a 'eturn,\u201d she\nsaid. \u201cI don't mind wo'king, but I shall wo'k like the poo' students in\nthe Middle Ages did, to get my teaching. I've got my own soul to save as\nwell as help saving othas. Since oua last talk--\u201d\n\nShe found the bishop handing her bread and butter. For a time the bishop\nfought a delaying action with the tea-things, while he sought eagerly\nand vainly in his mind for some good practical topic in which he could\nentangle and suppress Lady Sunderbund's enthusiasms. From this she broke\naway by turning suddenly to Lady Ella.\n\n\u201cYoua husband's views,\u201d she said, \u201cwe'e a 'eal 'evelation to me. It was\nlike not being blind--all at once.\u201d\n\nLady Ella was always pleased to hear her husband praised. Her colour\nbrightened a little. \u201cThey seem very ordinary views,\u201d she said modestly.\n\n\u201cYou share them?\u201d cried Lady Sunderbund.\n\n\u201cBut of course,\u201d said Lady Ella.\n\n\u201cWondyful!\u201d cried Lady Sunderbund.\n\n\u201cTell me, Lady Sunderbund,\u201d said the bishop, \u201care you going to alter the\nouter appearance of the old doctor's house?\u201d And found that at last he\nhad discovered the saving topic.\n\n\u201cHa'dly at all,\u201d she said. \u201cI shall just have it pointed white and do\nthe doa--I'm not su' how I shall do the doa. Whetha I shall do the doa\ngold or a vehy, vehy 'itch blue.\u201d\n\nFor a time she and Lady Ella, to whom these ideas were novel, discussed\nthe animation of grey and sombre towns by house painting. In such matter\nLady Sunderbund had a Russian mind. \u201cI can't bea' g'ey,\u201d she said. \u201cNot\nin my su'oundings, not in my k'eed, nowhe'e.\u201d She turned to the bishop.\n\u201cIf I had my way I would paint you' cathed'al inside and out.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey used to be painted,\u201d said the bishop. \u201cI don't know if you have\nseen Ely. There the old painting has been largely restored....\u201d\n\nFrom that to the end there was no real danger, and at last the bishop\nfound himself alone with his wife again.\n\n\u201cRemarkable person,\u201d he said tentatively. \u201cI never met any one whose\nfaults were more visible. I met her at Wimbush House.\u201d\n\nHe glanced at his watch.\n\n\u201cWhat did she mean,\u201d asked Lady Ella abruptly, \u201cby talking of your new\nviews? And about revelations?\u201d\n\n\u201cShe probably misunderstood something I said at the Garstein Fellows',\u201d\n he said. \u201cShe has rather a leaping mind.\u201d\n\nHe turned to the window, looked at his nails, and appeared to be\nsuddenly reminded of duties elsewhere....\n\nIt was chiefly manifest to him that the difficulties in explaining the\nchanges of his outlook to Lady Ella had now increased enormously.\n\n(7)\n\n\nA day or so after Lady Sunderbund's arrival in Princhester the bishop\nhad a letter from Likeman. The old man was manifestly in doubt about the\neffect of their recent conversation.\n\n\u201cMy dear Scrope,\u201d it began. \u201cI find myself thinking continually about\nour interview and the difficulties you laid bare so frankly to me.\nWe touched upon many things in that talk, and I find myself full of\nafterthoughts, and not perfectly sure either quite of what I said or\nof what I failed to say. I feel that in many ways I was not perhaps so\nclear and convincing as the justice of my case should have made me, and\nyou are one of my own particular little company, you were one of the\nbest workers in that band of good workers, your life and your career\nare very much my concern. I know you will forgive me if I still mingle\nsomething of the paternal with my fraternal admonitions. I watched you\nclosely. I have still my old diaries of the St. Matthew's days, and I\nhave been looking at them to remind me of what you once were. It was my\ncustom to note my early impressions of all the men who worked with me,\nbecause I have a firm belief in the soundness of first impressions and\nthe considerable risk one runs of having them obscured by the accidents\nand habituations of constant intercourse. I found that quite early in\nyour days at St. Matthew's I wrote against your name 'enthusiastic, but\na saving delicacy.' After all our life-long friendship I would not write\nanything truer. I would say of you to-day, 'This man might have been a\nrevivalist, if he were not a gentleman.' There is the enthusiast,\nthere is the revivalist, in you. It seems to me that the stresses and\nquestions of this great crisis in the world's history have brought it\nnearer to the surface than I had ever expected it to come.\n\n\u201cI quite understand and I sympathize with your impatience with\nthe church at the present time; we present a spectacle of pompous\ninsignificance hard to bear with. We are doing very little, and we are\ngiving ourselves preposterous airs. There seems to be an opinion abroad\nthat in some quasi-automatic way the country is going to collapse after\nthe war into the arms of the church and the High Tories; a possibility\nI don't accept for a moment. Why should it? These forcible-feeble\nreactionaries are much more likely to explode a revolution that\nwill disestablish us. And I quite understand your theological\ndifficulties--quite. The creeds, if their entire symbolism is for a\nmoment forgotten, if they are taken as opaque statements of fact, are\ninconsistent, incredible. So incredible that no one believes them;\nnot even the most devout. The utmost they do is to avert their\nminds--reverentially. Credo quia impossibile. That is offensive to a\nWestern mind. I can quite understand the disposition to cry out at such\nthings, 'This is not the Church of God!'--to run out from it--\n\n\u201cYou have some dream, I suspect, of a dramatic dissidence.\n\n\u201cNow, my dear Brother and erstwhile pupil, I ask you not to do this\nthing. Wait, I implore you. Give me--and some others, a little time. I\nhave your promise for three months, but even after that, I ask you\nto wait. Let the reform come from within the church. The church is\nsomething more than either its creeds, its clergy, or its laymen. Look\nat your cathedral rising out of and dominating Princhester. It stands\nnot simply for Athanasius; it stands but incidentally for Athanasius; it\nstands for all religion. Within that fabric--let me be as frank here\nas in our private conversation--doctrine has altered again and again.\nTo-day two distinct religions worship there side by side; one that fades\nand one that grows brighter. There is the old quasi-materialistic belief\nof the barbarians, the belief in such things, for example, as that\nChrist the physical Son of God descended into hell and stayed there,\nseeing the sights I suppose like any tourist and being treated with\ndiplomatic civilities for three terrestrial days; and on the other\nhand there is the truly spiritual belief that you and I share, which\nis absolutely intolerant of such grotesque ideas. My argument to you\nis that the new faith, the clearer vision, gains ground; that the\nonly thing that can prevent or delay the church from being altogether\npossessed by what you call and I admit is, the true God, is that such\nmen as yourself, as the light breaks upon you, should be hasty and leave\nthe church. You see my point of view, do you not? It is not one that\nhas been assumed for our discussion; it is one I came to long years ago,\nthat I was already feeling my way to in my St. Matthew's Lenton sermons.\n\n\u201cA word for your private ear. I am working. I cannot tell you fully\nbecause I am not working alone. But there are movements afoot in which\nI hope very shortly to be able to ask you to share. That much at least I\nmay say at this stage. Obscure but very powerful influences are at\nwork for the liberalizing of the church, for release from many\nnarrow limitations, for the establishment of a modus vivendi with the\nnonconformist and dissentient bodies in Britain and America, and with\nthe churches of the East. But of that no more now.\n\n\u201cAnd in conclusion, my dear Scrope, let me insist again upon the eternal\npersistence of the essential Religious Fact:\u201d\n\n(Greek Letters Here)\n\n(Rev. i. 18. \u201cFear not. I am the First and Last thing, the Living\nthing.\u201d)\n\nAnd these promises which, even if we are not to take them as promises in\nthe exact sense in which, let us say, the payment of five sovereigns\nis promised by a five-pound note, are yet assertions of practically\ninevitable veracity:\n\n(Greek Letters Here)\n\n(Phil. i. 6. \u201cHe who began... will perfect.\u201d Eph. v. 14. \u201cHe will\nilluminate.\u201d)\n\n\nThe old man had written his Greek tags in shakily resolute capitals. It\nwas his custom always to quote the Greek Testament in his letters,\nnever the English version. It is a practice not uncommon with the more\nscholarly of our bishops. It is as if some eminent scientific man were\nto insist upon writing H2O instead of \u201cwater,\u201d and \u201csodium chloride\u201d\n instead of \u201ctable salt\u201d in his private correspondence. Or upon hanging\nup a stuffed crocodile in his hall to give the place tone. The Bishop\nof Princhester construed these brief dicta without serious exertion, he\nfound them very congenial texts, but there were insuperable difficulties\nin the problem why Likeman should suppose they had the slightest weight\nupon his side of their discussion. The more he thought the less they\nseemed to be on Likeman's side, until at last they began to take on a\ncomplexion entirely opposed to the old man's insidious arguments, until\nindeed they began to bear the extraordinary interpretation of a special\nmessage, unwittingly delivered.\n\n(8)\n\n\nThe bishop was still thinking over this communication when he was\ninterrupted by Lady Ella. She came with a letter in her hand to ask him\nwhether she might send five-and-twenty pounds to a poor cousin of his,\na teacher in a girls' school, who had been incapacitated from work by\na dislocation of the cartilage of her knee. If she could go to that\nunorthodox but successful practitioner, Mr. Barker, the bone-setter, she\nwas convinced she could be restored to efficiency. But she had no ready\nmoney. The bishop agreed without hesitation. His only doubt was the\ncertainty of the cure, but upon that point Lady Ella was convinced;\nthere had been a great experience in the Walshingham family.\n\n\u201cIt is pleasant to be able to do things like this,\u201d said Lady Ella,\nstanding over him when this matter was settled.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d the bishop agreed; \u201cit is pleasant to be in a position to do\nthings like this....\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE SEVENTH - THE SECOND VISION\n\n(1)\n\n\nA MONTH later found the bishop's original state of perplexity and\ninsomnia returned and intensified. He had done none of all the things\nthat had seemed so manifestly needing to be done after his vision in the\nAthenaeum. All the relief and benefit of his experience in London had\nvanished out of his life. He was afraid of Dr. Dale's drug; he knew\ncertainly that it would precipitate matters; and all his instincts\nin the state of moral enfeeblement to which he had relapsed, were to\ntemporize.\n\nAlthough he had said nothing further about his changed beliefs to Lady\nElla, yet he perceived clearly that a shadow had fallen between them.\nShe had a wife's extreme sensitiveness to fine shades of expression and\nbearing, and manifestly she knew that something was different. Meanwhile\nLady Sunderbund had become a frequent worshipper in the cathedral, she\nwas a figure as conspicuous in sombre Princhester as a bird of paradise\nwould have been; common people stood outside her very very rich blue\ndoor on the chance of seeing her; she never missed an opportunity of\nhearing the bishop preach or speak, she wrote him several long\nand thoughtful letters with which he did not bother Lady Ella, she\ncommunicated persistently, and manifestly intended to become a very\nactive worker in diocesan affairs.\n\nIt was inevitable that she and the bishop should meet and talk\noccasionally in the cathedral precincts, and it was inevitable that he\nshould contrast the flexibility of her rapid and very responsive mind\nwith a certain defensiveness, a stoniness, in the intellectual bearing\nof Lady Ella.\n\nIf it had been Lady Sunderbund he had had to explain to, instead of Lady\nElla, he could have explained a dozen times a day.\n\nAnd since his mind was rehearsing explanations it was not unnatural they\nshould overflow into this eagerly receptive channel, and that the less\nhe told Lady Ella the fuller became his spiritual confidences to Lady\nSunderbund.\n\nShe was clever in realizing that they were confidences and treating them\nas such, more particularly when it chanced that she and Lady Ella and\nthe bishop found themselves in the same conversation.\n\nShe made great friends with Miriam, and initiated her by a whole\ncollection of pretty costume plates into the mysteries of the \u201cUssian\nBallet\u201d and the works of Mousso'gski and \u201cImsky Ko'zakof.\u201d\n\nThe bishop liked a certain religiosity in the texture of Moussorgski's\nmusic, but failed to see the \u201csignificance \u201c--of many of the costumes.\n\n(2)\n\n\nIt was on a Sunday night--the fourth Sunday after Easter--that the\nsupreme crisis of the bishop's life began. He had had a feeling all day\nof extreme dulness and stupidity; he felt his ministrations unreal, his\nceremonies absurd and undignified. In the night he became bleakly and\npainfully awake. His mind occupied itself at first chiefly with the\ntortuousness and weakness of his own character. Every day he perceived\nthat the difficulty of telling Lady Ella of the change in his faith\nbecame more mountainous. And every day he procrastinated. If he had\ntold her naturally and simply on the evening of his return from\nLondon--before anything material intervened--everything would have been\ndifferent, everything would have been simpler....\n\nHe groaned and rolled over in his bed.\n\nThere came upon him the acutest remorse and misery. For he saw that\namidst these petty immediacies he had lost touch with God. The last\nmonth became incredible. He had seen God. He had touched God's hand. God\nhad been given to him, and he had neglected the gift. He was still lost\namidst the darkness and loneliness, the chaotic ends and mean shifts,\nof an Erastian world. For a month now and more, after a vision of God so\nvivid and real and reassuring that surely no saint nor prophet had ever\nhad a better, he had made no more than vague responsive movements; he\nhad allowed himself to be persuaded into an unreasonable and cowardly\ndelay, and the fetters of association and usage and minor interests\nwere as unbroken as they had been before ever the vision shone. Was it\ncredible that there had ever been such a vision in a life so entirely\ndictated by immediacy and instinct as his? We are all creatures of the\ndark stream, we swim in needs and bodily impulses and small vanities; if\never and again a bubble of spiritual imaginativeness glows out of us, it\nbreaks and leaves us where we were.\n\n\u201cLouse that I am!\u201d he cried.\n\nHe still believed in God, without a shadow of doubt; he believed in the\nGod that he had seen, the high courage, the golden intention, the light\nthat had for a moment touched him. But what had he to do with God, he,\nthe loiterer, the little thing?\n\nHe was little, he was funny. His prevarications with his wife, for\nexample, were comic. There was no other word for him but \u201cfunny.\u201d\n\nHe rolled back again and lay staring.\n\n\u201cWho will deliver me from the body of this death?\u201d What right has a\nlittle bishop in a purple stock and doeskin breeches, who hangs back in\nhis palace from the very call of God, to a phrase so fine and tragic as\n\u201cthe body of this death?\u201d\n\nHe was the most unreal thing in the universe. He was a base insect\ngiving himself airs. What advantage has a bishop over the Praying\nMantis, that cricket which apes the attitude of piety? Does he matter\nmore--to God?\n\n\u201cTo the God of the Universe, who can tell? To the God of man,--yes.\u201d\n\nHe sat up in bed struck by his own answer, and full of an indescribable\nhunger for God and an indescribable sense of his complete want of\ncourage to make the one simple appeal that would satisfy that hunger.\nHe tried to pray. \u201cO God!\u201d he cried, \u201cforgive me! Take me!\u201d It seemed to\nhim that he was not really praying but only making believe to pray. It\nseemed to him that he was not really existing but only seeming to exist.\nHe seemed to himself to be one with figures on a china plate, with\nfigures painted on walls, with the flimsy imagined lives of men in\nstories of forgotten times. \u201cO God!\u201d he said, \u201cO God,\u201d acting a gesture,\nmimicking appeal.\n\n\u201cAnaemic,\u201d he said, and was given an idea.\n\nHe got out of bed, he took his keys from the night-table at the bed head\nand went to his bureau.\n\nHe stood with Dale's tonic in his hand. He remained for some time\nholding it, and feeling a curious indisposition to go on with the thing\nin his mind.\n\nHe turned at last with an effort. He carried the little phial to his\nbedside, and into the tumbler of his water-bottle he let the drops fall,\ndrop by drop, until he had counted twenty. Then holding it to the bulb\nof his reading lamp he added the water and stood watching the slow\npearly eddies in the mixture mingle into an opalescent uniformity. He\nreplaced the water-bottle and stood with the glass in his hand. But he\ndid not drink.\n\nHe was afraid.\n\nHe knew that he had only to drink and this world of confusion would grow\ntransparent, would roll back and reveal the great simplicities behind.\nAnd he was afraid.\n\nHe was afraid of that greatness. He was afraid of the great imperatives\nthat he knew would at once take hold of his life. He wanted to muddle\non for just a little longer. He wanted to stay just where he was, in\nhis familiar prison-house, with the key of escape in his hand. Before he\ntook the last step into the very presence of truth, he would--think.\n\nHe put down the glass and lay down upon his bed....\n\n(3)\n\n\nHe awoke in a mood of great depression out of a dream of wandering\ninterminably in an endless building of innumerable pillars, pillars so\nvast and high that the ceiling was lost in darkness. By the scale of\nthese pillars he felt himself scarcely larger than an ant. He was always\nalone in these wanderings, and always missing something that passed\nalong distant passages, something desirable, something in the nature\nof a procession or of a ceremony, something of which he was in futile\npursuit, of which he heard faint echoes, something luminous of which he\nseemed at times to see the last fading reflection, across vast halls\nand wildernesses of shining pavement and through Cyclopaean archways. At\nlast there was neither sound nor gleam, but the utmost solitude, and a\ndarkness and silence and the uttermost profundity of sorrow....\n\nIt was bright day. Dunk had just come into the room with his tea, and\nthe tumbler of Dr. Dale's tonic stood untouched upon the night-table.\nThe bishop sat up in bed. He had missed his opportunity. To-day was a\nbusy day, he knew.\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d he said, as Dunk hesitated whether to remove or leave the tumbler.\n\u201cLeave that.\u201d\n\nDunk found room for it upon the tea-tray, and vanished softly with the\nbishop's evening clothes.\n\nThe bishop remained motionless facing the day. There stood the draught\nof decision that he had lacked the decision even to touch.\n\nFrom his bed he could just read the larger items that figured upon the\nengagement tablet which it was Whippham's business to fill over-night\nand place upon his table. He had two confirmation services, first\nthe big one in the cathedral and then a second one in the evening at\nPringle, various committees and an interview with Chasters. He had not\nyet finished his addresses for these confirmation services....\n\nThe task seemed mountainous--overwhelming.\n\nWith a gesture of desperation he seized the tumblerful of tonic and\ndrank it off at a gulp.\n\n(4)\n\n\nFor some moments nothing seemed to happen.\n\nThen he began to feel stronger and less wretched, and then came a\nthrobbing and tingling of artery and nerve.\n\nHe had a sense of adventure, a pleasant fear in the thing that he had\ndone. He got out of bed, leaving his cup of tea untasted, and began to\ndress. He had the sensation of relief a prisoner may feel who suddenly\ntries his cell door and finds it open upon sunshine, the outside world\nand freedom.\n\nHe went on dressing although he was certain that in a few minutes the\nworld of delusion about him would dissolve, and that he would find\nhimself again in the great freedom of the place of God.\n\nThis time the transition came much sooner and much more rapidly. This\ntime the phases and quality of the experience were different. He felt\nonce again that luminous confusion between the world in which a human\nlife is imprisoned and a circumambient and interpenetrating world, but\nthis phase passed very rapidly; it did not spread out over nearly half\nan hour as it had done before, and almost immediately he seemed to\nplunge away from everything in this life altogether into that outer\nfreedom he sought. And this time there was not even the elemental\nscenery of the former vision. He stood on nothing; there was nothing\nbelow and nothing above him. There was no sense of falling, no terror,\nbut a feeling as though he floated released. There was no light, but as\nit were a clear darkness about him. Then it was manifest to him that he\nwas not alone, but that with him was that same being that in his former\nvision had called himself the Angel of God. He knew this without knowing\nwhy he knew this, and either he spoke and was answered, or he thought\nand his thought answered him back. His state of mind on this occasion\nwas altogether different from the first vision of God; before it had\nbeen spectacular, but now his perception was altogether super-sensuous.\n\n(And nevertheless and all the time it seemed that very faintly he was\nstill in his room.)\n\nIt was he who was the first to speak. The great Angel whom he felt\nrather than saw seemed to be waiting for him to speak.\n\n\u201cI have come,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause once more I desire to see God.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you have seen God.\u201d\n\n\u201cI saw God. God was light, God was truth. And I went back to my life,\nand God was hidden. God seemed to call me. He called. I heard him, I\nsought him and I touched his hand. When I went back to my life I was\npresently lost in perplexity. I could not tell why God had called me nor\nwhat I had to do.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd why did you not come here before?\u201d\n\n\u201cDoubt and fear. Brother, will you not lay your hand on mine?\u201d\n\nThe figure in the darkness became distincter. But nothing touched the\nbishop's seeking hands.\n\n\u201cI want to see God and to understand him. I want reassurance. I want\nconviction. I want to understand all that God asks me to do. The world\nis full of conflict and confusion and the spirit of war. It is dark and\ndreadful now with suffering and bloodshed. I want to serve God who could\nsave it, and I do not know how.\u201d\n\nIt seemed to the bishop that now he could distinguish dimly but surely\nthe form and features of the great Angel to whom he talked. For a little\nwhile there was silence, and then the Angel spoke.\n\n\u201cIt was necessary first,\u201d said the Angel, \u201cthat you should apprehend God\nand desire him. That was the purport of your first vision. Now, since\nyou require it, I will tell you and show you certain things about him,\nthings that it seems you need to know, things that all men need to know.\nKnow then first that the time is at hand when God will come into the\nworld and rule it, and when men will know what is required of them.\nThis time is close at hand. In a little while God will be made manifest\nthroughout the earth. Men will know him and know that he is King. To you\nthis truth is to be shown--that you may tell it to others.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis is no vision?\u201d said the bishop, \u201cno dream that will pass away?\u201d\n\n\u201cAm I not here beside you?\u201d\n\n(5)\n\n\nThe bishop was anxious to be very clear. Things that had been\nshapelessly present in his mind now took form and found words for\nthemselves.\n\n\u201cThe God I saw in my vision--He is not yet manifest in the world?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe comes. He is in the world, but he is not yet manifested. He whom you\nsaw in your vision will speedily be manifest in the world. To you this\nvision is given of the things that come. The world is already glowing\nwith God. Mankind is like a smouldering fire that will presently, in\nquite a little time, burst out into flame.\n\n\u201cIn your former vision I showed you God,\u201d said the Angel. \u201cThis time\nI will show you certain signs of the coming of God. And then you will\nunderstand the place you hold in the world and the task that is required\nof you.\u201d\n\n(6)\n\n\nAnd as the Angel spoke he lifted up his hands with the palms upward, and\nthere appeared above them a little round cloud, that grew denser until\nit had the likeness of a silver sphere. It was a mirror in the form of\na ball, but a mirror not shining uniformly; it was discoloured with\ngreyish patches that had a familiar shape. It circled slowly upon the\nAngel's hands. It seemed no greater than the compass of a human skull,\nand yet it was as great as the earth. Indeed it showed the whole\nearth. It was the earth. The hands of the Angel vanished out of sight,\ndissolved and vanished, and the spinning world hung free. All about the\nbishop the velvet darkness broke into glittering points that shaped out\nthe constellations, and nearest to them, so near as to seem only a few\nmillion miles away in the great emptiness into which everything had\nresolved itself, shone the sun, a ball of red-tongued fires. The Angel\nwas but a voice now; the bishop and the Angel were somewhere aloof from\nand yet accessible to the circling silver sphere.\n\nAt the time all that happened seemed to happen quite naturally, as\nthings happen in a dream. It was only later, when all this was a matter\nof memory, that the bishop realized how strange and incomprehensible his\nvision had been. The sphere was the earth with all its continents and\nseas, its ships and cities, its country-sides and mountain ranges. It\nwas so small that he could see it all at once, and so great and full\nthat he could see everything in it. He could see great countries like\nlittle patches upon it, and at the same time he could see the faces of\nthe men upon the highways, he could see the feelings in men's hearts and\nthe thoughts in their minds. But it did not seem in any way wonderful\nto the bishop that so he should see those things, or that it was to him\nthat these things were shown.\n\n\u201cThis is the whole world,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cThis is the vision of the world,\u201d the Angel answered.\n\n\u201cIt is very wonderful,\u201d said the bishop, and stood for a moment\nmarvelling at the compass of his vision. For here was India, here\nwas Samarkand, in the light of the late afternoon; and China and the\nswarming cities upon her silvery rivers sinking through twilight to the\nnight and throwing a spray and tracery of lantern spots upon the dark;\nhere was Russia under the noontide, and so great a battle of artillery\nraging on the Dunajec as no man had ever seen before; whole lines of\ntrenches dissolved into clouds of dust and heaps of blood-streaked\nearth; here close to the waiting streets of Constantinople were the\nhills of Gallipoli, the grave of British Imperialism, streaming to\nheaven with the dust and smoke of bursting shells and rifle fire and the\nsmoke and flame of burning brushwood. In the sea of Marmora a big ship\ncrowded with Turkish troops was sinking; and, purple under the clear\nwater, he could see the shape of the British submarine which had\ntorpedoed her and had submerged and was going away. Berlin prepared its\nfrugal meals, still far from famine. He saw the war in Europe as if he\nsaw it on a map, yet every human detail showed. Over hundreds of miles\nof trenches east and west of Germany he could see shells bursting and\nthe men below dropping, and the stretcher-bearers going back with\nthe wounded. The roads to every front were crowded with reserves and\nmunitions. For a moment a little group of men indifferent to all this\nstruggle, who were landing amidst the Antarctic wilderness, held his\nattention; and then his eyes went westward to the dark rolling Atlantic\nacross which, as the edge of the night was drawn like a curtain, more\nand still more ships became visible beating upon their courses eastward\nor westward under the overtaking day.\n\nThe wonder increased; the wonder of the single and infinitely\nmultitudinous adventure of mankind.\n\n\u201cSo God perhaps sees it,\u201d he whispered.\n\n(7)\n\n\n\u201cLook at this man,\u201d said the Angel, and the black shadow of a hand\nseemed to point.\n\nIt was a Chinaman sitting with two others in a little low room separated\nby translucent paper windows from a noisy street of shrill-voiced\npeople. The three had been talking of the ultimatum that Japan had sent\nthat day to China, claiming a priority in many matters over European\ninfluences they were by no means sure whether it was a wrong or a\nbenefit that had been done to their country. From that topic they had\npassed to the discussion of the war, and then of wars and national\naggressions and the perpetual thrusting and quarrelling of mankind. The\nolder man had said that so life would always be; it was the will of\nHeaven. The little, very yellow-faced, emaciated man had agreed with\nhim. But now this younger man, to whose thoughts the Angel had so\nparticularly directed the bishop's attention, was speaking. He did not\nagree with his companion.\n\n\u201cWar is not the will of Heaven,\u201d he said; \u201cit is the blindness of men.\u201d\n\n\u201cMan changes,\u201d he said, \u201cfrom day to day and from age to age. The\nscience of the West has taught us that. Man changes and war changes and\nall things change. China has been the land of flowery peace, and she may\nyet give peace to all the world. She has put aside that puppet Emperor\nat Peking, she turns her face to the new learning of the West as a man\nlays aside his heavy robes, in order that her task may be achieved.\u201d\n\nThe older man spoke, his manner was more than a little incredulous, and\nyet not altogether contemptuous. \u201cYou believe that someday there will be\nno more war in the world, that a time will come when men will no longer\nplot and plan against the welfare of men?\u201d\n\n\u201cEven that last,\u201d said the younger man. \u201cDid any of us dream twenty-five\nyears ago that here in China we should live to see a republic? The age\nof the republics draws near, when men in every country of the world will\nlook straight up to the rule of Right and the empire of Heaven.\u201d\n\n(\u201cAnd God will be King of the World,\u201d said the Angel. \u201cIs not that\nfaith exactly the faith that is coming to you?\u201d)\n\nThe two other Chinamen questioned their companion, but without\nhostility.\n\n\u201cThis war,\u201d said the Chinaman, \u201cwill end in a great harvesting of\nkings.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut Japan--\u201d the older man began.\n\nThe bishop would have liked to hear more of that conversation, but\nthe dark hand of the Angel motioned him to another part of the world.\n\u201cListen to this,\u201d said the Angel.\n\nHe pointed the bishop to where the armies of Britain and Turkey lay in\nthe heat of Mesopotamia. Along the sandy bank of a wide, slow-flowing\nriver rode two horsemen, an Englishman and a Turk. They were returning\nfrom the Turkish lines, whither the Englishman had been with a flag of\ntruce. When Englishmen and Turks are thrown together they soon\nbecome friends, and in this case matters had been facilitated by\nthe Englishman's command of the Turkish language. He was quite an\nexceptional Englishman. The Turk had just been remarking cheerfully that\nit wouldn't please the Germans if they were to discover how amiably he\nand his charge had got on. \u201cIt's a pity we ever ceased to be friends,\u201d\n he said.\n\n\u201cYou Englishmen aren't like our Christians,\u201d he went on.\n\nThe Englishmen wanted to know why.\n\n\u201cYou haven't priests in robes. You don't chant and worship crosses and\npictures, and quarrel among yourselves.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe worship the same God as you do,\u201d said the Englishman.\n\n\u201cThen why do we fight?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat's what we want to know.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy do you call yourselves Christians? And take part against us? All\nwho worship the One God are brothers.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey ought to be,\u201d said the Englishman, and thought. He was struck by\nwhat seemed to him an amazingly novel idea.\n\n\u201cIf it weren't for religions all men would serve God together,\u201d he\nsaid. \u201cAnd then there would be no wars--only now and then perhaps just a\nlittle honest fighting....\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd see here,\u201d said the Angel. \u201cHere close behind this frightful\nbattle, where the German phalanx of guns pounds its way through the\nRussian hosts. Here is a young German talking to two wounded Russian\nprisoners, who have stopped to rest by the roadside. He is a German of\nEast Prussia; he knows and thinks a little Russian. And they too are\nsaying, all three of them, that the war is not God's will, but the\nconfusion of mankind.\n\n\u201cHere,\u201d he said, and the shadow of his hand hovered over the\nburning-ghats of Benares, where a Brahmin of the new persuasion watched\nthe straight spires of funereal smoke ascend into the glow of the late\nafternoon, while he talked to an English painter, his friend, of the\nblind intolerance of race and caste and custom in India.\n\n\u201cOr here.\u201d\n\nThe Angel pointed to a group of people who had gathered upon a little\nbeach at the head of a Norwegian fiord. There were three lads, an old\nman and two women, and they stood about the body of a drowned German\nsailor which had been washed up that day. For a time they had talked in\nwhispers, but now suddenly the old man spoke aloud.\n\n\u201cThis is the fourth that has come ashore,\u201d he said. \u201cPoor drowned souls!\nBecause men will not serve God.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut folks go to church and pray enough,\u201d said one of the women.\n\n\u201cThey do not serve God,\u201d said the old man. \u201cThey just pray to him as one\nnods to a beggar. They do not serve God who is their King. They set up\ntheir false kings and emperors, and so all Europe is covered with dead,\nand the seas wash up these dead to us. Why does the world suffer these\nthings? Why did we Norwegians, who are a free-spirited people, permit\nthe Germans and the Swedes and the English to set up a king over us?\nBecause we lack faith. Kings mean secret counsels, and secret counsels\nbring war. Sooner or later war will come to us also if we give the soul\nof our nation in trust to a king.... But things will not always be thus\nwith men. God will not suffer them for ever. A day comes, and it is no\ndistant day, when God himself will rule the earth, and when men will do,\nnot what the king wishes nor what is expedient nor what is customary,\nbut what is manifestly right.\u201d....\n\n\u201cBut men are saying that now in a thousand places,\u201d said the Angel.\n\u201cHere is something that goes a little beyond that.\u201d\n\nHis pointing hand went southward until they saw the Africanders riding\ndown to Windhuk. Two men, Boer farmers both, rode side by side and\ntalked of the German officer they brought prisoner with them. He had put\nsheep-dip in the wells of drinking-water; his life was fairly forfeit,\nand he was not to be killed. \u201cWe want no more hate in South Africa,\u201d\n they agreed. \u201cDutch and English and German must live here now side by\nside. Men cannot always be killing.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd see his thoughts,\u201d said the Angel.\n\nThe German's mind was one amazement. He had been sure of being shot, he\nhad meant to make a good end, fierce and scornful, a relentless fighter\nto the last; and these men who might have shot him like a man were going\nto spare him like a dog. His mind was a tumbled muddle of old and\nnew ideas. He had been brought up in an atmosphere of the foulest and\nfiercest militarism; he had been trained to relentlessness, ruthlessness\nand so forth; war was war and the bitterer the better, frightfulness\nwas your way to victory over every enemy. But these people had found a\nbetter way. Here were Dutch and English side by side; sixteen years ago\nthey had been at war together and now they wore the same uniform and\nrode together, and laughed at him for a queer fellow because he was\nfor spitting at them and defying them, and folding his arms and looking\nlevel at the executioners' rifles. There were to be no executioners'\nrifles.... If it was so with Dutch and English, why shouldn't it be so\npresently with French and Germans? Why someday shouldn't French, German,\nDutch and English, Russian and Pole, ride together under this new star\nof mankind, the Southern Cross, to catch whatever last mischief-maker\nwas left to poison the wells of goodwill?\n\nHis mind resisted and struggled against these ideas. \u201cAustere,\u201d he\nwhispered. \u201cThe ennobling tests of war.\u201d A trooner rode up alongside,\nand offered him a drink of water\n\n\u201cJust a mouthful,\u201d he said apologetically. \u201cWe've had to go rather\nshort.\u201d...\n\n\u201cThere's another brain busy here with the same idea,\u201d the Angel\ninterrupted. And the bishop found himself looking into the bedroom of a\nyoung German attache in Washington, sleepless in the small hours.\n\n\u201cAch!\u201d cried the young man, and sat up in bed and ran his hands through\nhis fair hair.\n\nHe had been working late upon this detestable business of the Lusitania;\nthe news of her sinking had come to hand two days before, and all\nAmerica was aflame with it. It might mean war. His task had been to pour\nout explanations and justifications to the press; to show that it was an\nact of necessity, to pretend a conviction that the great ship was loaded\nwith munitions, to fight down the hostility and anger that blazed across\na continent. He had worked to his limit. He had taken cup after cup of\ncoffee, and had come to bed worked out not two hours ago. Now here he\nwas awake after a nightmare of drowning women and children, trying to\ncomfort his soul by recalling his own arguments. Never once since the\nwar began had he doubted the rightness of the German cause. It seemed\nonly a proof of his nervous exhaustion that he could doubt it now.\nGermany was the best organized, most cultivated, scientific and liberal\nnation the earth had ever seen, it was for the good of mankind that she\nshould be the dominant power in the world; his patriotism had had the\npassion of a mission. The English were indolent, the French decadent,\nthe Russians barbaric, the Americans basely democratic; the rest of the\nworld was the \u201cWhite man's Burthen\u201d; the clear destiny of mankind\nwas subservience to the good Prussian eagle. Nevertheless--those\nwet draggled bodies that swirled down in the eddies of the sinking\nTitan--Ach! He wished it could have been otherwise. He nursed his knees\nand prayed that there need not be much more of these things before the\nspirit of the enemy was broken and the great Peace of Germany came upon\nthe world.\n\nAnd suddenly he stopped short in his prayer.\n\nSuddenly out of the nothingness and darkness about him came the\nconviction that God did not listen to his prayers....\n\nWas there any other way?\n\nIt was the most awful doubt he had ever had, for it smote at the\ntraining of all his life. \u201cCould it be possible that after all our old\nGerman God is not the proper style and title of the true God? Is our old\nGerman God perhaps only the last of a long succession of bloodstained\ntribal effigies--and not God at all?\u201d\n\nFor a long time it seemed that the bishop watched the thoughts that\ngathered in the young attache's mind. Until suddenly he broke into a\nquotation, into that last cry of the dying Goethe, for \u201cLight. More\nLight!\u201d...\n\n\u201cLeave him at that,\u201d said the Angel. \u201cI want you to hear these two young\nwomen.\u201d\n\nThe hand came back to England and pointed to where Southend at the mouth\nof the Thames was all agog with the excitement of an overnight Zeppelin\nraid. People had got up hours before their usual time in order to\nlook at the wrecked houses before they went up to their work in town.\nEverybody seemed abroad. Two nurses, not very well trained as nurses go\nnor very well-educated women, were snatching a little sea air upon the\nfront after an eventful night. They were too excited still to sleep.\nThey were talking of the horror of the moment when they saw the nasty\nthing \u201cup there,\u201d and felt helpless as it dropped its bombs. They had\nboth hated it.\n\n\u201cThere didn't ought to be such things,\u201d said one.\n\n\u201cThey don't seem needed,\u201d said her companion.\n\n\u201cMen won't always go on like this--making wars and all such wickedness.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt's 'ow to stop them?\u201d\n\n\u201cScience is going to stop them.\u201d\n\n\u201cScience?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, science. My young brother--oh, he's a clever one--he says such\nthings! He says that it's science that they won't always go on like\nthis. There's more sense coming into the world and more--my young\nbrother says so. Says it stands to reason; it's Evolution. It's science\nthat men are all brothers; you can prove it. It's science that there\noughtn't to be war. Science is ending war now by making it horrible like\nthis, and making it so that no one is safe. Showing it up. Only when\nnobody is safe will everybody want to set up peace, he says. He says\nit's proved there could easily be peace all over the world now if it\nwasn't for flags and kings and capitalists and priests. They still\nmanage to keep safe and out of it. He says the world ought to be just\none state. The World State, he says it ought to be.\u201d\n\n(\u201cUnder God,\u201d said the bishop, \u201cunder God.\u201d)\n\n\u201cHe says science ought to be King of the whole world.\u201d\n\n\u201cCall it Science if you will,\u201d said the bishop. \u201cGod is wisdom.\u201d\n\n\u201cOut of the mouths of babes and elementary science students,\u201d said the\nAngel. \u201cThe very children in the board schools are turning against this\nnarrowness and nonsense and mischief of nations and creeds and kings.\nYou see it at a thousand points, at ten thousand points, look, the\nworld is all flashing and flickering; it is like a spinthariscope; it is\naquiver with the light that is coming to mankind. It is on the verge of\nblazing even now.\u201d\n\n\u201cInto a light.\u201d\n\n\u201cInto the one Kingdom of God. See here! See here! And here! This brave\nlittle French priest in a helmet of steel who is daring to think for the\nfirst time in his life; this gentle-mannered emir from Morocco looking\nat the grave-diggers on the battlefield; this mother who has lost her\nson....\n\n\u201cYou see they all turn in one direction, although none of them seem to\ndream yet that they are all turning in the same direction. They turn,\nevery one, to the rule of righteousness, which is the rule of God. They\nturn to that communism of effort in the world which alone permits men\nto serve God in state and city and their economic lives.... They are all\ncoming to the verge of the same salvation, the salvation of one human\nbrotherhood under the rule of one Righteousness, one Divine will.... Is\nthat the salvation your church offers?\u201d\n\n(8)\n\n\n\u201cAnd now that we have seen how religion grows and spreads in men's\nhearts, now that the fields are white with harvest, I want you to look\nalso and see what the teachers of religion are doing,\u201d said the Angel.\n\nHe smiled. His presence became more definite, and the earthly globe\nabout them and the sun and the stars grew less distinct and less\nimmediately there. The silence invited the bishop to speak.\n\n\u201cIn the light of this vision, I see my church plainly for the little\nthing it is,\u201d he said.\n\nHe wanted to be perfectly clear with the Angel and himself.\n\n\u201cThis church of which I am a bishop is just a part of our poor human\nstruggle, small and pitiful as one thinks of it here in the light of the\nadvent of God's Kingdom, but very great, very great indeed, ancient and\nhigh and venerable, in comparison with me. But mostly it is human. It is\nmost human. For my story is the church's story, and the church's story\nis mine. Here I could almost believe myself the church itself. The\nworld saw a light, the nations that were sitting in darkness saw a great\nlight. Even as I saw God. And then the church began to forget and lose\nitself among secondary things. As I have done.... It tried to express\nthe truth and lost itself in a maze of theology. It tried to bring order\ninto the world and sold its faith to Constantine. These men who had\nprofessed the Invisible King of the World, shirked his service. It is a\nmost terrible disaster that Christianity has sold itself to emperors and\nkings. They forged a saying of the Master's that we should render unto\nCeasar the things that are Ceasar's and unto God the things that are\nGod's....\n\n\u201cWho is this Ceasar to set himself up to share mankind with God? Nothing\nthat is Ceasar's can be any the less God's. But Constantine Caesar sat\nin the midst of the council, his guards were all about it, and the poor\nfanatics and trimmers and schemers disputed nervously with their eyes\non him, disputed about homoousian and homoiousian, and grimaced and\npretended to be very very fierce and exact to hide how much they were\nfrightened and how little they knew, and because they did not dare to\nlay violent hands upon that usurper of the empire of the world....\n\n\u201cAnd from that day forth the Christian churches have been damned and\nlost. Kept churches. Lackey churches. Roman, Russian, Anglican; it\nmatters not. My church indeed was twice sold, for it doubled the sin of\nNicaea and gave itself over to Henry and Elizabeth while it shammed\na dispute about the sacraments. No one cared really about\ntransubstantiation any more than the earlier betrayers cared about\nconsubstantiality; that dispute did but serve to mask the betrayal.\u201d\n\nHe turned to the listening Angel. \u201cWhat can you show me of my church\nthat I do not know? Why! we Anglican bishops get our sees as footmen get\na job. For months Victoria, that old German Frau, delayed me--because of\nsome tittle-tattle.... The things we are! Snape, who afterwards became\nBishop of Burnham, used to waylay the Prince Consort when he was riding\nin Hyde Park and give him, he boasts, 'a good loud cheer,' and then he\nwould run very fast across the park so as to catch him as he came round,\nand do it again.... It is to that sort of thing we bearers of the light\nhave sunken....\n\n\u201cI have always despised that poor toady,\u201d the bishop went on. \u201cAnd\nyet here am I, and God has called me and shown me the light of his\ncountenance, and for a month I have faltered. That is the mystery of the\nhuman heart, that it can and does sin against the light. What right have\nI, who have seen the light--and failed, what right have I--to despise\nany other human being? I seem to have been held back by a sort of\nparalysis.\n\n\u201cMen are so small, so small still, that they cannot keep hold of the\nvision of God. That is why I want to see God again.... But if it were\nnot for this strange drug that seems for a little while to lift my mind\nabove the confusion and personal entanglements of every day, I doubt if\neven now I could be here. I am here, passionate to hold this moment and\nkeep the light. As this inspiration passes, I shall go back, I know,\nto my home and my place and my limitations. The littleness of men! The\nforgetfulness of men! I want to know what my chief duty is, to have it\nplain, in terms so plain that I can never forget.\n\n\u201cSee in this world,\u201d he said, turning to the globe, \u201cwhile Chinese\nmerchants and Turkish troopers, school-board boys and Norwegian\nfishermen, half-trained nurses and Boer farmers are full of the spirit\nof God, see how the priests of the churches of Nicaea spend their time.\u201d\n\nAnd now it was the bishop whose dark hands ran over the great silver\nglobe, and it was the Angel who stood over him and listened, as a\nteacher might stand over a child who is learning a lesson. The bishop's\nhand rested for a second on a cardinal who was planning a political\nintrigue to produce a reaction in France, then for a moment on a\nPomeranian pastor who was going out to his well-tilled fields with his\nSunday sermon, full of fierce hatred of England, still echoing in his\nhead. Then he paused at a Mollah preaching the Jehad, in doubt whether\nhe too wasn't a German pastor, and then at an Anglican clergyman still\nlying abed and thinking out a great mission of Repentance and Hope that\nshould restore the authority of the established church--by incoherent\nmissioning--without any definite sin indicated for repentance nor any\nclear hope for anything in particular arising out of such activities.\nThe bishop's hand went seeking to and fro, but nowhere could he find\nany religious teacher, any religious body rousing itself to meet the new\ndawn of faith in the world. Some few men indeed seemed thoughtful, but\nwithin the limitation of their vows. Everywhere it was church and creed\nand nation and king and property and partisanship, and nowhere was it\nthe True God that the priests and teachers were upholding. It was always\nthe common unhampered man through whom the light of God was breaking; it\nwas always the creed and the organization of the religious professionals\nthat stood in the way to God....\n\n\u201cGod is putting the priests aside,\u201d he cried, \u201cand reaching out to\ncommon men. The churches do not serve God. They stand between man and\nGod. They are like great barricades on the way to God.\u201d\n\nThe bishop's hand brushed over Archbishop Pontifex, who was just coming\ndown to breakfast in his palace. This pompous old man was dressed in\na purple garment that set off his tall figure very finely, and he was\nholding out his episcopal ring for his guests to kiss, that being the\ncustomary morning greeting of Archbishop Pontifex. The thought of that\nring-kissing had made much hard work at lower levels \u201cworth while\u201d\n to Archbishop Pontifex. And seventy miles away from him old Likeman\nbreakfasted in bed on Benger's food, and searched his Greek Testament\nfor tags to put to his letters. And here was the familiar palace at\nPrinchester, and in an armchair in his bed-room sat Bishop Scrope\ninsensible and motionless, in a trance in which he was dreaming of the\ncoming of God.\n\n\u201cI see my futility. I see my vanity. But what am I to do?\u201d he said,\nturning to the darkness that now wrapped about the Angel again, fold\nupon fold. \u201cThe implications of yesterday bind me for the morrow. This\nis my world. This is what I am and what I am in. How can I save myself?\nHow can I turn from these habits and customs and obligations to the\nservice of the one true God? When I see myself, then I understand how it\nis with the others. All we priests and teachers are men caught in nets.\nI would serve God. Easily said! But how am I to serve God? How am I to\nhelp and forward His coming, to make myself part of His coming?\u201d\n\nHe perceived that he was returning into himself, and that the vision of\nthe sphere and of the starry spaces was fading into non-existence.\n\nHe struggled against this return. He felt that his demand was still\nunanswered. His wife's face had suddenly come very close to him, and he\nrealized she intervened between him and that solution.\n\nWhat was she doing here?\n\n(9)\n\n\nThe great Angel seemed still to be near at hand, limitless space was all\nabout him, and yet the bishop perceived that he was now sitting in the\narm-chair in his bedroom in the palace of Princhester. He was both\nthere and not there. It seemed now as if he had two distinct yet kindred\nselves, and that the former watched the latter. The latter was now\nawakening to the things about him; the former marked his gestures and\nlistened with an entire detachment to the words he was saying. These\nwords he was saying to Lady Ella: \u201cGod is coming to rule the world, I\ntell you. We must leave the church.\u201d\n\nClose to him sat Lady Ella, watching him with an expression in which\ndismay and resolution mingled. Upon the other side of him, upon a little\noccasional table, was a tray with breakfast things. He was no longer the\nwatcher now, but the watched.\n\nLady Ella bent towards him as he spoke. She seemed to struggle with and\ndismiss his astonishing statement.\n\n\u201cEdward,\u201d she said, \u201cyou have been taking a drug.\u201d He looked round at\nhis night table to see the little phial. It had gone. Then he saw that\nLady Ella held it very firmly in her hand.\n\n\u201cDunk came to me in great distress. He said you were insensible and\nbreathing heavily. I came. I realized. I told him to say nothing to any\none, but to fetch me a tray with your breakfast. I have kept all the\nother servants away and I have waited here by you.... Dunk I think\nis safe.... You have been muttering and moving your head from side to\nside....\u201d\n\nThe bishop's mind was confused. He felt as though God must be standing\njust outside the room. \u201cI have failed in my duty,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I am\nvery near to God.\u201d He laid his hand on her arm. \u201cYou know, Ella, He is\nvery close to us....\u201d\n\nShe looked perplexed.\n\nHe sat up in his chair.\n\n\u201cFor some months now,\u201d he said, \u201cthere have been new forces at work\nin my mind. I have been invaded by strange doubts and still stranger\nrealizations. This old church of ours is an empty mask. God is not\nspecially concerned in it.\u201d\n\n\u201cEdward!\u201d she cried, \u201cwhat are you saying?\u201d\n\n\u201cI have been hesitating to tell you. But I see now I must tell you\nplainly. Our church is a cast hull. It is like the empty skin of a\nsnake. God has gone out of it.\u201d\n\nShe rose to her feet. She was so horrified that she staggered backward,\npushing her chair behind her. \u201cBut you are mad,\u201d she said.\n\nHe was astonished at her distress. He stood up also.\n\n\u201cMy dear,\u201d he said, \u201cI can assure you I am not mad. I should have\nprepared you, I know....\u201d\n\nShe looked at him wild-eyed. Then she glanced at the phial, gripped in\nher hand.\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d she exclaimed, and going swiftly to the window emptied out the\ncontents of the little bottle. He realized what she was doing too late\nto prevent her.\n\n\u201cDon't waste that!\u201d he cried, and stepping forward caught hold of her\nwrist. The phial fell from her white fingers, and crashed upon the rough\npaved garden path below.\n\n\u201cMy dear,\u201d he cried, \u201cmy dear. You do not understand.\u201d\n\nThey stood face to face. \u201cIt was a tonic,\u201d he said. \u201cI have been ill. I\nneed it.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is a drug,\u201d she answered. \u201cYou have been uttering blasphemies.\u201d\n\nHe dropped her arm and walked half-way across the room. Then he turned\nand faced her.\n\n\u201cThey are not blasphemies,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I ought not to have surprised\nyou and shocked you as I have done. I want to tell you of changes that\nhave happened to my mind.\u201d\n\n\u201cNow!\u201d she exclaimed, and then: \u201cI will not hear them now. Until you are\nbetter. Until these fumes--\u201d\n\nHer manner changed. \u201cOh, Edward!\u201d she cried, \u201cwhy have you done this?\nWhy have you taken things secretly? I know you have been sleepless, but\nI have been so ready to help you. I have been willing--you know I have\nbeen willing--for any help. My life is all to be of use to you....\u201d\n\n\u201cIs there any reason,\u201d she pleaded, \u201cwhy you should have hidden things\nfrom me?\u201d\n\nHe stood remorseful and distressed. \u201cI should have talked to you,\u201d he\nsaid lamely.\n\n\u201cEdward,\u201d she said, laying her hands on his shoulders, \u201cwill you do one\nthing for me? Will you try to eat a little breakfast? And stay here? I\nwill go down to Mr. Whippham and arrange whatever is urgent with him.\nPerhaps if you rest--There is nothing really imperative until the\nconfirmation in the afternoon.... I do not understand all this. For some\ntime--I have felt it was going on. But of that we can talk. The thing\nnow is that people should not know, that nothing should be seen....\nSuppose for instance that horrible White Blackbird were to hear of\nit.... I implore you. If you rest here--And if I were to send for that\nyoung doctor who attended Miriam.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don't want a doctor,\u201d said the bishop.\n\n\u201cBut you ought to have a doctor.\u201d\n\n\u201cI won't have a doctor,\u201d said the bishop.\n\nIt was with a perplexed but powerless dissent that the externalized\nperceptions of the bishop witnessed his agreement with the rest of Lady\nElla's proposals so soon as this point about the doctor was conceded.\n\n(10)\n\n\nFor the rest of that day until his breakdown in the cathedral the sense\nof being in two places at the same time haunted the bishop's mind. He\nstood beside the Angel in the great space amidst the stars, and at the\nsame time he was back in his ordinary life, he was in his palace at\nPrinchester, first resting in his bedroom and talking to his wife\nand presently taking up the routines of his duties again in his study\ndownstairs.\n\nHis chief task was to finish his two addresses for the confirmation\nservices of the day. He read over his notes, and threw them aside\nand remained for a time thinking deeply. The Greek tags at the end\nof Likeman's letter came into his thoughts; they assumed a quality of\npeculiar relevance to this present occasion. He repeated the words:\n\u201cEpitelesei. Epiphausei.\u201d\n\nHe took his little Testament to verify them. After some slight trouble\nhe located the two texts. The first, from Philippians, ran in the old\nversion, \u201cHe that hath begun a good work in you will perform it\u201d;\nthe second was expressed thus: \u201cChrist shall give thee light.\u201d He was\ndissatisfied with these renderings and resorted to the revised version,\nwhich gave \u201cperfect\u201d instead of \u201cperform,\u201d and \u201cshall shine upon you\u201d\n for \u201cgive thee light.\u201d He reflected profoundly for a time.\n\nThen suddenly his addresses began to take shape in his mind, and these\nlittle points lost any significance. He began to write rapidly, and as\nhe wrote he felt the Angel stood by his right hand and read and approved\nwhat he was writing. There were moments when his mind seemed to be\nworking entirely beyond his control. He had a transitory questioning\nwhether this curious intellectual automatism was not perhaps what people\nmeant by \u201cinspiration.\u201d\n\n(11)\n\n\nThe bishop had always been sensitive to the secret fount of pathos that\nis hidden in the spectacle of youth. Long years ago when he and Lady\nElla had been in Florence he had been moved to tears by the beauty\nof the fresh-faced eager Tobit who runs beside the great angel in the\npicture of Botticelli. And suddenly and almost as uncontrollably, that\nfeeling returned at the sight of the young congregation below him,\nof all these scores of neophytes who were gathered to make a public\nacknowledgment of God. The war has invested all youth now with the\nshadow of tragedy; before it came many of us were a little envious of\nyouth and a little too assured of its certainty of happiness. All that\nhas changed. Fear and a certain tender solicitude mingle in our regard\nfor every child; not a lad we pass in the street but may presently be\ncalled to face such pain and stress and danger as no ancient hero ever\nknew. The patronage, the insolent condescension of age, has vanished out\nof the world. It is dreadful to look upon the young.\n\nHe stood surveying the faces of the young people as the rector read the\nPreface to the confirmation service. How simple they were, how innocent!\nSome were a little flushed by the excitement of the occasion; some a\nlittle pallid. But they were all such tender faces, so soft in outline,\nso fresh and delicate in texture and colour. They had soft credulous\nmouths. Some glanced sideways at one another; some listened with a\nforced intentness. The expression of one good-looking boy, sitting in a\ncorner scat, struck the bishop as being curiously defiant. He stood\nvery erect, he blinked his eyes as though they smarted, his lips were\ncompressed bitterly. And then it seemed to the bishop that the Angel\nstood beside him and gave him understanding.\n\n\u201cHe is here,\u201d the bishop knew, \u201cbecause he could not avoid coming. He\ntried to excuse himself. His mother wept. What could he do? But the\nchurch's teaching nowadays fails even to grip the minds of boys.\u201d\n\nThe rector came to the end of his Preface: \u201cThey will evermore endeavour\nthemselves faithfully to observe such things as they by their own\nconfession have assented unto.\u201d\n\n\u201cLike a smart solicitor pinning them down,\u201d said the bishop to himself,\nand then roused himself, unrolled the little paper in his hand, leant\nforward, and straightway began his first address.\n\nNowadays it is possible to say very unorthodox things indeed in an\nAnglican pulpit unchallenged. There remains no alert doctrinal criticism\nin the church congregations. It was possible, therefore, for the bishop\nto say all that follows without either hindrance or disturbance. The\nonly opposition, indeed, came from within, from a sense of dreamlike\nincongruity between the place and the occasion and the things that he\nfound himself delivering.\n\n\u201cAll ceremonies,\u201d he began, \u201cgrow old. All ceremonies are tainted even\nfrom the first by things less worthy than their first intention, and\nyou, my dear sons and daughters, who have gathered to-day in this worn\nand ancient building, beneath these monuments to ancient vanities and\nthese symbols of forgotten or abandoned theories about the mystery of\nGod, will do well to distinguish in your minds between what is essential\nand what is superfluous and confusing in this dedication you make of\nyourselves to God our Master and King. For that is the real thing you\nseek to do today, to give yourselves to God. This is your spiritual\ncoming of age, in which you set aside your childish dependence upon\nteachers and upon taught phrases, upon rote and direction, and stand up\nto look your Master in the face. You profess a great brotherhood when\nyou do that, a brotherhood that goes round the earth, that numbers men\nof every race and nation and country, that aims to bring God into\nall the affairs of this world and make him not only the king of your\nindividual lives but the king--in place of all the upstarts, usurpers,\naccidents, and absurdities who bear crowns and sceptres today--of an\nunited mankind.\u201d\n\nHe paused, and in the pause he heard a little rustle as though the\ncongregation before him was sitting up in its places, a sound that\nalways nerves and reassures an experienced preacher.\n\n\u201cThis, my dear children, is the reality of this grave business to-day,\nas indeed it is the real and practical end of all true religion. This is\nyour sacrament urn, your soldier's oath. You salute and give your fealty\nto the coming Kingdom of God. And upon that I would have you fix your\nminds to the exclusion of much that, I know only too well, has been\nnarrow and evil and sectarian in your preparation for this solemn rite.\nGod is like a precious jewel found among much rubble; you must cast the\nrubble from you. The crowning triumph of the human mind is simplicity;\nthe supreme significance of God lies in his unity and universality. The\nGod you salute to-day is the God of the Jews and Gentiles alike, the\nGod of Islam, the God of the Brahmo Somaj, the unknown God of many a\nrighteous unbeliever. He is not the God of those felted theologies and\ninexplicable doctrines with which your teachers may have confused your\nminds. I would have it very clear in your minds that having drunken the\ndraught you should not reverence unduly the cracked old vessel that has\nbrought it to your lips. I should be falling short of my duty if I did\nnot make that and everything I mean by that altogether plain to you.\u201d\n\nHe saw the lad whose face of dull defiance he had marked before, sitting\nnow with a startled interest in his eyes. The bishop leant over the desk\nbefore him, and continued in the persuasive tone of a man who speaks of\nthings too manifest for laboured argument.\n\n\u201cIn all ages religion has come from God through broad-minded creative\nmen, and in all ages it has fallen very quickly into the hands\nof intense and conservative men. These last--narrow, fearful, and\nsuspicious--have sought in every age to save the precious gift of\nreligion by putting it into a prison of formulae and asseverations. Bear\nthat in mind when you are pressed to definition. It is as if you made a\nbox hermetically sealed to save the treasure of a fresh breeze from the\nsea. But they have sought out exact statements and tortuous explanations\nof the plain truth of God, they have tried to take down God in writing,\nto commit him to documents, to embalm his living faith as though it\nwould otherwise corrupt. So they have lost God and fallen into endless\ndifferences, disputes, violence, and darkness about insignificant\nthings. They have divided religion between this creed and teacher and\nthat. The corruption of the best is the worst, said Aristotle; and the\ngreat religions of the world, and especially this Christianity of ours,\nare the ones most darkened and divided and wasted by the fussings and\nfalse exactitudes of the creed-monger and the sectary. There is no lie\nso bad as a stale disfigured truth. There is no heresy so damnable as\na narrow orthodoxy. All religious associations carry this danger of the\nover-statement that misstates and the over-emphasis that divides and\nbetrays. Beware of that danger. Do not imagine, because you are gathered\nin this queerly beautiful old building today, because I preside here in\nthis odd raiment of an odder compromise, because you see about you in\ncoloured glass and carven stone the emblems of much vain disputation,\nthat thereby you cut yourselves off and come apart from the great world\nof faith, Catholic, Islamic, Brahministic, Buddhistic, that grows now\nto a common consciousness of the near Advent of God our King. You enter\nthat waiting world fraternity now, you do not leave it. This place, this\nchurch of ours, should be to you not a seclusion and a fastness but a\ndoor.\n\n\u201cI could quote you a score of instances to establish that this simple\nuniversalism was also the teaching of Christ. But now I will only remind\nyou that it was Mary who went to her lord simply, who was commended, and\nnot Martha who troubled about many things. Learn from the Mary of\nFaith and not from these Marthas of the Creeds. Let us abandon the\npresumptions of an ignorant past. The perfection of doctrine is not\nfor finite men. Give yourselves to God. Give yourselves to God. Not to\nchurches and uses, but to God. To God simply. He is the first word of\nreligion and the last. He is Alpha; he is Omega. Epitelesei; it is He\nwho will finish the good work begun.\u201d\n\nThe bishop ended his address in a vivid silence. Then he began his\ninterrogation.\n\n\u201cDo you here, in the presence of God, and of this congregation, renew\nthe solemn promise and vow that was made in your name at your Baptism;\nratifying and confirming the same in your own persons, and acknowledging\nyourselves--\u201d\n\nHe stopped short. The next words were: \u201cbound to believe and do all\nthose things, which your Godfathers and Godmothers then undertook for\nyou.\u201d\n\nHe could not stand those words. He hesitated, and then substituted:\n\u201cacknowledge yourselves to be the true servants of the one God, who is\nthe Lord of Mankind?\u201d\n\nFor a moment silence hung in the cathedral. Then one voice, a boy's\nvoice, led a ragged response. \u201cI do.\u201d\n\nThen the bishop: \u201cOur help is in the Name of the Lord.\u201d\n\nThe congregation answered doubtfully, with a glance at its prayer books:\n\u201cWho hath made heaven and earth.\u201d\n\nThe bishop: \u201cBlessed be the name of the Lord.\u201d\n\nThe congregation said with returning confidence: \u201cHenceforth, world\nwithout end.\u201d\n\n(12)\n\n\nBefore his second address the bishop had to listen to Veni Creator\nSpiritus, in its English form, and it seemed to him the worst of all\npossible hymns. Its defects became monstrously exaggerated to his\nhypersensitive mind. It impressed him in its Englished travesty as a\ngrotesque, as a veritable Charlie Chaplin among hymns, and in truth it\ndoes stick out most awkward feet, it misses its accusatives, it catches\nabsurdly upon points of abstruse doctrine. The great Angel stood\nmotionless and ironical at the bishop's elbow while it was being sung.\n\u201cYour church,\u201d he seemed to say.\n\n\u201cWe must end this sort of thing,\u201d whispered the bishop. \u201cWe must end\nthis sort of thing--absolutely.\u201d He glanced at the faces of the singers,\nand it became beyond all other things urgent, that he should lift them\nonce for all above the sectarian dogmatism of that hymn to a simple\nvision of God's light....\n\nHe roused himself to the touching business of the laying on of hands.\nWhile he did so the prepared substance of his second address was running\nthrough his mind. The following prayer and collects he read without\ndifficulty, and so came to his second address. His disposition at first\nwas explanatory.\n\n\u201cWhen I spoke to you just now,\u201d he began, \u201cI fell unintentionally into\nthe use of a Greek word, epitelesei. It was written to me in a letter\nfrom a friend with another word that also I am now going to quote to\nyou. This letter touched very closely upon the things I want to say to\nyou now, and so these two words are very much in my mind. The former one\nwas taken from the Epistle to the Philippians; it signifies, 'He will\ncomplete the work begun'; the one I have now in mind comes from the\nEpistle to the Ephesians; it is Epiphausei--or, to be fuller, epiphausei\nsoi ho Christos, which signifies that He will shine upon us. And this is\nvery much in my thoughts now because I do believe that this world, which\nseemed so very far from God a little while ago, draws near now to an\nunexampled dawn. God is at hand.\n\n\u201cIt is your privilege, it is your grave and terrible position, that you\nhave been born at the very end and collapse of a negligent age, of an\nage of sham kingship, sham freedom, relaxation, evasion, greed, waste,\nfalsehood, and sinister preparation. Your lives open out in the midst\nof the breakdown for which that age prepared. To you negligence is no\nlonger possible. There is cold and darkness, there is the heat of the\nfurnace before you; you will live amidst extremes such as our youth\nnever knew; whatever betide, you of your generation will have small\nchance of living untempered lives. Our country is at war and half\nmankind is at war; death and destruction trample through the world;\nmen rot and die by the million, food diminishes and fails, there is\na wasting away of all the hoarded resources, of all the accumulated\nwell-being of mankind; and there is no clear prospect yet of any end to\nthis enormous and frightful conflict. Why did it ever arise? What made\nit possible? It arose because men had forgotten God. It was possible\nbecause they worshipped simulacra, were loyal to phantoms of race and\nempire, permitted themselves to be ruled and misled by idiot princes and\nusurper kings. Their minds were turned from God, who alone can rule and\nunite mankind, and so they have passed from the glare and follies of\nthose former years into the darkness and anguish of the present day. And\nin darkness and anguish they will remain until they turn to that King\nwho comes to rule them, until the sword and indignation of God have\noverthrown their misleaders and oppressors, and the Justice of God, the\nKingdom of God set high over the republics of mankind, has brought peace\nfor ever to the world. It is to this militant and imminent God, to this\nimmortal Captain, this undying Law-giver, that you devote yourselves\nto-day.\n\n\u201cFor he is imminent now. He comes. I have seen in the east and in the\nwest, the hearts and the minds and the wills of men turning to him as\nsurely as when a needle is magnetized it turns towards the north. Even\nnow as I preach to you here, God stands over us all, ready to receive\nus....\u201d\n\nAnd as he said these words, the long nave of the cathedral, the shadows\nof its fretted roof, the brown choir with its golden screen, the rows\nof seated figures, became like some picture cast upon a flimsy and\ntranslucent curtain. Once more it seemed to the bishop that he saw\nGod plain. Once more the glorious effulgence poured about him, and the\nbeautiful and wonderful conquest of men's hearts and lives was manifest\nto him.\n\nHe lifted up his hands and cried to God, and with an emotion so\nprofound, an earnestness so commanding, that very many of those who\nwere present turned their faces to see the figure to which he looked and\nspoke. And some of the children had a strange persuasion of a presence\nthere, as of a divine figure militant, armed, and serene....\n\n\u201cOh God our Leader and our Master and our Friend,\u201d the bishop prayed,\n\u201cforgive our imperfection and our little motives, take us and make us\none with thy great purpose, use us and do not reject us, make us all\nhere servants of thy kingdom, weave our lives into thy struggle to\nconquer and to bring peace and union to the world. We are small and\nfeeble creatures, we are feeble in speech, feebler still in action,\nnevertheless let but thy light shine upon us and there is not one of\nus who cannot be lit by thy fire, and who cannot lose himself in thy\nsalvation. Take us into thy purpose, O God. Let thy kingdom come into\nour hearts and into this world.\u201d\n\nHis voice ceased, and he stood for a measurable time with his arms\nextended and his face upturned....\n\nThe golden clouds that whirled and eddied so splendidly in his brain\nthinned out, his sense of God's immediacy faded and passed, and he was\nleft aware of the cathedral pulpit in which he stood so strangely posed,\nand of the astonished congregation below him. His arms sank to his side.\nHis eyes fell upon the book in front of him and he felt for and gripped\nthe two upper corners of it and, regardless of the common order and\npractice, read out the Benediction, changing the words involuntarily as\nhe read:\n\n\u201cThe Blessing of God who is the Father, the Son, the Spirit and the King\nof all Mankind, be upon you and remain with you for ever. Amen.\u201d\n\nThen he looked again, as if to look once more upon that radiant vision\nof God, but now he saw only the clear cool space of the cathedral vault\nand the coloured glass and tracery of the great rose window. And then,\nas the first notes of the organ came pealing above the departing stir of\nthe congregation, he turned about and descended slowly, like one who is\nstill half dreaming, from the pulpit.\n\n(13)\n\n\nIn the vestry he found Canon Bliss. \u201cHelp me to take off these\ngarments,\u201d the bishop said. \u201cI shall never wear them again.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are ill,\u201d said the canon, scrutinizing his face.\n\n\u201cNot ill. But the word was taken out of my mouth. I perceive now that\nI have been in a trance, a trance in which the truth is real. It is a\nfearful thing to find oneself among realities. It is a dreadful thing\nwhen God begins to haunt a priest.... I can never minister in the church\nagain.\u201d\n\nWhippham thrust forward a chair for the bishop to sit down. The bishop\nfelt now extraordinarily fatigued. He sat down heavily, and rested his\nwrists on the arms of the chair. \u201cAlready,\u201d he resumed presently, \u201cI\nbegin to forget what it was I said.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou became excited,\u201d said Bliss, \u201cand spoke very loudly and clearly.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat did I say?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don't know what you said; I have forgotten. I never want to remember.\nThings about the Second Advent. Dreadful things. You said God was close\nat hand. Happily you spoke partly in Greek. I doubt if any of those\nchildren understood. And you had a kind of lapse--an aphasia. You\nmutilated the interrogation and you did not pronounce the\nbenediction properly. You changed words and you put in words. One sat\nfrozen--waiting for what would happen next.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe must postpone the Pringle confirmation,\u201d said Whippham. \u201cI wonder to\nwhom I could telephone.\u201d\n\nLady Ella appeared, and came and knelt down by the bishop's chair. \u201cI\nnever ought to have let this happen,\u201d she said, taking his wrists in her\nhands. \u201cYou are in a fever, dear.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt seemed entirely natural to say what I did,\u201d the bishop declared.\n\nLady Ella looked up at Bliss.\n\n\u201cA doctor has been sent for,\u201d said the canon to Lady Ella.\n\n\u201cI must speak to the doctor,\u201d said Lady Ella as if her husband could\nnot hear her. \u201cThere is something that will make things clearer to the\ndoctor. I must speak to the doctor for a moment before he sees him.\u201d\n\nCame a gust of pretty sounds and a flash of bright colour that shamed\nthe rich vestments at hand. Over the shoulder of the rector and quite at\nthe back, appeared Lady Sunderbund resolutely invading the vestry. The\nrector intercepted her, stood broad with extended arms.\n\n\u201cI must come in and speak to him. If it is only fo' a moment.\u201d\n\nThe bishop looked up and saw Lady Ella's expression. Lady Ella was\nsitting up very stiffly, listening but not looking round.\n\nA vague horror and a passionate desire to prevent the entry of Lady\nSunderbund at any cost, seized upon the bishop. She would, he felt, be\nthe last overwhelming complication. He descended to a base subterfuge.\nHe lay back in his chair slowly as though he unfolded himself, he\ncovered his eyes with his hand and then groaned aloud.\n\n\u201cLeave me alone!\u201d he cried in a voice of agony. \u201cLeave me alone! I can\nsee no one.... I can--no more.\u201d\n\nThere was a momentous silence, and then the tumult of Lady Sunderbund\nreceded.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE EIGHTH - THE NEW WORLD\n\n(1)\n\n\nTHAT night the bishop had a temperature of a hundred and a half. The\ndoctor pronounced him to be in a state of intense mental excitement,\naggravated by some drug. He was a doctor modern and clear-minded enough\nto admit that he could not identify the drug. He overruled, every one\noverruled, the bishop's declaration that he had done with the church,\nthat he could never mock God with his episcopal ministrations again,\nthat he must proceed at once with his resignation. \u201cDon't think of\nthese things,\u201d said the doctor. \u201cBanish them from your mind until your\ntemperature is down to ninety-eight. Then after a rest you may go into\nthem.\u201d\n\nLady Ella insisted upon his keeping his room. It was with difficulty\nthat he got her to admit Whippham, and Whippham was exasperatingly in\norder. \u201cYou need not trouble about anything now, my lord,\u201d he said.\n\u201cEverything will keep until you are ready to attend to it. It's well\nwe're through with Easter. Bishop Buncombe of Eastern Blowdesia\nwas coming here anyhow. And there is Canon Bliss. There's only two\nordination candidates because of the war. We'll get on swimmingly.\u201d\n\nThe bishop thought he would like to talk to those two ordination\ncandidates, but they prevailed upon him not to do so. He lay for the\nbest part of one night confiding remarkable things to two imaginary\nordination candidates.\n\nHe developed a marked liking for Eleanor's company. She was home again\nnow after a visit to some friends. It was decided that the best thing\nto do with him would be to send him away in her charge. A journey abroad\nwas impossible. France would remind him too dreadfully of the war. His\nown mind turned suddenly to the sweet air of Hunstanton. He had gone\nthere at times to read, in the old Cambridge days. \u201cIt is a terribly\nugly place,\u201d he said, \u201cbut it is wine in the veins.\u201d\n\nLady Ella was doubtful about Zeppelins. Thrice they had been right over\nHunstanton already. They came in by the easy landmark of the Wash.\n\n\u201cIt will interest him,\u201d said Eleanor, who knew her father better.\n\n(2)\n\n\nOne warm and still and sunny afternoon the bishop found himself looking\nout upon the waters of the Wash. He sat where the highest pebble layers\nof the beach reached up to a little cliff of sandy earth perhaps a foot\nhigh, and he looked upon sands and sea and sky and saw that they were\nbeautiful.\n\nHe was a little black-gaitered object in a scene of the most exquisite\nand delicate colour. Right and left of him stretched the low grey salted\nshore, pale banks of marly earth surmounted by green-grey wiry grass\nthat held and was half buried in fine blown sand. Above, the heavens\nmade a complete hemisphere of blue in which a series of remote cumulus\nclouds floated and dissolved. Before him spread the long levels of the\nsands, and far away at its utmost ebb was the sea. Eleanor had gone to\nexplore the black ribs of a wrecked fishing-boat that lay at the edge of\na shallow lagoon. She was a little pink-footed figure, very bright\nand apparently transparent. She had reverted for a time to shameless\nchildishness; she had hidden her stockings among the reeds of the bank,\nand she was running to and fro, from star-fish to razor shell and from\ncockle to weed. The shingle was pale drab and purple close at hand, but\nto the westward, towards Hunstanton, the sands became brown and\npurple, and were presently broken up into endless skerries of low flat\nweed-covered boulders and little intensely blue pools. The sea was\na band of sapphire that became silver to the west; it met the silver\nshining sands in one delicate breathing edge of intensely white foam.\nRemote to the west, very small and black and clear against the afternoon\nsky, was a cart, and about it was a score or so of mussel-gatherers.\nA little nearer, on an apparently empty stretch of shining wet sand, a\nmultitude of gulls was mysteriously busy. These two groups of activities\nand Eleanor's flitting translucent movements did but set off and\nemphasize the immense and soothing tranquillity.\n\nFor a long time the bishop sat passively receptive to this healing\nbeauty. Then a little flow of thought began and gathered in his mind. He\nhad come out to think over two letters that he had brought with him.\nHe drew these now rather reluctantly from his pocket, and after a long\npause over the envelopes began to read them.\n\nHe reread Likeman's letter first.\n\nLikeman could not forgive him.\n\n\u201cMy dear Scrope,\u201d he wrote, \u201cyour explanation explains nothing. This\nsensational declaration of infidelity to our mother church, made under\nthe most damning and distressing circumstances in the presence of young\nand tender minds entrusted to your ministrations, and in defiance of the\nhonourable engagements implied in the confirmation service, confirms my\nworst apprehensions of the weaknesses of your character. I have always\nfelt the touch of theatricality in your temperament, the peculiar\ncraving to be pseudo-deeper, pseudo-simpler than us all, the need of\npersonal excitement. I know that you were never quite contented\nto believe in God at second-hand. You wanted to be taken notice\nof--personally. Except for some few hints to you, I have never breathed\na word of these doubts to any human being; I have always hoped that\nthe ripening that comes with years and experience would give you an\nincreasing strength against the dangers of emotionalism and against your\nstrong, deep, quiet sense of your exceptional personal importance....\u201d\n\nThe bishop read thus far, and then sat reflecting.\n\nWas it just?\n\nHe had many weaknesses, but had he this egotism? No; that wasn't\nthe justice of the case. The old man, bitterly disappointed, was\nendeavouring to wound. Scrope asked himself whether he was to blame for\nthat disappointment. That was a more difficult question....\n\nHe dismissed the charge at last, crumpled up the letter in his hand, and\nafter a moment's hesitation flung it away.... But he remained acutely\nsorry, not so much for himself as for the revelation of Likeman this\nletter made. He had had a great affection for Likeman and suddenly it\nwas turned into a wound.\n\n(3)\n\n\nThe second letter was from Lady Sunderbund, and it was an altogether\nmore remarkable document. Lady Sunderbund wrote on a notepaper that was\nevidently the result of a perverse research, but she wrote a letter far\nmore coherent than her speech, and without that curious falling away\nof the r's that flavoured even her gravest observations with an unjust\nfaint aroma of absurdity. She wrote with a thin pen in a rounded boyish\nhandwriting. She italicized with slashes of the pen.\n\nHe held this letter in both hands between his knees, and considered\nit now with an expression that brought his eyebrows forward until they\nalmost met, and that tucked in the corners of his mouth.\n\n\u201cMy dear Bishop,\u201d it began.\n\n\u201cI keep thinking and thinking and thinking of that wonderful service, of\nthe wonderful, wonderful things you said, and the wonderful choice you\nmade of the moment to say them--when all those young lives were coming\nto the great serious thing in life. It was most beautifully done. At any\nrate, dear Bishop and Teacher, it was most beautifully begun. And now we\nall stand to you like creditors because you have given us so much that\nyou owe us ever so much more. You have started us and you have to go on\nwith us. You have broken the shell of the old church, and here we are\nrunning about with nowhere to go. You have to make the shelter of a new\nchurch now for us, purged of errors, looking straight to God. The\nKing of Mankind!--what a wonderful, wonderful phrase that is. It says\neverything. Tell us more of him and more. Count me first--not foremost,\nbut just the little one that runs in first--among your disciples. They\nsay you are resigning your position in the church. Of course that must\nbe true. You are coming out of it--what did you call it?--coming out of\nthe cracked old vessel from which you have poured the living waters. I\ncalled on Lady Ella yesterday. She did not tell me very much; I think\nshe is a very reserved as well as a very dignified woman, but she said\nthat you intended to go to London. In London then I suppose you will set\nup the first altar to the Divine King. I want to help.\n\n\u201cDear Bishop and Teacher, I want to help tremendously--with all my heart\nand all my soul. I want to be let do things for you.\u201d (The \u201cyou\u201d was\nerased by three or four rapid slashes, and \u201cour King\u201d substituted.)\n\n\u201cI want to be privileged to help build that First Church of the World\nUnified under God. It is a dreadful thing to says but, you see, I am\nvery rich; this dreadful war has made me ever so much richer--steel and\nshipping and things--it is my trustees have done it. I am ashamed to be\nso rich. I want to give. I want to give and help this great beginning of\nyours. I want you to let me help on the temporal side, to make it\neasy for you to stand forth and deliver your message, amidst suitable\nsurroundings and without any horrid worries on account of the sacrifices\nyou have made. Please do not turn my offering aside. I have never wanted\nanything so much in all my life as I want to make this gift. Unless I\ncan make it I feel that for me there is no salvation! I shall stick with\nmy loads and loads of stocks and shares and horrid possessions outside\nthe Needle's Eye. But if I could build a temple for God, and just live\nsomewhere near it so as to be the poor woman who sweeps out the chapels,\nand die perhaps and be buried under its floor! Don't smile at me. I\nmean every word of it. Years ago I thought of such a thing. After I had\nvisited the Certosa di Pavia--do you know it? So beautiful, and those\ntwo still alabaster figures--recumbent. But until now I could never see\nmy way to any such service. Now I do. I am all afire to do it. Help me!\nTell me! Let me stand behind you and make your mission possible. I feel\nI have come to the most wonderful phase in my life. I feel my call has\ncome....\n\n\u201cI have written this letter over three times, and torn each of them up.\nI do so want to say all this, and it is so desperately hard to say. I am\nfull of fears that you despise me. I know there is a sort of high colour\nabout me. My passion for brightness. I am absurd. But inside of me is\na soul, a real, living, breathing soul. Crying out to you: 'Oh, let me\nhelp! Let me help!' I will do anything, I will endure anything if only I\ncan keep hold of the vision splendid you gave me in the cathedral. I see\nit now day and night, the dream of the place I can make for you--and you\npreaching! My fingers itch to begin. The day before yesterday I said\nto myself, 'I am quite unworthy, I am a worldly woman, a rich, smart,\ndecorated woman. He will never accept me as I am.' I took off all\nmy jewels, every one, I looked through all my clothes, and at last I\ndecided I would have made for me a very simple straight grey dress, just\nsimple and straight and grey. Perhaps you will think that too is absurd\nof me, too self-conscious. I would not tell of it to you if I did not\nwant you to understand how alive I am to my utter impossibilities, how\nresolved I am to do anything so that I may be able to serve. But never\nmind about silly me; let me tell you how I see the new church.\n\n\u201cI think you ought to have some place near the centre of London; not too\nwest, for you might easily become fashionable, not too east because you\nmight easily be swallowed up in merely philanthropic work, but somewhere\nbetween the two. There must be vacant sites still to be got round about\nKingsway. And there we must set up your tabernacle, a very plain, very\nsimple, very beautifully proportioned building in which you can\ngive your message. I know a young man, just the very young man to do\nsomething of the sort, something quite new, quite modern, and yet solemn\nand serious. Lady Ella seemed to think you wanted to live somewhere in\nthe north-west of London--but she would tell me very little. I seem to\nsee you not there at all, not in anything between west-end and suburb,\nbut yourself as central as your mind, in a kind of clergy house that\nwill be part of the building. That is how it is in my dream anyhow. All\nthat though can be settled afterwards. My imagination and my desire is\nrunning away with me. It is no time yet for premature plans. Not that\nI am not planning day and night. This letter is simply to offer. I just\nwant to offer. Here I am and all my worldly goods. Take me, I pray you.\nAnd not only pray you. Take me, I demand of you, in the name of God our\nking. I have a right to be used. And you have no right to refuse me. You\nhave to go on with your message, and it is your duty to take me--just as\nyou are obliged to step on any steppingstone that lies on your way to\ndo God service.... And so I am waiting. I shall be waiting--on thorns.\nI know you will take your time and think. But do not take too much time.\nThink of me waiting.\n\n\u201cYour servant, your most humble helper in God (your God),\n\n\u201cAGATHA SUNDERBUND.\u201d\n\n\nAnd then scrawled along the margin of the last sheet:\n\n\n\u201cIf, when you know--a telegram. Even if you cannot say so much as\n'Agreed,' still such a word as 'Favourable.' I just hang over the Void\nuntil I hear.\n\n\u201cAGATHA S.\u201d\n\n\nA letter demanding enormous deliberation. She argued closely in spite of\nher italics. It had never dawned upon the bishop before how light is\nthe servitude of the disciple in comparison with the servitude of the\nmaster. In many ways this proposal repelled and troubled him, in many\nways it attracted him. And the argument of his clear obligation to\naccept her co-operation gripped him; it was a good argument.\n\nAnd besides it worked in very conveniently with certain other\ndifficulties that perplexed him.\n\n(4)\n\n\nThe bishop became aware that Eleanor was returning to him across the\nsands. She had made an end to her paddling, she had put on her shoes and\nstockings and become once more the grave and responsible young woman\nwho had been taking care of him since his flight from Princhester. He\nreplaced the two letters in his pocket, and sat ready to smile as she\ndrew near; he admired her open brow, the toss of her hair, and the poise\nof her head upon her neck. It was good to note that her hard reading at\nCambridge hadn't bent her shoulders in the least....\n\n\u201cWell, old Dad!\u201d she said as she drew near. \u201cYou've got back a colour.\u201d\n\n\u201cI've got back everything. It's time I returned to Princhester.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot in this weather. Not for a day or so.\u201d She flung herself at his\nfeet. \u201cConsider your overworked little daughter. Oh,how good this is!\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d said the bishop in a grave tone that made her look up into his\nface. \u201cI must go hack.\u201d\n\nHe met her clear gaze. \u201cWhat do you think of all this business,\nEleanor?\u201d he asked abruptly. \u201cDo you think I had a sort of fit in the\ncathedral?\u201d\n\nHe winced as he asked the question.\n\n\u201cDaddy,\u201d she said, after a little pause; \u201cthe things you said and did\nthat afternoon were the noblest you ever did in your life. I wish I had\nbeen there. It must have been splendid to be there. I've not told you\nbefore--I've been dying to.... I'd promised not to say a word--not to\nremind you. I promised the doctor. But now you ask me, now you are well\nagain, I can tell you. Kitty Kingdom has told me all about it, how it\nfelt. It was like light and order coming into a hopeless dark muddle.\nWhat you said was like what we have all been trying to think--I mean all\nof us young people. Suddenly it was all clear.\u201d\n\nShe stopped short. She was breathless with the excitement of her\nconfession.\n\nHer father too remained silent for a little while. He was reminded of\nhis weakness; he was, he perceived, still a little hysterical. He felt\nthat he might weep at her youthful enthusiasm if he did not restrain\nhimself.\n\n\u201cI'm glad,\u201d he said, and patted her shoulder. \u201cI'm glad, Norah.\u201d\n\nShe looked away from him out across the lank brown sands and water pools\nto the sea. \u201cIt was what we have all been feeling our way towards, the\nabsolute simplification of religion, the absolute simplification of\npolitics and social duty; just God, just God the King.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut should I have said that--in the cathedral?\u201d\n\nShe felt no scruples. \u201cYou had to,\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cBut now think what it means,\u201d he said. \u201cI must leave the church.\u201d\n\n\u201cAs a man strips off his coat for a fight.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat doesn't dismay you?\u201d\n\nShe shook her head, and smiled confidently to sea and sky.\n\n\u201cI'm glad if you're with me,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes--I think--I'm not a\nvery self-reliant man.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou'll have all the world with you,\u201d she was convinced, \u201cin a little\ntime.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps rather a longer time than you think, Norah. In the meantime--\u201d\n\nShe turned to him once more.\n\n\u201cIn the meantime there are a great many things to consider. Young\npeople, they say, never think of the transport that is needed to win a\nbattle. I have it in my mind that I should leave the church. But I can't\njust walk out into the marketplace and begin preaching there. I see the\nfamily furniture being carried out of the palace and put into vans. It\nhas to go somewhere....\u201d\n\n\u201cI suppose you will go to London.\u201d\n\n\u201cPossibly. In fact certainly. I have a plan. Or at least an\nopportunity.... But that isn't what I have most in mind. These things\nare not done without emotion and a considerable strain upon one's\npersonal relationships. I do not think this--I do not think your mother\nsees things as we do.\u201d\n\n\u201cShe will,\u201d said young enthusiasm, \u201cwhen she understands.\u201d\n\n\u201cI wish she did. But I have been unlucky in the circumstances of\nmy explanations to her. And of course you understand all this means\nrisks--poverty perhaps--going without things--travel, opportunity, nice\npossessions--for all of us. A loss of position too. All this sort of\nthing,\u201d he stuck out a gaitered calf and smiled, \u201cwill have to go.\nPeople, some of them, may be disasagreeable to us....\u201d\n\n\u201cAfter all, Daddy,\u201d she said, smiling, \u201cit isn't so bad as the cross and\nthe lions and burning pitch. And you have the Truth.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou do believe--?\u201d He left his sentence unfinished.\n\nShe nodded, her face aglow. \u201cWe know you have the Truth.\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course in my own mind now it is very clear. I had a kind of\nillumination....\u201d He would have tried to tell her of his vision, and\nhe was too shy. \u201cIt came to me suddenly that the whole world was in\nconfusion because men followed after a thousand different immediate\naims, when really it was quite easy, if only one could be simple it was\nquite easy, to show that nearly all men could only be fully satisfied\nand made happy in themselves by one single aim, which was also the aim\nthat would make the whole world one great order, and that aim was to\nmake God King of one's heart and the whole world. I saw that all this\nworld, except for a few base monstrous spirits, was suffering hideous\nthings because of this war, and before the war it was full of folly,\nwaste, social injustice and suspicion for the same reason, because it\nhad not realized the kingship of God. And that is so simple; the essence\nof God is simplicity. The sin of this war lies with men like myself, men\nwho set up to tell people about God, more than it lies with any other\nclass--\u201d\n\n\u201cKings?\u201d she interjected. \u201cDiplomatists? Finance?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes. Those men could only work mischief in the world because the\npriests and teachers let them. All things human lie at last at the\ndoor of the priest and teacher. Who differentiate, who qualify and\ncomplicate, who make mean unnecessary elaborations, and so divide\nmankind. If it were not for the weakness and wickedness of the priests,\nevery one would know and understand God. Every one who was modest enough\nnot to set up for particular knowledge. Men disputed whether God is\nFinite or Infinite, whether he has a triple or a single aspect. How\nshould they know? All we need to know is the face he turns to us. They\nimpose their horrible creeds and distinctions. None of those things\nmatter. Call him Christ the God or call him simply God, Allah, Heaven;\nit does not matter. He comes to us, we know, like a Helper and Friend;\nthat is all we want to know. You may speculate further if you like, but\nit is not religion. They dispute whether he can set aside nature. But\nthat is superstition. He is either master of nature and he knows that it\nis good, or he is part of nature and must obey. That is an argument for\nhair-splitting metaphysicians. Either answer means the same for us. It\ndoes not matter which way we come to believe that he does not idly set\nthe course of things aside. Obviously he does not set the course of\nthings aside. What he does do for certain is to give us courage and save\nus from our selfishness and the bitter hell it makes for us. And every\none knows too what sort of things we want, and for what end we want\nto escape from ourselves. We want to do right. And right, if you think\nclearly, is just truth within and service without, the service of God's\nkingdom, which is mankind, the service of human needs and the increase\nof human power and experience. It is all perfectly plain, it is all\nquite easy for any one to understand, who isn't misled and chattered at\nand threatened and poisoned by evil priests and teachers.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you are going to preach that, Daddy?\u201d\n\n\u201cIf I can. When I am free--you know I have still to resign and give\nup--I shall make that my message.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd so God comes.\u201d\n\n\u201cGod comes as men perceive him in his simplicity.... Let men but see God\nsimply, and forthwith God and his kingdom possess the world.\u201d\n\nShe looked out to sea in silence for awhile.\n\nThen she turned to her father. \u201cAnd you think that His Kingdom will\ncome--perhaps in quite a little time--perhaps in our lifetimes? And\nthat all these ridiculous or wicked little kings and emperors, and\nthese political parties, and these policies and conspiracies, and\nthis nationalist nonsense and all the patriotism and rowdyism, all the\nprivate profit-seeking and every baseness in life, all the things that\nit is so horrible and disgusting to be young among and powerless among,\nyou think they will fade before him?\u201d\n\nThe bishop pulled his faith together.\n\n\u201cThey will fade before him--but whether it will take a lifetime or a\nhundred lifetimes or a thousand lifetimes, my Norah--\u201d\n\nHe smiled and left his sentence unfinished, and she smiled back at him\nto show she understood.\n\nAnd then he confessed further, because he did not want to seem merely\nsentimentally hopeful.\n\n\u201cWhen I was in the cathedral, Norah--and just before that service, it\nseemed to me--it was very real.... It seemed that perhaps the Kingdom of\nGod is nearer than we suppose, that it needs but the faith and courage\nof a few, and it may be that we may even live to see the dawning of his\nkingdom, even--who knows?--the sunrise. I am so full of faith and hope\nthat I fear to be hopeful with you. But whether it is near or far--\u201d\n\n\u201cWe work for it,\u201d said Eleanor.\n\nEleanor thought, eyes downcast for a little while, and then looked up.\n\n\u201cIt is so wonderful to talk to you like this, Daddy. In the old days, I\ndidn't dream--Before I went to Newnham. I misjudged you. I thought Never\nmind what I thought. It was silly. But now I am so proud of you. And so\nhappy to be back with you, Daddy, and find that your religion is after\nall just the same religion that I have been wanting.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE NINTH - THE THIRD VISION\n\n(1)\n\n\nONE afternoon in October, four months and more after that previous\nconversation, the card of Mr. Edward Scrope was brought up to Dr.\nBrighton-Pomfrey. The name awakened no memories. The doctor descended to\ndiscover a man so obviously in unaccustomed plain clothes that he had a\nmomentary disagreeable idea that he was facing a detective. Then he saw\nthat this secular disguise draped the familiar form of his old friend,\nthe former Bishop of Princhester. Scrope was pale and a little untidy;\nhe had already acquired something of the peculiar, slightly faded\nquality one finds in a don who has gone to Hampstead and fallen amongst\nadvanced thinkers and got mixed up with the Fabian Society. His anxious\neyes and faintly propitiatory manner suggested an impending appeal.\n\nDr. Brighton-Pomfrey had the savoir-faire of a successful consultant; he\nprided himself on being all things to all men; but just for an instant\nhe was at a loss what sort of thing he had to be here. Then he adopted\nthe genial, kindly, but by no means lavishly generous tone advisable\nin the case of a man who has suffered considerable social deterioration\nwithout being very seriously to blame.\n\nDr. Brighton-Pomfrey was a little round-faced man with defective\neyesight and an unsuitable nose for the glasses he wore, and he\nflaunted--God knows why--enormous side-whiskers.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d he said, balancing the glasses skilfully by throwing back his\nhead, \u201cand how are you? And what can I do for you? There's no external\nevidence of trouble. You're looking lean and a little pale, but\nthoroughly fit.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said the late bishop, \u201cI'm fairly fit--\u201d\n\n\u201cOnly--?\u201d said the doctor, smiling his teeth, with something of the\nmanner of an old bathing woman who tells a child to jump.\n\n\u201cWell, I'm run down and--worried.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe'd better sit down,\u201d said the great doctor professionally, and looked\nhard at him. Then he pulled at the arm of a chair.\n\nThe ex-bishop sat down, and the doctor placed himself between his\npatient and the light.\n\n\u201cThis business of resigning my bishopric and so forth has involved very\nconsiderable strains,\u201d Scrope began. \u201cThat I think is the essence of the\ntrouble. One cuts so many associations.... I did not realize how\nmuch feeling there would be.... Difficulties too of readjusting one's\nposition.\u201d\n\n\u201cZactly. Zactly. Zactly,\u201d said the doctor, snapping his face and making\nhis glasses vibrate. \u201cRun down. Want a tonic or a change?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes. In fact--I want a particular tonic.\u201d\n\nDr. Brighton-Pomfrey made his eyes and mouth round and interrogative.\n\n\u201cWhile you were away last spring--\u201d\n\n\u201cHad to go,\u201d said the doctor, \u201cunavoidable. Gas gangrene. Certain\nenquiries. These young investigators all very well in their way. But we\nolder reputations--Experience. Maturity of judgment. Can't do without\nus. Yes?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I came here last spring and saw, an assistant I suppose he was,\nor a supply,--do you call them supplies in your profession?--named, I\nthink--Let me see--D--?\u201d\n\n\u201cDale!\u201d\n\nThe doctor as he uttered this word set his face to the unaccustomed\nexercise of expressing malignity. His round blue eyes sought to blaze,\nsmall cherubic muscles exerted themselves to pucker his brows. His\ncolour became a violent pink. \u201cLunatic!\u201d he said. \u201cDangerous Lunatic! He\ndidn't do anything--anything bad in your case, did he?\u201d\n\nHe was evidently highly charged with grievance in this matter. \u201cThat man\nwas sent to me from Cambridge with the highest testimonials. The\nvery highest. I had to go at twenty-four hours' notice. Enquiry--gas\ngangrene. There was nothing for it but to leave things in his hands.\u201d\n\nDr. Brighton-Pomfrey disavowed responsibility with an open,\nstumpy-fingered hand.\n\n\u201cHe did me no particular harm,\u201d said Scrope.\n\n\u201cYou are the first he spared,\u201d said Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey.\n\n\u201cDid he--? Was he unskilful?\u201d\n\n\u201cUnskilful is hardly the word.\u201d\n\n\u201cWere his methods peculiar?\u201d\n\nThe little doctor sprang to his feet and began to pace about the room.\n\u201cPeculiar!\u201d he said. \u201cIt was abominable that they should send him to me.\nAbominable!\u201d\n\nHe turned, with all the round knobs that constituted his face, aglow.\nHis side-whiskers waved apart like wings about to flap. He protruded his\nface towards his seated patient. \u201cI am glad that he has been killed,\u201d he\nsaid. \u201cGlad! There!\u201d\n\nHis glasses fell off--shocked beyond measure. He did not heed them. They\nswung about in front of him as if they sought to escape while he poured\nout his feelings.\n\n\u201cFool!\u201d he spluttered with demonstrative gestures. \u201cDangerous fool! His\none idea--to upset everybody. Drugs, Sir! The most terrible drugs! I\ncome back. Find ladies. High social position. Morphine-maniacs. Others.\nReckless use of the most dangerous expedients.... Cocaine not in it.\nStimulants--violent stimulants. In the highest quarters. Terrible.\nExalted persons. Royalty! Anxious to be given war work and become\nanonymous.... Horrible! He's been a terrible influence. One idea--to\ndisturb soul and body. Minds unhinged. Personal relations deranged.\nShattered the practice of years. The harm he has done! The harm!\u201d\n\nHe looked as though he was trying to burst--as a final expression of\nwrath. He failed. His hands felt trembling to recover his pince-nez.\nThen from his tail pocket he produced a large silk handkerchief and\nwiped the glasses. Replaced them. Wriggled his head in his collar,\nrunning his fingers round his neck. Patted his tie.\n\n\u201cExcuse this outbreak!\u201d he said. \u201cBut Dr. Dale has inflicted injuries!\u201d\n\nScrope got up, walked slowly to the window, clasping his hands behind\nhis back, and turned. His manner still retained much of his episcopal\ndignity. \u201cI am sorry. But still you can no doubt tell from your books\nwhat it was he gave me. It was a tonic that had a very great effect on\nme. And I need it badly now.\u201d\n\nDr. Brighton-Pomfrey was quietly malignant. \u201cHe kept no diary at all,\u201d\n he said. \u201cNo diary at all.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut\n\n\u201cIf he did,\u201d said Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey, holding up a flat hand and\nwagging it from side to side, \u201cI wouldn't follow his treatment.\u201d\n He intensified with the hand going faster. \u201cI wouldn't follow his\ntreatment. Not under any circumstances.\u201d\n\n\u201cNaturally,\u201d said Scrope, \u201cif the results are what you say. But in\nmy case it wasn't a treatment. I was sleepless, confused in my mind,\nwretched and demoralized; I came here, and he just produced the\nstuff--It clears the head, it clears the mind. One seems to get away\nfrom the cloud of things, to get through to essentials and fundamentals.\nIt straightened me out.... You must know such a stuff. Just now,\nconfronted with all sorts of problems arising out of my resignation,\nI want that tonic effect again. I must have it. I have matters to\ndecide--and I can't decide. I find myself uncertain, changeable from\nhour to hour. I don't ask you to take up anything of this man Dale's.\nThis is a new occasion. But I want that drug.\u201d\n\nAt the beginning of this speech Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey's hands had fallen\nto his hips. As Scrope went on the doctor's pose had stiffened. His head\nhad gone a little on one side; he had begun to play with his glasses.\nAt the end he gave vent to one or two short coughs, and then pointed his\nwords with his glasses held out.\n\n\u201cTell me,\u201d he said, \u201ctell me.\u201d (Cough.) \u201cHad this drug that cleared your\nhead--anything to do with your resignation?\u201d\n\nAnd he put on his glasses disconcertingly, and threw his head back to\nwatch the reply.\n\n\u201cIt did help to clear up the situation.\u201d\n\n\u201cExactly,\u201d said Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey in a tone that defined his own\nposition with remorseless clearness. \u201cExactly.\u201d And he held up a flat,\narresting hand. .\n\n\u201cMy dear Sir,\u201d he said. \u201cHow can you expect me to help you to a drug so\ndisastrous?--even if I could tell you what it is.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut it was not disastrous to me,\u201d said Scrope.\n\n\u201cYour extraordinary resignation--your still more extraordinary way of\nproclaiming it!\u201d\n\n\u201cI don't think those were disasters.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut my dear Sir!\u201d\n\n\u201cYou don't want to discuss theology with me, I know. So let me tell you\nsimply that from my point of view the illumination that came to me--this\ndrug of Dr. Dale's helping--has been the great release of my life. It\ncrystallized my mind. It swept aside the confusing commonplace things\nabout me. Just for a time I saw truth clearly.... I want to do so\nagain.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy?\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is a crisis in my affairs--never mind what. But I cannot see my\nway clear.\u201d\n\nDr. Brighton-Pomfrey was meditating now with his eyes on his carpet\nand the corners of his mouth tucked in. He was swinging his glasses\npendulum-wise. \u201cTell me,\u201d he said, looking sideways at Scrope, \u201cwhat\nwere the effects of this drug? It may have been anything. How did it\ngive you this--this vision of the truth--that led to your resignation?\u201d\n\nScrope felt a sudden shyness. But he wanted Dale's drug again so badly\nthat he obliged himself to describe his previous experiences to the best\nof his ability.\n\n\u201cIt was,\u201d he said in a matter-of-fact tone, \u201ca golden, transparent\nliquid. Very golden, like a warm-tinted Chablis. When water was added\nit became streaked and opalescent, with a kind of living quiver in it. I\nheld it up to the light.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes? And when you took it?\u201d\n\n\u201cI felt suddenly clearer. My mind--I had a kind of exaltation and\nassurance.\u201d\n\n\u201cYour mind,\u201d Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey assisted, \u201cbegan to go twenty-nine to\nthe dozen.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt felt stronger and clearer,\u201d said Scrope, sticking to his quest.\n\n\u201cAnd did things look as usual?\u201d asked the doctor, protruding his knobby\nlittle face like a clenched fist.\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d said Scrope and regarded him. How much was it possible to tell a\nman of this type?\n\n\u201cThey differed?\u201d said the doctor, relaxing.\n\n\u201cYes.... Well, to be plain.... I had an immediate sense of God. I\nsaw the world--as if it were a transparent curtain, and then God\nbecame--evident.... Is it possible for that to determine the drug?\u201d\n\n\u201cGod became--evident,\u201d the doctor said with some distaste, and shook his\nhead slowly. Then in a sudden sharp cross-examining tone: \u201cYou mean you\nhad a vision? Actually saw 'um?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt was in the form of a vision.\u201d Scrope was now mentally very\nuncomfortable indeed.\n\nThe doctor's lips repeated these words noiselessly, with an effect of\ncontempt. \u201cHe must have given you something--It's a little like morphia.\nBut golden--opalescent? And it was this vision made you astonish us all\nwith your resignation?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat was part of a larger process,\u201d said Scrope patiently. \u201cI had been\ndrifting into a complete repudiation of the Anglican positions long\nbefore that. All that this drug did was to make clear what was already\nin my mind. And give it value. Act as a developer.\u201d\n\nThe doctor suddenly gave way to a botryoidal hilarity. \u201cTo think that\none should be consulted about visions of God--in Mount Street!\u201d he said.\n\u201cAnd you know, you know you half want to believe that vision was real.\nYou know you do.\u201d\n\nSo far Scrope had been resisting his realization of failure. Now he\ngave way to an exasperation that made him reckless of Brighton-Pomfrey's\nopinion. \u201cI do think,\u201d he said, \u201cthat that drug did in some way make God\nreal to me. I think I saw God.\u201d\n\nDr. Brighton-Pomfrey shook his head in a way that made Scrope want to\nhit him.\n\n\u201cI think I saw God,\u201d he repeated more firmly. \u201cI had a sudden\nrealization of how great he was and how great life was, and how timid\nand mean and sordid were all our genteel, professional lives. I was\nseized upon, for a time I was altogether possessed by a passion to serve\nhim fitly and recklessly, to make an end to compromises with comfort and\nself-love and secondary things. And I want to hold to that. I want to\nget back to that. I am given to lassitudes. I relax. I am by temperament\nan easy-going man. I want to buck myself up, I want to get on with my\nlarger purposes, and I find myself tired, muddled, entangled.... The\ndrug was a good thing. For me it was a good thing. I want its help\nagain.\u201d\n\n\u201cI know no more than you do what it was.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre there no other drugs that you do know, that have a kindred effect?\nIf for example I tried morphia in some form?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou'd get visions. They wouldn't be divine visions. If you took small\nquantities very discreetly you might get a temporary quickening. But\nthe swift result of all repeated drug-taking is, I can assure you,\nmoral decay--rapid moral decay. To touch drugs habitually is to become\nhopelessly unpunctual, untruthful, callously selfish and insincere. I am\ntalking mere textbook, mere everyday common-places, to you when I tell\nyou that.\u201d\n\n\u201cI had an idea. I had a hope....\u201d\n\n\u201cYou've a stiff enough fight before you,\u201d said the doctor, \u201cwithout such\na handicap as that.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou won't help me?\u201d\n\nThe doctor walked up and down his hearthrug, and then delivered himself\nwith an extended hand and waggling fingers.\n\n\u201cI wouldn't if I could. For your good I wouldn't. And even if I would\nI couldn't, for I don't know the drug. One of his infernal brews,\nno doubt. Something--accidental. It's lost--for good--for your good,\nanyhow....\u201d\n\n(2)\n\n\nScrope halted outside the stucco portals of the doctor's house. He\nhesitated whether he should turn to the east or the west.\n\n\u201cThat door closes,\u201d he said. \u201cThere's no getting back that way.\u201d...\n\nHe stood for a time on the kerb. He turned at last towards Park Lane and\nHyde Park. He walked along thoughtfully, inattentively steering a course\nfor his new home in Pembury Road, Notting Hill.\n\n(3)\n\n\nAt the outset of this new phase in Scrope's life that had followed the\ncrisis of the confirmation service, everything had seemed very clear\nbefore him. He believed firmly that he had been shown God, that he had\nhimself stood in the presence of God, and that there had been a plain\ncall to him to proclaim God to the world. He had realized God, and it\nwas the task of every one who had realized God to help all mankind to\nthe same realization. The proposal of Lady Sunderbund had fallen in with\nthat idea. He had been steeling himself to a prospect of struggle and\ndire poverty, but her prompt loyalty had come as an immense relief to\nhis anxiety for his wife and family. When he had talked to Eleanor\nupon the beach at Hunstanton it had seemed to him that his course was\nmanifest, perhaps a little severe but by no means impossible. They had\nsat together in the sunshine, exalted by a sense of fine adventure and\nconfident of success, they had looked out upon the future, upon\nthe great near future in which the idea of God was to inspire and\nreconstruct the world.\n\nIt was only very slowly that this pristine clearness became clouded and\nconfused. It had not been so easy as Eleanor had supposed to win over\nthe sympathy of Lady Ella with his resignation. Indeed it had not been\nwon over. She had become a stern and chilling companion, mute now upon\nthe issue of his resignation, but manifestly resentful. He was secretly\ndisappointed and disconcerted by her tone. And the same hesitation of\nthe mind, instinctive rather than reasoned, that had prevented a frank\nexplanation of his earlier doubts to her, now restrained him from\ntelling her naturally and at once of the part that Lady Sunderbund was\nto play in his future ministry. In his own mind he felt assured about\nthat part, but in order to excuse his delay in being frank with his\nwife, he told himself that he was not as yet definitely committed to\nLady Sunderbund's project. And in accordance with that idea he set\nup housekeeping in London upon a scale that implied a very complete\ncessation of income. \u201cAs yet,\u201d he told Lady Ella, \u201cwe do not know where\nwe stand. For a time we must not so much house ourselves as camp. We\nmust take some quite small and modest house in some less expensive\ndistrict. If possible I would like to take it for a year, until we know\nbetter how things are with us.\u201d\n\nHe reviewed a choice of London districts.\n\nLady Ella said her bitterest thing. \u201cDoes it matter where we hide our\nheads?\u201d\n\nThat wrung him to: \u201cWe are not hiding our heads.\u201d\n\nShe repented at once. \u201cI am sorry, Ted,\u201d she said. \u201cIt slipped from\nme.\u201d...\n\nHe called it camping, but the house they had found in Pembury Road,\nNotting Hill, was more darkened and less airy than any camp. Neither he\nnor his wife had ever had any experience of middle-class house-hunting\nor middle-class housekeeping before, and they spent three of the most\ndesolating days of their lives in looking for this cheap and modest\nshelter for their household possessions. Hitherto life had moved them\nfrom one established and comfortable home to another; their worst\naffliction had been the modern decorations of the Palace at Princhester,\nand it was altogether a revelation to them to visit house after house,\nill-lit, ill-planned, with dingy paint and peeling wallpaper, kitchens\nfor the most part underground, and either without bathrooms or with\nbuilt-out bathrooms that were manifestly grudging afterthoughts, such\nas harbour the respectable middle classes of London. The house agents\nperceived intimations of helplessness in their manner, adopted a\n\u201crushing\u201d method with them strange to people who had hitherto lived in\na glowing halo of episcopal dignity. \u201cTake it or leave it,\u201d was the note\nof those gentlemen; \u201cthere are always people ready for houses.\u201d The\nline that property in land and houses takes in England, the ex-bishop\nrealized, is always to hold up and look scornful. The position of the\nland-owning, house-owning class in a crowded country like England is\nultra-regal. It is under no obligation to be of use, and people are\nobliged to get down to the land somewhere. They cannot conduct business\nand rear families in the air. England's necessity is the landlord's\nopportunity....\n\nScrope began to generalize about this, and develop a new and sincerer\nstreak of socialism in his ideas. \u201cThe church has been very remiss,\u201d\n he said, as he and Lady Ella stared at the basement \u201cbreakfast room\u201d of\ntheir twenty-seventh dismal possibility. \u201cIt should have insisted far\nmore than it has done upon the landlord's responsibility. No one should\ntolerate the offer of such a house as this--at such a rent--to decent\npeople. It is unrighteous.\u201d\n\nAt the house agent's he asked in a cold, intelligent ruling-class voice,\nthe name of the offending landlord.\n\n\u201cIt's all the property of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners that side of\nthe railway,\u201d said the agent, picking his teeth with a pin. \u201cLazy\nlot. Dreadfully hard to get 'em to do anything. Own some of the worst\nproperties in London.\u201d\n\nLady Ella saw things differently again. \u201cIf you had stayed in the\nchurch,\u201d she said afterwards, \u201cyou might have helped to alter such\nthings as that.\u201d\n\nAt the time he had no answer.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d he said presently as they went back in the tube to their modest\nBloomsbury hotel, \u201cif I had stayed in the church I should never have\nrealized things like that.\u201d\n\n(4)\n\n\nBut it does no justice to Lady Ella to record these two unavoidable\nexpressions of regret without telling also of the rallying courage with\nwhich she presently took over the task of resettling herself and her\nstricken family. Her husband's change of opinion had fallen upon her out\nof a clear sky, without any premonition, in one tremendous day. In one\nday there had come clamouring upon her, with an effect of revelation\nafter revelation, the ideas of drugs, of heresy and blasphemy, of an\nalien feminine influence, of the entire moral and material breakdown of\nthe man who had been the centre of her life. Never was the whole world\nof a woman so swiftly and comprehensively smashed. All the previous\ntroubles of her life seemed infinitesimal in comparison with any single\nitem in this dismaying debacle. She tried to consolidate it in the idea\nthat he was ill, \u201cdisordered.\u201d She assured herself that he would\nreturn from Hunstanton restored to health and orthodoxy, with all\nhis threatenings of a resignation recalled; the man she had loved and\ntrusted to succeed in the world and to do right always according to her\nideas. It was only with extreme reluctance that she faced the fact that\nwith the fumes of the drug dispelled and all signs of nervous exhaustion\ngone, he still pressed quietly but resolutely toward a severance from\nthe church. She tried to argue with him and she found she could not\nargue. The church was a crystal sphere in which her life was wholly\ncontained, her mind could not go outside it even to consider a\ndissentient proposition.\n\nWhile he was at Hunstanton, every day she had prayed for an hour, some\ndays she had prayed for several hours, in the cathedral, kneeling upon\na harsh hassock that hurt her knees. Even in her prayers she could not\nargue nor vary. She prayed over and over again many hundreds of times:\n\u201cBring him back, dear Lord. Bring him back again.\u201d\n\nIn the past he had always been a very kind and friendly mate to her, but\nsometimes he had been irritable about small things, especially during\nhis seasons of insomnia; now he came back changed, a much graver man,\nrather older in his manner, carefully attentive to her, kinder and more\nwatchful, at times astonishingly apologetic, but rigidly set upon his\npurpose of leaving the church. \u201cI know you do not think with me in\nthis,\u201d he said. \u201cI have to pray you to be patient with me. I have\nstruggled with my conscience.... For a time it means hardship, I know.\nPoverty. But if you will trust me I think I shall be able to pull\nthrough. There are ways of doing my work. Perhaps we shall not have to\nundergo this cramping in this house for very long....\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is not the poverty I fear,\u201d said Lady Ella.\n\nAnd she did face the worldly situation, if a little sadly, at any\nrate with the courage of practical energy. It was she who stood in\none ungainly house after another and schemed how to make discomforts\ntolerable, while Scrope raged unhelpfully at landlordism and the\nresponsibility of the church for economic disorder. It was she who at\nlast took decisions into her hands when he was too jaded to do anything\nbut generalize weakly, and settled upon the house in Pembury Road which\nbecame their London home. She got him to visit Hunstanton again for half\na week while she and Miriam, who was the practical genius of the family,\nmoved in and made the new home presentable. At the best it was barely\npresentable. There were many plain hardships. The girls had to share one\nof the chief bedrooms in common instead of their jolly little individual\ndens at Princhester.... One little room was all that could be squeezed\nout as a study for \u201cfather\u201d; it was not really a separate room, it was\nmerely cut off by closed folding doors from the dining-room, folding\ndoors that slowly transmitted the dinner flavours to a sensitive worker,\nand its window looked out upon a blackened and uneventful yard and the\nskylights of a populous, conversational, and high-spirited millinery\nestablishment that had been built over the corresponding garden of the\nhouse in Restharrow Street. Lady Ella had this room lined with open\nshelves, and Clementina (in the absence of Eleanor at Newuham)\narranged the pick of her father's books. It is to be noted as a fact of\npsychological interest that this cramped, ill-lit little room distressed\nLady Ella more than any other of the discomforts of their new quarters.\nThe bishop's writing-desk filled a whole side of it. Parsimony ruled her\nmind, but she could not resist the impulse to get him at least a seemly\nreading-lamp.\n\nHe came back from Hunstanton full of ideas for work in London. He was,\nhe thought, going to \u201cwrite something\u201d about his views. He was very\ngrateful and much surprised at what she had done to that forbidding\nhouse, and full of hints and intimations that it would not be long\nbefore they moved to something roomier. She was disposed to seek some\nsort of salaried employment for Clementina and Miriam at least, but he\nwould not hear of that. \u201cThey must go on and get educated,\u201d he said, \u201cif\nI have to give up smoking to do it. Perhaps I may manage even without\nthat.\u201d Eleanor, it seemed, had a good prospect of a scholarship at the\nLondon School of Economics that would practically keep her. There would\nbe no Cambridge for Clementina, but London University might still be\npossible with a little pinching, and the move to London had really\nimproved the prospects of a good musical training for Miriam. Phoebe and\nDaphne, Lady Ella believed, might get in on special terms at the Notting\nHill High School.\n\nScrope found it difficult to guess at what was going on in the heads\nof his younger daughters. None displayed such sympathy as Eleanor had\nconfessed. He had a feeling that his wife had schooled them to say\nnothing about the change in their fortunes to him. But they quarrelled\na good deal, he could hear, about the use of the one bathroom--there was\nnever enough hot water after the second bath. And Miriam did not seem to\nenjoy playing the new upright piano in the drawing-room as much as\nshe had done the Princhester grand it replaced. Though she was always\nwilling to play that thing he liked; he knew now that it was the Adagio\nof Of. 111; whenever he asked for it.\n\nLondon servants, Lady Ella found, were now much more difficult to get\nthan they had been in the Holy Innocents' days in St. John's Wood. And\nmore difficult to manage when they were got. The households of the more\nprosperous clergy are much sought after by domestics of a serious and\nexcellent type; an unfrocked clergyman's household is by no means\nso attractive. The first comers were young women of unfortunate\ndispositions; the first cook was reluctant and insolent, she went before\nher month was up; the second careless; she made burnt potatoes and\ncindered chops, underboiled and overboiled eggs; a \u201cdropped\u201d look about\neverything, harsh coffee and bitter tea seemed to be a natural aspect of\nthe state of being no longer a bishop. He would often after a struggle\nwith his nerves in the bedroom come humming cheerfully to breakfast, to\nfind that Phoebe, who was a delicate eater, had pushed her plate away\nscarcely touched, while Lady Ella sat at the end of the table in a state\nof dangerous calm, framing comments for delivering downstairs that would\nbe sure to sting and yet leave no opening for repartee, and trying at\nthe same time to believe that a third cook, if the chances were risked\nagain, would certainly be \u201call right.\u201d\n\nThe drawing-room was papered with a morose wallpaper that the landlord,\nin view of the fact that Scrope in his optimism would only take the\nhouse on a yearly agreement, had refused to replace; it was a design of\nvery dark green leaves and grey gothic arches; and the apartment was lit\nby a chandelier, which spilt a pool of light in the centre of the room\nand splashed useless weak patches elsewhere. Lady Ella had to interfere\nto prevent the monopolization of this centre by Phoebe and Daphne for\ntheir home work. This light trouble was difficult to arrange; the plain\ntruth was that there was not enough illumination to go round. In the\nPrinchester drawing-room there had been a number of obliging little\nelectric pushes. The size of the dining-room, now that the study was\ncut off from it, forbade hospitality. As it was, with only the family at\nhome, the housemaid made it a grievance that she could scarcely squeeze\nby on the sideboard side to wait.\n\nThe house vibrated to the trains in the adjacent underground railway.\nThere was a lady next door but one who was very pluckily training a\ncontralto voice that most people would have gladly thrown away. At the\nend of Restharrow Street was a garage, and a yard where chauffeurs were\naccustomed to \u201ctune up\u201d their engines. All these facts were persistently\naudible to any one sitting down in the little back study to think out\nthis project of \u201cwriting something,\u201d about a change in the government of\nthe whole world. Petty inconveniences no doubt all these inconveniences\nwere, but they distressed a rather oversensitive mind which was also\nacutely aware that even upon this scale living would cost certainly two\nhundred and fifty pounds if not more in excess of the little private\nincome available.\n\n\n(5)\n\n\nThese domestic details, irrelevant as they may seem in a spiritual\nhistory, need to be given because they added an intimate keenness\nto Scrope's readiness for this private chapel enterprise that he was\ndiscussing with Lady Sunderbund. Along that line and along that line\nalone, he saw the way of escape from the great sea of London dinginess\nthat threatened to submerge his family. And it was also, he felt, the\nline of his duty; it was his \u201ccall.\u201d\n\nAt least that was how he felt at first. And then matters began to grow\ncomplicated again.\n\nThings had gone far between himself and Lady Sunderbund since that\nletter he had read upon the beach at Old Hunstanton. The blinds of the\nhouse with the very very blue door in Princhester had been drawn\nfrom the day when the first vanload of the renegade bishop's private\npossessions had departed from the palace. The lady had returned to\nthe brightly decorated flat overlooking Hyde Park. He had seen her\nrepeatedly since then, and always with a fairly clear understanding that\nshe was to provide the chapel and pulpit in which he was to proclaim to\nLondon the gospel of the Simplicity and Universality of God. He was to\nbe the prophet of a reconsidered faith, calling the whole world from\ncreeds and sects, from egotisms and vain loyalties, from prejudices of\nrace and custom, to the worship and service of the Divine King of all\nmankind. That in fact had been the ruling resolve in his mind, the\nresolve determining his relations not only with Lady Sunderbund but with\nLady Ella and his family, his friends, enemies and associates. He had\nset out upon this course unchecked by any doubt, and overriding the\nmanifest disapproval of his wife and his younger daughters. Lady\nSunderbund's enthusiasm had been enormous and sustaining....\n\nAlmost imperceptibly that resolve had weakened. Imperceptibly at first.\nThen the decline had been perceived as one sometimes perceives a thing\nin the background out of the corner of one's eye.\n\nIn all his early anticipations of the chapel enterprise, he had imagined\nhimself in the likeness of a small but eloquent figure standing in a\nlarge exposed place and calling this lost misled world back to God. Lady\nSunderbund, he assumed, was to provide the large exposed place (which\nwas dimly paved with pews) and guarantee that little matter which was\nto relieve him of sordid anxieties for his family, the stipend. He had\nagreed in an inattentive way that this was to be eight hundred a year,\nwith a certain proportion of the subscriptions. \u201cAt first, I shall be\nthe chief subscriber,\u201d she said. \u201cBefore the rush comes.\u201d He had been\nso content to take all this for granted and think no more about it--more\nparticularly to think no more about it--that for a time he entirely\ndisregarded the intense decorative activities into which Lady Sunderbund\nincontinently plunged. Had he been inclined to remark them he certainly\nmight have done so, even though a considerable proportion was being\nthoughtfully veiled for a time from his eyes.\n\nFor example, there was the young architect with the wonderful tie whom\nhe met once or twice at lunch in the Hyde Park flat. This young man\npulled the conversation again and again, Lady Sunderbund aiding and\nabetting, in the direction of the \u201cideal church.\u201d It was his ambition,\nhe said, someday, to build an ideal church, \u201cdivorced from tradition.\u201d\n\nScrope had been drawn at last into a dissertation. He said that hitherto\nall temples and places of worship had been conditioned by orientation\ndue to the seasonal aspects of religion, they pointed to the west or--as\nin the case of the Egyptian temples--to some particular star, and by\nsacramentalism, which centred everything on a highly lit sacrificial\naltar. It was almost impossible to think of a church built upon other\nlines than that. The architect would be so free that--\n\n\u201cAbsolutely free,\u201d interrupted the young architect. \u201cHe might, for\nexample, build a temple like a star.\u201d\n\n\u201cOr like some wondyful casket,\u201d said Lady Sunderbund....\n\nAnd also there was a musician with fuzzy hair and an impulsive way of\ntaking the salted almonds, who wanted to know about religious music.\n\nScrope hazarded the idea that a chanting people was a religious people.\nHe said, moreover, that there was a fine religiosity about Moussorgski,\nbut that the most beautiful single piece of music in the world\nwas Beethoven's sonata, Opus 111,--he was thinking, he said, more\nparticularly of the Adagio at the end, molto semplice e cantabile. It\nhad a real quality of divinity.\n\nThe musician betrayed impatience at the name of Beethoven, and thought,\nwith his mouth appreciatively full of salted almonds, that nowadays we\nhad got a little beyond that anyhow.\n\n\u201cWe shall be superhuman before we get beyond either Purcell or\nBeethoven,\u201d said Scrope.\n\nNor did he attach sufficient importance to Lady Sunderbund's disposition\nto invite Positivists, members of the Brotherhood Church, leaders among\nthe Christian Scientists, old followers of the Rev. Charles Voysey,\nSwedenborgians, Moslem converts, Indian Theosophists, psychic phenomena\nand so forth, to meet him. Nevertheless it began to drift into his mind\nthat he was by no means so completely in control of the new departure\nas he had supposed at first. Both he and Lady Sunderbund professed\nuniversalism; but while his was the universalism of one who would\nsimplify to the bare fundamentals of a common faith, hers was the\nuniversalism of the collector. Religion to him was something that\nilluminated the soul, to her it was something that illuminated\nprayer-books. For a considerable time they followed their divergent\ninclinations without any realization of their divergence. None the less\na vague doubt and dissatisfaction with the prospect before him arose to\ncloud his confidence.\n\nAt first there was little or no doubt of his own faith. He was still\naltogether convinced that he had to confess and proclaim God in his\nlife. He was as sure that God was the necessary king and saviour of\nmankind and of a man's life, as he was of the truth of the Binomial\nTheorem. But what began first to fade was the idea that he had been\nspecially called to proclaim the True God to all the world. He would\nhave the most amiable conference with Lady Sunderbund, and then as he\nwalked back to Notting Hill he would suddenly find stuck into his\nmind like a challenge, Heaven knows how: \u201cAnother prophet?\u201d Even if\nhe succeeded in this mission enterprise, he found himself asking, what\nwould he be but just a little West-end Mahomet? He would have founded\nanother sect, and we have to make an end to all sects. How is there to\nbe an end to sects, if there are still to be chapels--richly decorated\nchapels--and congregations, and salaried specialists in God?\n\nThat was a very disconcerting idea. It was particularly active at night.\nHe did his best to consider it with a cool detachment, regardless of\nthe facts that his private income was just under three hundred pounds a\nyear, and that his experiments in cultured journalism made it extremely\nimprobable that the most sedulous literary work would do more than\ndouble this scanty sum. Yet for all that these nasty, ugly, sordid facts\nwere entirely disregarded, they did somehow persist in coming in and\nsquatting down, shapeless in a black corner of his mind--from which\ntheir eyes shone out, so to speak--whenever his doubt whether he ought\nto set up as a prophet at all was under consideration.\n\n(6)\n\n\nThen very suddenly on this October afternoon the situation had come to a\ncrisis.\n\nHe had gone to Lady Sunderbund's flat to see the plans and drawings for\nthe new church in which he was to give his message to the world. They\nhad brought home to him the complete realization of Lady Sunderbund's\nimpossibility. He had attempted upon the spur of the moment an\nexplanation of just how much they differed, and he had precipitated a\nstorm of extravagantly perplexing emotions....\n\nShe kept him waiting for perhaps ten minutes before she brought the\nplans to him. He waited in the little room with the Wyndham Lewis\npicture that opened upon the balcony painted with crazy squares of livid\npink. On a golden table by the window a number of recently bought books\nwere lying, and he went and stood over these, taking them up one after\nanother. The first was \u201cThe Countess of Huntingdon and Her Circle,\u201d\n that bearder of lightminded archbishops, that formidable harbourer of\nWesleyan chaplains. For some minutes he studied the grim portrait of\nthis inspired lady standing with one foot ostentatiously on her coronet\nand then turned to the next volume. This was a life of Saint Teresa,\nthat energetic organizer of Spanish nunneries. The third dealt with\nMadame Guyon. It was difficult not to feel that Lady Sunderbund was\nreading for a part.\n\nShe entered.\n\nShe was wearing a long simple dress of spangled white with a very high\nwaist; she had a bracelet of green jade, a waistband of green silk,\nand her hair was held by a wreath of artificial laurel, very stiff and\ngreen. Her arms were full of big rolls of cartridge paper and tracing\npaper. \u201cI'm so pleased,\u201d she said. \u201cIt's 'eady at last and I can show\nyou.\u201d\n\nShe banged the whole armful down upon a vivid little table of inlaid\nblack and white wood. He rescued one or two rolls and a sheet of tracing\npaper from the floor.\n\n\u201cIt's the Temple,\u201d she panted in a significant whisper. \u201cIt's the Temple\nof the One T'ue God!\u201d\n\nShe scrabbled among the papers, and held up the elevation of a strange\nsquare building to his startled eyes. \u201cIszi't it just pe'fect?\u201d she\ndemanded.\n\nHe took the drawing from her. It represented a building, manifestly an\nenormous building, consisting largely of two great, deeply fluted towers\nflanking a vast archway approached by a long flight of steps. Between\nthe towers appeared a dome. It was as if the Mosque of Saint Sophia had\nproduced this offspring in a mesalliance with the cathedral of\nWells. Its enormity was made manifest by the minuteness of the large\nautomobiles that were driving away in the foreground after \u201csetting\ndown.\u201d \u201cHere is the plan,\u201d she said, thrusting another sheet upon him\nbefore he could fully take in the quality of the design. \u201cThe g'eat Hall\nis to be pe'fectly 'ound, no aisle, no altar, and in lettas of sapphiah,\n'God is ev'ywhe'.'\u201d\n\nShe added with a note of solemnity, \u201cIt will hold th'ee thousand people\nsitting down.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut--!\u201d said Scrope.\n\n\u201cThe'e's a sort of g'andeur,\u201d she said. \u201cIt's young Venable's wo'k. It's\nhis fl'st g'ate oppo'tunity.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut--is this to go on that little site in Aldwych?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe says the' isn't 'oom the'!\u201d she explained. \u201cHe wants to put it out\nat Golda's G'een.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut--if it is to be this little simple chapel we proposed, then wasn't\nour idea to be central?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut if the' isn't 'oem!\u201d she said--conclusively. \u201cAnd isn't this--isn't\nit rather a costly undertaking, rather more costly--\u201d\n\n\u201cThat doesn't matta. I'm making heaps and heaps of money. Half my\np'ope'ty is in shipping and a lot of the 'eat in munitions. I'm 'icher\nthan eva. Isn't the' a sort of g'andeur?\u201d she pressed.\n\nHe put the elevation down. He took the plan from her hands and seemed to\nstudy it. But he was really staring blankly at the whole situation.\n\n\u201cLady Sunderbund,\u201d he said at last, with an effort, \u201cI am afraid all\nthis won't do.\u201d\n\n\u201cWon't do!\u201d\n\n\u201cNo. It isn't in the spirit of my intention. It isn't in a great\nbuilding of this sort--so--so ornate and imposing, that the simple\ngospel of God's Universal Kingdom can be preached.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut oughtn't so gate a message to have as g'ate a pulpit?\u201d\n\nAnd then as if she would seize him before he could go on to further\nrepudiations, she sought hastily among the drawings again.\n\n\u201cBut look,\u201d she said. \u201cIt has ev'ything! It's not only a p'eaching\nplace; it's a headquarters for ev'ything.\u201d\n\nWith the rapid movements of an excited child she began to thrust the\nremarkable features and merits of the great project upon him. The\npreaching dome was only the heart of it. There were to be a library,\n\u201c'efecto'ies,\u201d consultation rooms, classrooms, a publication department,\na big underground printing establishment. \u201cNowadays,\u201d she said, \u201cev'y\ngate movement must p'int.\u201d There was to be music, she said, \u201ca gate\ninvisible o'gan,\u201d hidden amidst the architectural details, and pouring\nout its sounds into the dome, and then she glanced in passing at\npossible \u201cp'ocessions\u201d round the preaching dome. This preaching dome\nwas not a mere shut-in drum for spiritual reverberations, around it ran\ngreat open corridors, and in these corridors there were to be \u201cchapels.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut what for?\u201d he asked, stemming the torrent. \u201cWhat need is there for\nchapels? There are to be no altars, no masses, no sacraments?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d she said, \u201cbut they are to be chapels for special int'ests; a\nchapel for science, a chapel for healing, a chapel for gov'ment. Places\nfor peoples to sit and think about those things--with paintings and\nsymbols.\u201d\n\n\u201cI see your intention,\u201d he admitted. \u201cI see your intention.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe' is to be a gate da'k blue 'ound chapel for sta's and atoms and the\nmyst'ry of matta.\u201d Her voice grew solemn. \u201cAll still and deep and high.\nLike a k'ystal in a da'k place. You will go down steps to it. Th'ough\na da'k 'ounded a'ch ma'ked with mathematical symbols and balances and\nscientific app'atus.... And the ve'y next to it, the ve'y next, is to be\na little b'ight chapel for bi'ds and flowas!\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d he said, \u201cit is all very fine and expressive. It is, I see, a\nsymbolical building, a great artistic possibility. But is it the place\nfor me? What I have to say is something very simple, that God is the\nking of the whole world, king of the ha'penny newspaper and the omnibus\nand the vulgar everyday things, and that they have to worship him and\nserve him as their leader in every moment of their lives. This isn't\nthat. This is the old religions over again. This is taking God apart.\nThis is putting him into a fresh casket instead of the old one. And....\nI don't like it.\u201d\n\n\u201cDon't like it,\u201d she cried, and stood apart from him with her chin in\nthe air, a tall astonishment and dismay.\n\n\u201cI can't do the work I want to do with this.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut--Isn't it you' idea?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo. It is not in the least my idea. I want to tell the whole world\nof the one God that can alone unite it and save it--and you make this\nextravagant toy.\u201d\n\nHe felt as if he had struck her directly he uttered that last word.\n\n\u201cToy!\u201d she echoed, taking it in, \u201cyou call it a Toy!\u201d\n\nA note in her voice reminded him that there were two people who might\nfeel strongly in this affair.\n\n\u201cMy dear Lady Sunderbund,\u201d he said with a sudden change of manner, \u201cI\nmust needs follow the light of my own mind. I have had a vision of God,\nI have seen him as a great leader towering over the little lives of men,\ndemanding the little lives of men, prepared to take them and guide them\nto the salvation of mankind and the conquest of pain and death. I have\nseen him as the God of the human affair, a God of politics, a God of\nsuch muddy and bloody wars as this war, a God of economics, a God of\nrailway junctions and clinics and factories and evening schools, a God\nin fact of men. This God--this God here, that you want to worship, is a\nGod of artists and poets--of elegant poets, a God of bric-a-brac, a God\nof choice allusions. Oh, it has its grandeur! I don't want you to think\nthat what you are doing may not be altogether fine and right for you to\ndo. But it is not what I have to do.... I cannot--indeed I cannot--go on\nwith this project--upon these lines.\u201d\n\nHe paused, flushed and breathless. Lady Sunderbund had heard him to the\nend. Her bright face was brightly flushed, and there were tears in her\neyes. It was like her that they should seem tears of the largest, most\nexpensive sort, tears of the first water.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d she cried, and her red delicate mouth went awry with dismay and\ndisappointment, and her expression was the half incredulous expression\nof a child suddenly and cruelly disappointed: \u201cYou won't go on with all\nthis?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d he said. \u201cMy dear Lady Sunderbund--\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! don't Lady Sunderbund me!\u201d she cried with a novel rudeness. \u201cDon't\nyou see I've done it all for you?\u201d\n\nHe winced and felt boorish. He had never liked and disapproved of Lady\nSunderbund so much as he did at that moment. And he had no words for\nher.\n\n\u201cHow can I stop it all at once like this?\u201d\n\nAnd still he had no answer.\n\nShe pursued her advantage. \u201cWhat am I to do?\u201d she cried.\n\nShe turned upon him passionately. \u201cLook what you've done!\u201d She marked\nher points with finger upheld, and gave odd suggestions in her face of\nan angry coster girl. \u201cEva' since I met you, I've wo'shipped you. I've\nbeen 'eady to follow you anywhe'--to do anything. Eva' since that night\nwhen you sat so calm and dignified, and they baited you and wo'id you.\nWhen they we' all vain and cleva, and you--you thought only of God\nand 'iligion and didn't mind fo' you'self.... Up to then--I'd been\nliving--oh! the emptiest life...\u201d\n\nThe tears ran. \u201cPe'haps I shall live it again....\u201d She dashed her grief\naway with a hand beringed with stones as big as beetles.\n\n\u201cI said to myself, this man knows something I don't know. He's got the\nseeds of ete'nal life su'ely. I made up my mind then and the' I'd follow\nyou and back you and do all I could fo' you. I've lived fo' you. Eve'\nsince. Lived fo' you. And now when all my little plans are 'ipe, you--!\nOh!\u201d\n\nShe made a quaint little gesture with pink fists upraised, and then\nstood with her hand held up, staring at the plans and drawings that were\nlittered over the inlaid table. \u201cI've planned and planned. I said, I\nwill build him a temple. I will be his temple se'vant.... Just a me'\nse'vant....\u201d\n\nShe could not go on.\n\n\u201cBut it is just these temples that have confused mankind,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cNot my temple,\u201d she said presently, now openly weeping over the gay\nrejected drawings. \u201cYou could have explained....\u201d\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d she said petulantly, and thrust them away from her so that they\nwent sliding one after the other on to the floor. For some long-drawn\nmoments there was no sound in the room but the slowly accelerated slide\nand flop of one sheet of cartridge paper after another.\n\n\u201cWe could have been so happy,\u201d she wailed, \u201cse'ving oua God.\u201d\n\nAnd then this disconcerting lady did a still more disconcerting thing.\nShe staggered a step towards Scrape, seized the lapels of his coat,\nbowed her head upon his shoulder, put her black hair against his cheek,\nand began sobbing and weeping.\n\n\u201cMy dear lady!\u201d he expostulated, trying weakly to disengage her.\n\n\u201cLet me k'y,\u201d she insisted, gripping more resolutely, and following his\nbackward pace. \u201cYou must let me k'y. You must let me k'y.\u201d\n\nHis resistance ceased. One hand supported her, the other patted her\nshining hair. \u201cMy dear child!\u201d he said. \u201cMy dear child! I had no idea.\nThat you would take it like this....\u201d\n\n(7)\n\n\nThat was but the opening of an enormous interview. Presently he had\ncontrived in a helpful and sympathetic manner to seat the unhappy lady\non a sofa, and when after some cramped discourse she stood up before\nhim, wiping her eyes with a wet wonder of lace, to deliver herself the\nbetter, a newborn appreciation of the tactics of the situation made\nhim walk to the other side of the table under colour of picking up a\ndrawing.\n\nIn the retrospect he tried to disentangle the threads of a discussion\nthat went to and fro and contradicted itself and began again far\nback among things that had seemed forgotten and disposed of. Lady\nSunderbund's mind was extravagantly untrained, a wild-grown mental\nthicket. At times she reproached him as if he were a heartless God; at\ntimes she talked as if he were a recalcitrant servant. Her mingling of\nutter devotion and the completest disregard for his thoughts and wishes\ndazzled and distressed his mind. It was clear that for half a year her\nclear, bold, absurd will had been crystallized upon the idea of giving\nhim exactly what she wanted him to want. The crystal sphere of those\nambitions lay now shattered between them.\n\nShe was trying to reconstruct it before his eyes.\n\nShe was, she declared, prepared to alter her plans in any way that would\nmeet his wishes. She had not understood. \u201cIf it is a Toy,\u201d she cried,\n\u201cshow me how to make it not a Toy! Make it 'eal!\u201d\n\nHe said it was the bare idea of a temple that made it impossible. And\nthere was this drawing here; what did it mean? He held it out to her. It\nrepresented a figure, distressingly like himself, robed as a priest in\nvestments.\n\nShe snatched the offending drawing from him and tore it to shreds.\n\n\u201cIf you don't want a Temple, have a meeting-house. You wanted a\nmeeting-house anyhow.\u201d\n\n\u201cJust any old meeting-house,\u201d he said. \u201cNot that special one. A place\nwithout choirs and clergy.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf you won't have music,\u201d she responded, \u201cdon't have music. If God\ndoesn't want music it can go. I can't think God does not app'ove of\nmusic, but--that is for you to settle. If you don't like the' being\no'naments, we'll make it all plain. Some g'ate g'ey Dome--all g'ey and\nblack. If it isn't to be beautiful, it can be ugly. Yes, ugly. It can\nbe as ugly\u201d--she sobbed--\u201cas the City Temple. We will get some otha\na'chitect--some City a'chitect. Some man who has built B'anch Banks or\n'ailway stations. That's if you think it pleases God.... B'eak young\nVenable's hea't.... Only why should you not let me make a place fo' you'\nmessage? Why shouldn't it be me? You must have a place. You've got 'to\np'each somewhe'.\u201d\n\n\u201cAs a man, not as a priest.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen p'each as a man. You must still wea' something.\u201d\n\n\u201cJust ordinary clothes.\u201d\n\n\u201cO'dina'y clothes a' clothes in the fashion,\u201d she said. \u201cYou would\nhave to go to you' taila for a new p'eaching coat with b'aid put on\ndif'ently, or two buttons instead of th'ee....\u201d\n\n\u201cOne needn't be fashionable.\u201d\n\n\u201cEv'ybody is fash'nable. How can you help it? Some people wea' old\nfashions; that's all.... A cassock's an old fashion. There's nothing so\nplain as a cassock.\u201d\n\n\u201cExcept that it's a clerical fashion. I want to be just as I am now.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf you think that--that owoble suit is o'dina'y clothes!\u201d she said, and\nstared at him and gave way to tears of real tenderness.\n\n\u201cA cassock,\u201d she cried with passion. \u201cJust a pe'fectly plain cassock.\nFo' deecency!... Oh, if you won't--not even that!\u201d\n\n(8)\n\n\nAs he walked now after his unsuccessful quest of Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey\ntowards the Serpentine he acted that stormy interview with Lady\nSunderbund over again. At the end, as a condition indeed of his\ndeparture, he had left things open. He had assented to certain promises.\nHe was to make her understand better what it was he needed. He was not\nto let anything that had happened affect that \u201cspi'tual f'enship.\u201d\n She was to abandon all her plans, she was to begin again \u201cat the ve'y\nbeginning.\u201d But he knew that indeed there should be no more beginning\nagain with her. He knew that quite beyond these questions of the\norganization of a purified religion, it was time their association\nended. She had wept upon him; she had clasped both his hands at parting\nand prayed to be forgiven. She was drawing him closer to her by their\nvery dissension. She had infected him with the softness of remorse; from\nbeing a bright and spirited person, she had converted herself into a\nwarm and touching person. Her fine, bright black hair against his cheek\nand the clasp of her hand on his shoulder was now inextricably in the\nbusiness. The perplexing, the astonishing thing in his situation was\nthat there was still a reluctance to make a conclusive breach.\n\nHe was not the first of men who have tried to find in vain how and when\na relationship becomes an entanglement. He ought to break off now, and\nthe riddle was just why he should feel this compunction in breaking off\nnow. He had disappointed her, and he ought not to have disappointed\nher; that was the essential feeling. He had never realized before as\nhe realized now this peculiar quality of his own mind and the gulf into\nwhich it was leading him. It came as an illuminating discovery.\n\nHe was a social animal. He had an instinctive disposition to act\naccording to the expectations of the people about him, whether they were\nreasonable or congenial expectations or whether they were not. That, he\nsaw for the first time, had been the ruling motive of his life; it was\nthe clue to him. Man is not a reasonable creature; he is a socially\nresponsive creature trying to be reasonable in spite of that fact. From\nthe days in the rectory nursery when Scrope had tried to be a good boy\non the whole and just a little naughty sometimes until they stopped\nsmiling, through all his life of school, university, curacy, vicarage\nand episcopacy up to this present moment, he perceived now that he had\nacted upon no authentic and independent impulse. His impulse had always\nbeen to fall in with people and satisfy them. And all the painful\nconflicts of those last few years had been due to a growing realization\nof jarring criticisms, of antagonized forces that required from him\nincompatible things. From which he had now taken refuge--or at any rate\nsought refuge--in God. It was paradoxical, but manifestly in God he not\nonly sank his individuality but discovered it.\n\nIt was wonderful how much he had thought and still thought of the\nfeelings and desires of Lady Sunderbund, and how little he thought of\nGod. Her he had been assiduously propitiating, managing, accepting, for\nthree months now. Why? Partly because she demanded it, and there was\na quality in her demand that had touched some hidden spring--of vanity\nperhaps it was--in him, that made him respond. But partly also it was\nbecause after the evacuation of the palace at Princhester he had felt\nmore and more, felt but never dared to look squarely in the face, the\ncatastrophic change in the worldly circumstances of his family.\nOnly this chapel adventure seemed likely to restore those fallen and\nbedraggled fortunes. He had not anticipated a tithe of the dire quality\nof that change. They were not simply uncomfortable in the Notting Hill\nhome. They were miserable. He fancied they looked to him with something\nbetween reproach and urgency. Why had he brought them here? What next\ndid he propose to do? He wished at times they would say it out instead\nof merely looking it. Phoebe's failing appetite chilled his heart.\n\nThat concern for his family, he believed, had been his chief motive in\nclinging to Lady Sunderbund's projects long after he had realized how\nlittle they would forward the true service of God. No doubt there had\nbeen moments of flattery, moments of something, something rather in the\nnature of an excited affection; some touch of the magnificent in\nher, some touch of the infantile,--both appealed magnetically to his\nimagination; but the real effective cause was his habitual solicitude\nfor his wife and children and his consequent desire to prosper\nmaterially. As his first dream of being something between Mohammed and\nPeter the Hermit in a new proclamation of God to the world lost colour\nand life in his mind, he realized more and more clearly that there was\nno way of living in a state of material prosperity and at the same time\nin a state of active service to God. The Church of the One True God (by\nfavour of Lady Sunderbund) was a gaily-coloured lure.\n\nAnd yet he wanted to go on with it. All his imagination and intelligence\nwas busy now with the possibility of in some way subjugating Lady\nSunderbund, and modifying her and qualifying her to an endurable\nproposition. Why?\n\nWhy?\n\nThere could be but one answer, he thought. Brought to the test of\naction, he did not really believe in God! He did not believe in God as\nhe believed in his family. He did not believe in the reality of either\nhis first or his second vision; they had been dreams, autogenous\nrevelations, exaltations of his own imaginations. These beliefs were\nupon different grades of reality. Put to the test, his faith in God gave\nway; a sword of plaster against a reality of steel.\n\nAnd yet he did believe in God. He was as persuaded that there was a\nGod as he was that there was another side to the moon. His\nintellectual conviction was complete. Only, beside the living,\nbreathing--occasionally coughing--reality of Phoebe, God was something\nas unsubstantial as the Binomial Theorem....\n\nVery like the Binomial Theorem as one thought over that comparison.\n\nBy this time he had reached the banks of the Serpentine and was\napproaching the grey stone bridge that crosses just where Hyde Park\nends and Kensington Gardens begins. Following upon his doubts of his\nreligious faith had come another still more extraordinary question:\n\u201cAlthough there is a God, does he indeed matter more in our ordinary\nlives than that same demonstrable Binomial Theorem? Isn't one's duty to\nPhoebe plain and clear?\u201d Old Likeman's argument came back to him with\nnovel and enhanced powers. Wasn't he after all selfishly putting his\nown salvation in front of his plain duty to those about him? What did\nit matter if he told lies, taught a false faith, perjured and damned\nhimself, if after all those others were thereby saved and comforted?\n\n\u201cBut that is just where the whole of this state of mind is false\nand wrong,\u201d he told himself. \u201cGod is something more than a priggish\ndevotion, an intellectual formula. He has a hold and a claim--he should\nhave a hold and a claim--exceeding all the claims of Phoebe, Miriam,\nDaphne, Clementina--all of them.... But he hasn't'!...\u201d\n\nIt was to that he had got after he had left Lady Sunderbund, and to that\nhe now returned. It was the thinness and unreality of his thought of God\nthat had driven him post-haste to Brighton-Pomfrey in search for that\ndrug that had touched his soul to belief.\n\nWas God so insignificant in comparison with his family that after\nall with a good conscience he might preach him every Sunday in Lady\nSunderbund's church, wearing Lady Sunderbund's vestments?\n\nBefore him he saw an empty seat. The question was so immense and\nconclusive, it was so clearly a choice for all the rest of his life\nbetween God and the dear things of this world, that he felt he could not\ndecide it upon his legs. He sat down, threw an arm along the back of the\nseat and drummed with his fingers.\n\nIf the answer was \u201cyes\u201d then it was decidedly a pity that he had not\nstayed in the church. It was ridiculous to strain at the cathedral gnat\nand then swallow Lady Sunderbund's decorative Pantechnicon.\n\nFor the first time, Scrope definitely regretted his apostasy.\n\nA trivial matter, as it may seem to the reader, intensified that regret.\nThree weeks ago Borrowdale, the bishop of Howeaster, had died, and\nScrope would have been the next in rotation to succeed him on the\nbench of bishops. He had always looked forward to the House of Lords,\nintending to take rather a new line, to speak more, and to speak more\nplainly and fully upon social questions than had hitherto been the\npractice of his brethren. Well, that had gone....\n\n(9)\n\n\nRegrets were plain now. The question before his mind was growing clear;\nwhether he was to persist in this self-imposed martyrdom of himself and\nhis family or whether he was to go back upon his outbreak of visionary\nfanaticism and close with this last opportunity that Lady Sunderbund\noffered of saving at least the substance of the comfort and social\nstatus of his wife and daughters. In which case it was clear to him\nhe would have to go to great lengths and exercise very considerable\nsubtlety--and magnetism--in the management of Lady Sunderbund....\n\nHe found himself composing a peculiar speech to her, very frank and\nrevealing, and one that he felt would dominate her thoughts.... She\nattracted him oddly.... At least this afternoon she had attracted\nhim....\n\nAnd repelled him....\n\nA wholesome gust of moral impatience stirred him. He smacked the back of\nthe seat hard, as though he smacked himself.\n\nNo. He did not like it....\n\nA torn sunset of purple and crimson streamed raggedly up above and\nthrough the half stripped trecs of Kensington Gardens, and he found\nhimself wishing that Heaven would give us fewer sublimities in sky and\nmountain and more in our hearts. Against the background of darkling\ntrees and stormily flaming sky a girl was approaching him. There was\nlittle to be seen of her but her outline. Something in her movement\ncaught his eye and carried his memory back to a sundown at Hunstanton.\nThen as she came nearer he saw that it was Eleanor.\n\nIt was odd to see her here. He had thought she was at Newnham.\n\nBut anyhow it was very pleasant to see her. And there was something in\nEleanor that promised an answer to his necessity. The girl had a kind\nof instinctive wisdom. She would understand the quality of his situation\nbetter perhaps than any one. He would put the essentials of that\nsituation as fully and plainly as he could to her. Perhaps she, with\nthat clear young idealism of hers, would give him just the lift and the\nlight of which he stood in need. She would comprehend both sides of it,\nthe points about Phoebe as well as the points about God.\n\nWhen first he saw her she seemed to be hurrying, but now she had fallen\nto a loitering pace. She looked once or twice behind her and then ahead,\nalmost as though she expected some one and was not sure whether this\nperson would approach from east or west. She did not observe her father\nuntil she was close upon him.\n\nThen she was so astonished that for a moment she stood motionless,\nregarding him. She made an odd movement, almost as if she would have\nwalked on, that she checked in its inception. Then she came up to him\nand stood before him. \u201cIt's Dad,\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cI didn't know you were in London, Norah,\u201d he began.\n\n\u201cI came up suddenly.\u201d\n\n\u201cHave you been home?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo. I wasn't going home. At least--not until afterwards.\u201d\n\nThen she looked away from him, east and then west, and then met his eye\nagain.\n\n\u201cWon't you sit down, Norah?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don't know whether I can.\u201d\n\nShe consulted the view again and seemed to come to a decision. \u201cAt\nleast, I will for a minute.\u201d\n\nShe sat down. For a moment neither of them spoke....\n\n\u201cWhat are you doing here, little Norah?\u201d\n\nShe gathered her wits. Then she spoke rather volubly. \u201cI know it looks\nbad, Daddy. I came up to meet a boy I know, who is going to France\nto-morrow. I had to make excuses--up there. I hardly remember what\nexcuses I made.\u201d\n\n\u201cA boy you know?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo we know him?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot yet.\u201d\n\nFor a time Scrope forgot the Church of the One True God altogether. \u201cWho\nis this boy?\u201d he asked.\n\nWith a perceptible effort Eleanor assumed a tone of commonsense\nconventionality. \u201cHe's a boy I met first when we were skating last year.\nHis sister has the study next to mine.\u201d\n\nFather looked at daughter, and she met his eyes. \u201cWell?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt's all happened so quickly, Daddy,\u201d she said, answering all that was\nimplicit in that \u201cWell?\u201d She went on, \u201cI would have told you about him\nif he had seemed to matter. But it was just a friendship. It didn't\nseem to matter in any serious way. Of course we'd been good friends--and\ntalked about all sorts of things. And then suddenly you see,\u201d--her tone\nwas offhand and matter-of-fact--\u201che has to go to France.\u201d\n\nShe stared at her father with the expression of a hostess who talks\nabout the weather. And then the tears gathered and ran down her cheek.\n\nShe turned her face to the Serpentine and clenched her fist.\n\nBut she was now fairly weeping. \u201cI didn't know he cared. I didn't know I\ncared.\u201d\n\nHis next question took a little time in coming.\n\n\u201cAnd it's love, little Norah?\u201d he asked.\n\nShe was comfortably crying now, the defensive altogether abandoned.\n\u201cIt's love, Daddy.... Oh! love!.... He's going tomorrow.\u201d For a minute\nor so neither spoke. Scrope's mind was entirely made up in the matter.\nHe approved altogether of his daughter. But the traditions of parentage,\nhis habit of restrained decision, made him act a judicial part. \u201cI'd\nlike just to see this boy,\u201d he said, and added: \u201cIf it isn't rather\ninterfering....\u201d\n\n\u201cDear Daddy!\u201d she said. \u201cDear Daddy!\u201d and touched his hand. \u201cHe'll be\ncoming here....\u201d\n\n\u201cIf you could tell me a few things about him,\u201d said Scrope. \u201cIs he an\nundergraduate?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou see,\u201d began Eleanor and paused to marshal her facts. \u201cHe graduated\nthis year. Then he's been in training at Cambridge. Properly he'd have\na fellowship. He took the Natural Science tripos, zoology chiefly.\nHe's good at philosophy, but of course our Cambridge philosophy is so\nsilly--McTaggart blowing bubbles.... His father's a doctor, Sir Hedley\nRiverton.\u201d\n\nAs she spoke her eyes had been roving up the path and down. \u201cHe's\ncoming,\u201d she interrupted. She hesitated. \u201cWould you mind if I went and\nspoke to him first, Daddy?\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course go to him. Go and warn him I'm here,\u201d said Scrope.\n\nEleanor got up, and was immediately greeted with joyful gestures by an\napproaching figure in khaki. The two young people quickened their paces\nas they drew nearer one another. There was a rapid greeting; they stood\nclose together and spoke eagerly. Scrope could tell by their movements\nwhen he became the subject of their talk. He saw the young man start\nand look over Eleanor's shoulder, and he assumed an attitude of\nphilosophical contemplation of the water, so as to give the young man\nthe liberty of his profile.\n\nHe did not look up until they were quite close to him, and when he did\nhe saw a pleasant, slightly freckled fair face a little agitated, and\nvery honest blue eyes. \u201cI hope you don't think, Sir, that it's bad form\nof me to ask Eleanor to come up and see me as I've done. I telegraphed\nto her on an impulse, and it's been very kind of her to come up to me.\u201d\n\n\u201cSit down,\u201d said Scrope, \u201csit down. You're Mr. Riverton?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, Sir,\u201d said the young man. He had the frequent \u201cSir\u201d of the\nsubaltern. Scrope was in the centre of the seat, and the young officer\nsat down on one side of him while Eleanor took up a watching position on\nher father's other hand. \u201cYou see, Sir, we've hardly known each other--I\nmean we've been associated over a philosophical society and all that\nsort of thing, but in a more familiar way, I mean....\u201d\n\nHe hung for a moment, just a little short of breath. Scrope helped\nhim with a grave but sympathetic movement of the head. \u201cIt's a little\ndifficult to explain,\u201d the young man apologized.\n\n\u201cWe hadn't understood, I think, either of us very much. We'd just\nbeen friendly--and liked each other. And so it went on even when I was\ntraining. And then when I found I had to go out--I'm going out a little\nearlier than I expected--I thought suddenly I wouldn't ever go to\nCambridge again at all perhaps--and there was something in one of her\nletters.... I thought of it a lot, Sir, I thought it all over, and I\nthought it wasn't right for me to do anything and I didn't do anything\nuntil this morning. And then I sort of had to telegraph. I know it was\nfrightful cheek and bad form and all that, Sir. It is. It would be\nworse if she wasn't different--I mean, Sir, if she was just an ordinary\ngirl.... But I had a sort of feeling--just wanting to see her. I don't\nsuppose you've ever felt anything, Sir, as I felt I wanted to see\nher--and just hear her speak to me....\u201d\n\nHe glanced across Scrope at Eleanor. It was as if he justified himself\nto them both.\n\nScrope glanced furtively at his daughter who was leaning forward with\ntender eyes on her lover, and his heart went out to her. But his manner\nremained judicial.\n\n\u201cAll this is very sudden,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cOr you would have heard all about it, Sir,\u201d said young Riverton.\n\u201cIt's just the hurry that has made this seem furtive. All that there is\nbetween us, Sir, is just the two telegrams we've sent, hers and mine.\nI hope you won't mind our having a little time together. We won't do\nanything very committal. It's as much friendship as anything. I go by\nthe evening train to-morrow.\u201d\n\n\u201cMm,\u201d said Serope with his eye on Eleanor.\n\n\u201cIn these uncertain times,\u201d he began.\n\n\u201cWhy shouldn't I take a risk too, Daddy?\u201d said Eleanor sharply.\n\n\u201cI know there's that side of it,\u201d said the young man. \u201cI oughtn't to\nhave telegraphed,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cCan't I take a risk?\u201d exclaimed Eleanor. \u201cI'm not a doll. I don't want\nto live in wadding until all the world is safe for me.\u201d\n\nScrope looked at the glowing face of the young man.\n\n\u201cIs this taking care of her?\u201d he asked.\n\n\u201cIf you hadn't telegraphed--!\u201d she cried with a threat in her voice, and\nleft it at that.\n\n\u201cPerhaps I feel about her--rather as if she was as strong as I am--in\nthose ways. Perhaps I shouldn't. I could hardly endure myself, Sir--cut\noff from her. And a sort of blank. Nothing said.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou want to work out your own salvation,\u201d said Scrope to his daughter.\n\n\u201cNo one else can,\u201d she answered. \u201cI'm--I'm grown up.\u201d\n\n\u201cEven if it hurts?\u201d\n\n\u201cTo live is to be hurt somehow,\u201d she said. \u201cThis--This--\u201d She flashed\nher love. She intimated by a gesture that it is better to be stabbed\nwith a clean knife than to be suffocated or poisoned or to decay....\n\nScrope turned his eyes to the young man again. He liked him. He liked\nthe modelling of his mouth and chin and the line of his brows. He liked\nhim altogether. He pronounced his verdict slowly. \u201cI suppose, after\nall,\u201d he said, \u201cthat this is better than the tender solicitude of a\nsafe and prosperous middleaged man. Eleanor, my dear, I've been thinking\nto-day that a father who stands between his children and hardship, by\ndoing wrong, may really be doing them a wrong. You are a dear girl to\nme. I won't stand between you two. Find your own salvation.\u201d He got up.\n\u201cI go west,\u201d he said, \u201cpresently. You, I think, go east.\u201d\n\n\u201cI can assure you, Sir,\u201d the young man began.\n\nScrope held his hand out. \u201cTake your life in your own way,\u201d he said.\n\nHe turned to Eleanor. \u201cTalk as you will,\u201d he said.\n\nShe clasped his hand with emotion. Then she turned to the waiting young\nman, who saluted.\n\n\u201cYou'll come back to supper?\u201d Scrope said, without thinking out the\nimplications of that invitation.\n\nShe assented as carelessly. The fact that she and her lover were to\ngo, with their meeting legalized and blessed, excluded all other\nconsiderations. The two young people turned to each other.\n\nScrope stood for a moment or so and then sat down again.\n\nFor a time he could think only of Eleanor.... He watched the two young\npeople as they went eastward. As they walked their shoulders and elbows\nbumped amicably together.\n\n(10)\n\n\nPresently he sought to resume the interrupted thread of his thoughts.\nHe knew that he had been dealing with some very tremendous and urgent\nproblem when Eleanor had appeared. Then he remembered that Eleanor at\nthe time of her approach had seemed to be a solution rather than an\ninterruption. Well, she had her own life. She was making her own life.\nInstead of solving his problems she was solving her own. God bless those\ndear grave children! They were nearer the elemental things than he was.\nThat eastward path led to Victoria--and thence to a very probable death.\nThe lad was in the infantry and going straight into the trenches.\n\nLove, death, God; this war was bringing the whole world back to\nelemental things, to heroic things. The years of comedy and comfort were\nat an end in Europe; the age of steel and want was here. And he had been\nthinking--What had he been thinking?\n\nHe mused, and the scheme of his perplexities reshaped itself in his\nmind. But at that time he did not realize that a powerful new light\nwas falling upon it now, cast by the tragic illumination of these young\nlovers whose love began with a parting. He did not see how reality had\ncome to all things through that one intense reality. He reverted to\nthe question as he had put it to himself, before first he recognized\nEleanor. Did he believe in God? Should he go on with this Sunderbund\nadventure in which he no longer believed? Should he play for safety and\ncomfort, trusting to God's toleration? Or go back to his family and warn\nthem of the years of struggle and poverty his renunciation cast upon\nthem?\n\nSomehow Lady Sunderbund's chapel was very remote and flimsy now, and the\nhardships of poverty seemed less black than the hardship of a youthful\ndeath.\n\nDid he believe in God? Again he put that fundamental question to\nhimself.\n\nHe sat very still in the sunset peace, with his eyes upon the steel\nmirror of the waters. The question seemed to fill the whole scene, to\nwait, even as the water and sky and the windless trees were waiting....\n\nAnd then by imperceptible degrees there grew in Scrope's mind the\npersuasion that he was in the presence of the living God. This time\nthere was no vision of angels nor stars, no snapping of bow-strings, no\nthrobbing of the heart nor change of scene, no magic and melodramatic\ndrawing back of the curtain from the mysteries; the water and the\nbridge, the ragged black trees, and a distant boat that broke the\nsilvery calm with an arrow of black ripples, all these things were still\nbefore him. But God was there too. God was everywhere about him. This\npersuasion was over him and about him; a dome of protection, a power in\nhis nerves, a peace in his heart. It was an exalting beauty; it was a\nperfected conviction.... This indeed was the coming of God, the real\ncoming of God. For the first time Scrope was absolutely sure that\nfor the rest of his life he would possess God. Everything that had so\nperplexed him seemed to be clear now, and his troubles lay at the foot\nof this last complete realization like a litter of dust and leaves in\nthe foreground of a sunlit, snowy mountain range.\n\nIt was a little incredible that he could ever have doubted.\n\n(11)\n\n\nIt was a phase of extreme intellectual clairvoyance. A multitude of\nthings that hitherto had been higgledy-piggledy, contradictory and\nincongruous in his mind became lucid, serene, full and assured. He\nseemed to see all things plainly as one sees things plainly through\nperfectly clear still water in the shadows of a summer noon. His doubts\nabout God, his periods of complete forgetfulness and disregard of God,\nthis conflict of his instincts and the habits and affections of\nhis daily life with the service of God, ceased to be perplexing\nincompatibilities and were manifest as necessary, understandable aspects\nof the business of living.\n\nIt was no longer a riddle that little immediate things should seem\nof more importance than great and final things. For man is a creature\nthrusting his way up from the beast to divinity, from the blindness of\nindividuality to the knowledge of a common end. We stand deep in\nthe engagements of our individual lives looking up to God, and only\nrealizing in our moments of exaltation that through God we can escape\nfrom and rule and alter the whole world-wide scheme of individual lives.\nOnly in phases of illumination do we realize the creative powers that\nlie ready to man's hand. Personal affections, immediate obligations,\nambitions, self-seeking, these are among the natural and essential\nthings of our individual lives, as intimate almost as our primordial\nlusts and needs; God, the true God, is a later revelation, a newer, less\nnatural thing in us; a knowledge still remote, uncertain, and confused\nwith superstition; an apprehension as yet entangled with barbaric\ntraditions of fear and with ceremonial surgeries, blood sacrifices, and\nthe maddest barbarities of thought. We are only beginning to realize\nthat God is here; so far as our minds go he is still not here\ncontinually; we perceive him and then again we are blind to him. God\nis the last thing added to the completeness of human life. To most His\npresence is imperceptible throughout their lives; they know as little\nof him as a savage knows of the electric waves that beat through us\nfor ever from the sun. All this appeared now so clear and necessary\nto Scrope that he was astonished he had ever found the quality of\ncontradiction in these manifest facts.\n\nIn this unprecedented lucidity that had now come to him, Scrope saw as\na clear and simple necessity that there can be no such thing as a\ncontinuous living presence of God in our lives. That is an unreasonable\ndesire. There is no permanent exaltation of belief. It is contrary to\nthe nature of life. One cannot keep actively believing in and realizing\nGod round all the twenty-four hours any more than one can keep awake\nthrough the whole cycle of night and day, day after day. If it were\npossible so to apprehend God without cessation, life would dissolve in\nreligious ecstasy. But nothing human has ever had the power to hold the\ncurtain of sense continually aside and retain the light of God always.\nWe must get along by remembering our moments of assurance. Even Jesus\nhimself, leader of all those who have hailed the coming kingdom of God,\nhad cried upon the cross, \u201cMy God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?\u201d\n The business of life on earth, life itself, is a thing curtained off, as\nit were, from such immediate convictions. That is in the constitution of\nlife. Our ordinary state of belief, even when we are free from doubt,\nis necessarily far removed from the intuitive certainty of sight and\nhearing. It is a persuasion, it falls far short of perception....\n\n\u201cWe don't know directly,\u201d Scrope said to himself with a checking gesture\nof the hand, \u201cwe don't see. We can't. We hold on to the remembered\nglimpse, we go over our reasons.\u201d...\n\nAnd it was clear too just because God is thus manifest like the\nmomentary drawing of a curtain, sometimes to this man for a time and\nsometimes to that, but never continuously to any, and because the\nperception of him depends upon the ability and quality of the perceiver,\nbecause to the intellectual man God is necessarily a formula, to the\nactive man a will and a commandment, and to the emotional man love,\nthere can be no creed defining him for all men, and no ritual and\nspecial forms of service to justify a priesthood. \u201cGod is God,\u201d he\nwhispered to himself, and the phrase seemed to him the discovery of\na sufficient creed. God is his own definition; there is no other\ndefinition of God. Scrope had troubled himself with endless arguments\nwhether God was a person, whether he was concerned with personal\ntroubles, whether he loved, whether he was finite. It were as reasonable\nto argue whether God was a frog or a rock or a tree. He had imagined God\nas a figure of youth and courage, had perceived him as an effulgence\nof leadership, a captain like the sun. The vision of his drug-quickened\nmind had but symbolized what was otherwise inexpressible. Of that he was\nnow sure. He had not seen the invisible but only its sign and visible\nlikeness. He knew now that all such presentations were true and that all\nsuch presentations were false. Just as much and just as little was God\nthe darkness and the brightness of the ripples under the bows of the\ndistant boat, the black beauty of the leaves and twigs of those trees\nnow acid-clear against the flushed and deepening sky. These riddles of\nthe profundities were beyond the compass of common living. They were\nbeyond the needs of common living. He was but a little earth parasite,\nsitting idle in the darkling day, trying to understand his infinitesimal\nfunctions on a minor planet. Within the compass of terrestrial living\nGod showed himself in its own terms. The life of man on earth was a\nstruggle for unity of spirit and for unity with his kind, and the aspect\nof God that alone mattered to man was a unifying kingship without and\nwithin. So long as men were men, so would they see God. Only when they\nreached the crest could they begin to look beyond. So we knew God, so\nGod was to us; since we struggled, he led our struggle, since we were\nfinite and mortal he defined an aim, his personality was the answer to\nour personality; but God, except in so far as he was to us, remained\ninaccessible, inexplicable, wonderful, shining through beauty, shining\nbeyond research, greater than time or space, above good and evil and\npain and pleasure.\n\n(12)\n\n\nSerope's mind was saturated as it had never been before by his sense of\nthe immediate presence of God. He floated in that realization. He\nwas not so much thinking now as conversing starkly with the divine\ninterlocutor, who penetrated all things and saw into and illuminated\nevery recess of his mind. He spread out his ideas to the test of this\npresence; he brought out his hazards and interpretations that this light\nmight judge them.\n\nThere came back to his mind the substance of his two former visions;\nthey assumed now a reciprocal quality, they explained one another and\nthe riddle before him. The first had shown him the personal human aspect\nof God, he had seen God as the unifying captain calling for his personal\nservice, the second had set the stage for that service in the spectacle\nof mankind's adventure. He had been shown a great multitude of human\nspirits reaching up at countless points towards the conception of the\nracial unity under a divine leadership, he had seen mankind on the\nverge of awakening to the kingdom of God. \u201cThat solves no mystery,\u201d\n he whispered, gripping the seat and frowning at the water; \u201cmysteries\nremain mysteries; but that is the reality of religion. And now, now,\nwhat is my place? What have I to do? That is the question I have been\nasking always; the question that this moment now will answer; what have\nI to do?...\u201d\n\nGod was coming into the life of all mankind in the likeness of a captain\nand a king; all the governments of men, all the leagues of men, their\ndebts and claims and possessions, must give way to the world republic\nunder God the king. For five troubled years he had been staring religion\nin the face, and now he saw that it must mean this--or be no more than\nfetishism, Obi, Orphic mysteries or ceremonies of Demeter, a legacy\nof mental dirtiness, a residue of self-mutilation and superstitious\nsacrifices from the cunning, fear-haunted, ape-dog phase of human\ndevelopment. But it did mean this. And every one who apprehended as much\nwas called by that very apprehension to the service of God's kingdom.\nTo live and serve God's kingdom on earth, to help to bring it about, to\npropagate the idea of it, to establish the method of it, to incorporate\nall that one made and all that one did into its growing reality, was the\nonly possible life that could be lived, once that God was known.\n\nHe sat with his hands gripping his knees, as if he were holding on to\nhis idea. \u201cAnd now for my part,\u201d he whispered, brows knit, \u201cnow for my\npart.\u201d\n\nEver since he had given his confirmation addresses he had been clear\nthat his task, or at least a considerable portion of his task, was\nto tell of this faith in God and of this conception of service in his\nkingdom as the form and rule of human life and human society. But up to\nnow he had been floundering hopelessly in his search for a method and\nmeans of telling. That, he saw, still needed to be thought out. For\nexample, one cannot run through the world crying, \u201cThe Kingdom of God\nis at hand.\u201d Men's minds were still so filled with old theological ideas\nthat for the most part they would understand by that only a fantasy of\nsome great coming of angels and fiery chariots and judgments, and hardly\na soul but would doubt one's sanity and turn scornfully away. But one\nmust proclaim God not to confuse but to convince men's minds. It was\nthat and the habit of his priestly calling that had disposed him towards\na pulpit. There he could reason and explain. The decorative genius\nof Lady Sunderbund had turned that intention into a vast iridescent\nabsurdity.\n\nThis sense he had of thinking openly in the sight of God, enabled him to\nsee the adventure of Lady Sunderbund without illusion and without shame.\nHe saw himself at once honest and disingenuous, divided between two\naims. He had no doubt now of the path he had to pursue. A stronger man\nof permanently clear aims might possibly turn Lady Sunderbund into a\nuseful opportunity, oblige her to provide the rostrum he needed; but for\nhimself, he knew he had neither the needed strength nor clearness;\nshe would smother him in decoration, overcome him by her picturesque\npersistence. It might be ridiculous to run away from her, but it was\nnecessary. And he was equally clear now that for him there must be\nno idea of any pulpit, of any sustained mission. He was a man of\nintellectual moods; only at times, he realized, had he the inspiration\nof truth; upon such uncertain snatches and glimpses he must live; to\nmake his life a ministry would be to face phases when he would simply be\n\u201ccarrying on,\u201d with his mind blank and his faith asleep.\n\nHis thought spread out from this perennial decision to more general\nthings again. Had God any need of organized priests at all? Wasn't that\njust what had been the matter with religion for the last three thousand\nyears?\n\nHis vision and his sense of access to God had given a new courage to\nhis mind; in these moods of enlightenment he could see the world as a\ncomprehensible ball, he could see history as an understandable drama. He\nhad always been on the verge of realizing before, he realized now, the\ntwo entirely different and antagonistic strands that interweave in the\ntwisted rope of contemporary religion; the old strand of the priest,\nthe fetishistic element of the blood sacrifice and the obscene rite, the\nelement of ritual and tradition, of the cult, the caste, the consecrated\ntribe; and interwoven with this so closely as to be scarcely separable\nin any existing religion was the new strand, the religion of the\nprophets, the unidolatrous universal worship of the one true God. Priest\nreligion is the antithesis to prophet religion. He saw that the\nfounders of all the great existing religions of the world had been like\nhimself--only that he was a weak and commonplace man with no creative\nforce, and they had been great men of enormous initiative--men reaching\nout, and never with a complete definition, from the old kind of religion\nto the new. The Hebrew prophets, Jesus, whom the priests killed when\nPilate would have spared him, Mohammed, Buddha, had this much in common\nthat they had sought to lead men from temple worship, idol worship, from\nrites and ceremonies and the rule of priests, from anniversaryism and\nsacramentalism, into a direct and simple relation to the simplicity of\nGod. Religious progress had always been liberation and simplification.\nBut none of these efforts had got altogether clear. The organizing\ntemper in men, the disposition to dogmatic theorizing, the distrust\nof the discretion of the young by the wisdom of age, the fear of\nindiscipline which is so just in warfare and so foolish in education,\nthe tremendous power of the propitiatory tradition, had always caught\nand crippled every new gospel before it had run a score of years. Jesus\nfor example gave man neither a theology nor a church organization; His\nsacrament was an innocent feast of memorial; but the fearful, limited,\nimitative men he left to carry on his work speedily restored all these\nthree abominations of the antiquated religion, theology, priest, and\nsacrifice. Jesus indeed, caught into identification with the ancient\nvictim of the harvest sacrifice and turned from a plain teacher into\na horrible blood bath and a mock cannibal meal, was surely the supreme\nfeat of the ironies of chance....\n\n\u201cIt is curious how I drift back to Jesus,\u201d said Scrope. \u201cI have never\nseen how much truth and good there was in his teaching until I broke\naway from Christianity and began to see him plain. If I go on as I am\ngoing, I shall end a Nazarene....\u201d\n\nHe thought on. He had a feeling of temerity, but then it seemed as if\nGod within him bade him be of good courage.\n\nAlready in a glow of inspiration he had said practically as much as\nhe was now thinking in his confirmation address, but now he realized\ncompletely what it was he had then said. There could be no priests,\nno specialized ministers of the one true God, because every man to\nthe utmost measure of his capacity was bound to be God's priest and\nminister. Many things one may leave to specialists: surgery, detailed\nadministration, chemistry, for example; but it is for every man to think\nhis own philosophy and think out his own religion. One man may tell\nanother, but no man may take charge of another. A man may avail himself\nof electrician or gardener or what not, but he must stand directly\nbefore God; he may suffer neither priest nor king. These other things\nare incidental, but God, the kingdom of God, is what he is for.\n\n\u201cGood,\u201d he said, checking his reasoning. \u201cSo I must bear witness to\nGod--but neither as priest nor pastor. I must write and talk about him\nas I can. No reason why I should not live by such writing and talking if\nit does not hamper my message to do so. But there must be no high place,\nno ordered congregation. I begin to see my way....\u201d\n\nThe evening was growing dark and chill about him now, the sky was barred\nwith deep bluish purple bands drawn across a chilly brightness that\nhad already forgotten the sun, the trees were black and dim, but his\nunderstanding of his place and duty was growing very definite.\n\n\u201cAnd this duty to bear witness to God's kingdom and serve it is so plain\nthat I must not deflect my witness even by a little, though to do\nso means comfort and security for my wife and children. God comes\nfirst....\u201d\n\n\u201cThey must not come between God and me....\u201d\n\n\u201cBut there is more in it than that.\u201d\n\nHe had come round at last through the long clearing-up of his mind, to\nhis fundamental problem again. He sat darkly reluctant.\n\n\u201cI must not play priest or providence to them,\u201d he admitted at last. \u201cI\nmust not even stand between God and them.\u201d\n\nHe saw now what he had been doing; it had been the flaw in his faith\nthat he would not trust his family to God. And he saw too that this\ndistrust has been the flaw in the faith of all religious systems\nhitherto....\n\n(13)\n\n\nIn this strange voyage of the spirit which was now drawing to its end,\nin which Scrope had travelled from the confused, unanalyzed formulas and\nassumptions and implications of his rectory upbringing to his present\nstark and simple realization of God, he had at times made some\nremarkable self-identifications. He was naturally much given to analogy;\nevery train of thought in his mind set up induced parallel currents. He\nhad likened himself to the Anglican church, to the whole Christian body,\nas, for example, in his imagined second conversation with the angel\nof God. But now he found himself associating himself with a still more\nfar-reaching section of mankind. This excess of solicitude was traceable\nperhaps in nearly every one in all the past of mankind who had ever had\nthe vision of God. An excessive solicitude to shield those others from\none's own trials and hardships, to preserve the exact quality of the\nrevelation, for example, had been the fruitful cause of crippling\nerrors, spiritual tyrannies, dogmatisms, dissensions, and futilities.\n\u201cSuffer little children to come unto me\u201d; the text came into his head\nwith an effect of contribution. The parent in us all flares out at the\nthought of the younger and weaker minds; we hide difficulties, seek to\nspare them from the fires that temper the spirit, the sharp edge of\nthe truth that shapes the soul. Christian is always trying to have a\ncarriage sent back from the Celestial City for his family. Why, we ask,\nshould they flounder dangerously in the morasses that we escaped, or\nwander in the forest in which we lost ourselves? Catch these souls\nyoung, therefore, save them before they know they exist, kidnap them to\nheaven; vaccinate them with a catechism they may never understand, lull\nthem into comfort and routine. Instinct plays us false here as it plays\nthe savage mother false when she snatches her fevered child from the\ndoctor's hands. The last act of faith is to trust those we love to\nGod....\n\nHitherto he had seen the great nets of theological overstatement and\ndogma that kept mankind from God as if they were the work of purely evil\nthings in man, of pride, of self-assertion, of a desire to possess and\ndominate the minds and souls of others. It was only now that he saw how\nlarge a share in the obstruction of God's Kingdom had been played by the\nlove of the elder and the parent, by the carefulness, the fussy care,\nof good men and women. He had wandered in wildernesses of unbelief, in\ndangerous places of doubt and questioning, but he had left his wife and\nchildren safe and secure in the self-satisfaction of orthodoxy. To none\nof them except to Eleanor had he ever talked with any freedom of his\nnew apprehensions of religious reality. And that had been at Eleanor's\ninitiative. There was, he saw now, something of insolence and something\nof treachery in this concealment. His ruling disposition throughout the\ncrisis had been to force comfort and worldly well-being upon all those\ndependants even at the price of his own spiritual integrity. In no way\nhad he consulted them upon the bargain.... While we have pottered, each\nfor the little good of his own family, each for the lessons and clothes\nand leisure of his own children, assenting to this injustice, conforming\nto that dishonest custom, being myopically benevolent and fundamentally\ntreacherous, our accumulated folly has achieved this catastrophe. It is\nnot so much human wickedness as human weakness that has permitted the\nyouth of the world to go through this hell of blood and mud and fire.\nThe way to the kingdom of God is the only way to the true safety, the\ntrue wellbeing of the children of men....\n\nIt wasn't fair to them. But now he saw how unfair it was to them in a\nlight that has only shone plainly upon European life since the great\ninterlude of the armed peace came to an end in August, 1914. Until\nthat time it had been the fashion to ignore death and evade poverty and\nnecessity for the young. We can shield our young no longer, death has\nbroken through our precautions and tender evasions--and his eyes went\neastward into the twilight that had swallowed up his daughter and her\nlover.\n\nThe tumbled darkling sky, monstrous masses of frowning blue, with icy\ngaps of cold light, was like the great confusions of the war. All our\nyouth has had to go into that terrible and destructive chaos--because of\nthe kings and churches and nationalities sturdier-souled men would have\nset aside.\n\nEverything was sharp and clear in his mind now. Eleanor after all had\nbrought him his solution.\n\nHe sat quite still for a little while, and then stood up and turned\nnorthward towards Notting Hill.\n\nThe keepers were closing Kensington Gardens, and he would have to skirt\nthe Park to Victoria Gate and go home by the Bayswater Road....\n\n(14)\n\n\nAs he walked he rearranged in his mind this long-overdue apology for his\nfaith that he was presently to make to his family. There was no one to\ninterrupt him and nothing to embarrass him, and so he was able to\nset out everything very clearly and convincingly. There was perhaps a\ndisposition to digress into rather voluminous subordinate explanations,\non such themes, for instance, as sacramentalism, whereon he found\nhimself summarizing Frazer's Golden Bough, which the Chasters'\ncontroversy had first obliged him to read, and upon the irrelevance of\nthe question of immortality to the process of salvation. But the reality\nof his eclaircissement was very different from anything he prepared in\nthese anticipations.\n\nTea had been finished and put away, and the family was disposed about\nthe dining-room engaged in various evening occupations; Phoebe sat at\nthe table working at some mathematical problem, Clementina was reading\nwith her chin on her fist and a frown on her brow; Lady Ella, Miriam and\nDaphne were busy making soft washing cloths for the wounded; Lady\nElla had brought home the demand for them from the Red Cross centre\nin Burlington House. The family was all downstairs in the dining-room\nbecause the evening was chilly, and there were no fires upstairs yet\nin the drawing-room. He came into the room and exchanged greetings with\nLady Ella. Then he stood for a time surveying his children. Phoebe, he\nnoted, was a little flushed; she put passion into her work; on the whole\nshe was more like Eleanor than any other of them. Miriam knitted with a\nsteady skill. Clementina's face too expressed a tussle. He took up one\nof the rough-knit washing-cloths upon the side-table, and asked how many\ncould be made in an hour. Then he asked some idle obvious question\nabout the fire upstairs. Clementina made an involuntary movement; he was\ndisturbing her. He hovered for a moment longer. He wanted to catch his\nwife's eye and speak to her first. She looked up, but before he could\nconvey his wish for a private conference with her, she smiled at him and\nthen bent over her work again.\n\nHe went into the back study and lit his gas fire. Hitherto he had always\nmade a considerable explosion when he did so, but this time by taking\nthought and lighting his match before he turned on the gas he did it\nwith only a gentle thud. Then he lit his reading-lamp and pulled down\nthe blind--pausing for a time to look at the lit dressmaker's opposite.\nThen he sat down thoughtfully before the fire. Presently Ella would come\nin and he would talk to her. He waited a long time, thinking only weakly\nand inconsecutively, and then he became restless. Should he call her?\n\nBut he wanted their talk to begin in a natural-seeming way. He did not\nwant the portentousness of \u201cwanting to speak\u201d to her and calling her out\nto him. He got up at last and went back into the other room. Clementina\nhad gone upstairs, and the book she had been reading was lying closed on\nthe sideboard. He saw it was one of Chasters' books, he took it up, it\nwas \u201cThe Core of Truth in Christianity,\u201d and he felt an irrational\nshock at the idea of Clementina reading it. In spite of his own\nimmense changes of opinion he had still to revise his conception of the\npolemical Chasters as an evil influence in religion. He fidgeted\npast his wife to the mantel in search of an imaginary mislaid pencil.\nClementina came down with some bandage linen she was cutting out. He\nhung over his wife in a way that he felt must convey his desire for a\nconversation. Then he picked up Chasters' book again. \u201cDoes any one want\nthis?\u201d he asked.\n\n\u201cNot if I may have it again,\u201d consented Clementina.\n\nHe took it back with him and began to read again those familiar\ncontroversial pages. He read for the best part of an hour with his knees\ndrying until they smoked over the gas. What curious stuff it was! How\nit wrangled! Was Chasters a religious man? Why did he write these\nbooks? Had he really a passion for truth or only a Swift-like hatred\nof weakly-thinking people? None of this stuff in his books was really\nwrong, provided it was religious-spirited. Much of it had been indeed\ndestructively illuminating to its reader. It let daylight through all\nsorts of walls. Indeed, the more one read the more vividly true its\nacid-bit lines became.... And yet, and yet, there was something hateful\nin the man's tone. Scrope held the book and thought. He had seen\nChasters once or twice. Chasters had the sort of face, the sort of\nvoice, the sort of bearing that made one think of his possibly saying\nupon occasion, rudely and rejoicing, \u201cMore fool you!\u201d Nevertheless\nScrope perceived now with an effort of discovery that it was from\nChasters that he had taken all the leading ideas of the new faith that\nwas in him. Here was the stuff of it. He had forgotten how much of it\nwas here. During those months of worried study while the threat of\na Chasters prosecution hung over him his mind had assimilated almost\nunknowingly every assimilable element of the Chasters doctrine; he\nhad either assimilated and transmuted it by the alchemy of his own\ntemperament, or he had reacted obviously and filled in Chasters' gaps\nand pauses. Chasters could beat a road to the Holy of Holies, and shy\nat entering it. But in spite of all the man's roughness, in spite of a\ncurious flavour of baseness and malice about him, the spirit of truth\nhad spoken through him. God has a use for harsh ministers. In one man\nGod lights the heart, in another the reason becomes a consuming fire.\nGod takes his own where he finds it. He does not limit himself to nice\npeople. In these matters of evidence and argument, in his contempt for\namiable, demoralizing compromise, Chasters served God as Scrope could\nnever hope to serve him. Scrope's new faith had perhaps been altogether\nimpossible if the Chasters controversy had not ploughed his mind.\n\nFor a time Scrope dwelt upon this remarkable realization. Then as\nhe turned over the pages his eyes rested on a passage of uncivil and\nungenerous sarcasm. Against old Likeman of all people!...\n\nWhat did a girl like Clementina make of all this? How had she got the\nbook? From Eleanor? The stuff had not hurt Eleanor. Eleanor had been\nable to take the good that Chasters taught, and reject the evil of his\nspirit....\n\nHe thought of Eleanor, gallantly working out her own salvation. The\nworld was moving fast to a phase of great freedom--for the young and the\nbold.... He liked that boy....\n\nHis thoughts came back with a start to his wife. The evening was\nslipping by and he had momentous things to say to her. He went and just\nopened the door.\n\n\u201cElla!\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cDid you want me?\u201d\n\n\u201cPresently.\u201d\n\nShe put a liberal interpretation upon that \u201cpresently,\u201d so that after\nwhat seemed to him a long interval he had to call again, \u201cElla!\u201d\n\n\u201cJust a minute,\u201d she answered.\n\n(15)\n\n\nLady Ella was still, so to speak, a little in the other room when she\ncame to him.\n\n\u201cShut that door, please,\u201d he said, and felt the request had just that\nflavour of portentousness he wished to avoid.\n\n\u201cWhat is it?\u201d she asked.\n\n\u201cI wanted to talk to you--about some things. I've done something rather\nserious to-day. I've made an important decision.\u201d\n\nHer face became anxious. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d she asked.\n\n\u201cYou see,\u201d he said, leaning upon the mantelshelf and looking down at the\ngas flames, \u201cI've never thought that we should all have to live in this\ncrowded house for long.\u201d\n\n\u201cAll!\u201d she interrupted in a voice that made him look up sharply. \u201cYou're\nnot going away, Ted?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, no. But I hoped we should all be going away in a little time. It\nisn't so.\u201d\n\n\u201cI never quite understood why you hoped that.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt was plain enough.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow?\u201d\n\n\u201cI thought I should have found something to do that would have enabled\nus to live in better style. I'd had a plan.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat plan?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt's fallen through.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut what plan was it?\u201d\n\n\u201cI thought I should be able to set up a sort of broad church chapel. I\nhad a promise.\u201d\n\nHer voice was rich with indignation. \u201cAnd she has betrayed you?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d he said, \u201cI have betrayed her.\u201d\n\nLady Ella's face showed them still at cross purposes. He looked down\nagain and frowned. \u201cI can't do that chapel business,\u201d he said. \u201cI've had\nto let her down. I've got to let you all down. There's no help for it.\nIt isn't the way. I can't have anything to do with Lady Sunderbund and\nher chapel.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d Lady Ella was still perplexed.\n\n\u201cIt's too great a sacrifice.\u201d\n\n\u201cOf us?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, of myself. I can't get into her pulpit and do as she wants and keep\nmy conscience. It's been a horrible riddle for me. It means plunging\ninto all this poverty for good. But I can't work with her, Ella. She's\nimpossible.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou mean--you're going to break with Lady Sunderbund?\u201d\n\n\u201cI must.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen, Teddy!\u201d--she was a woman groping for flight amidst intolerable\nperplexities--\u201cwhy did you ever leave the church?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause I have ceased to believe--\u201d\n\n\u201cBut had it nothing to do with Lady Sunderbund?\u201d\n\nHe stared at her in astonishment.\n\n\u201cIf it means breaking with that woman,\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cYou mean,\u201d he said, beginning for the first time to comprehend her,\n\u201cthat you don't mind the poverty?\u201d\n\n\u201cPoverty!\u201d she cried. \u201cI cared for nothing but the disgrace.\u201d\n\n\u201cDisgrace?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, never mind, Ted! If it isn't true, if I've been dreaming....\u201d\n\nInstead of a woman stunned by a life sentence of poverty, he saw his\nwife rejoicing as if she had heard good news.\n\nTheir minds were held for a minute by the sound of some one knocking\nat the house door; one of the girls opened the door, there was a brief\nhubbub in the passage and then they heard a cry of \u201cEleanor!\u201d through\nthe folding doors.\n\n\u201cThere's Eleanor,\u201d he said, realizing he had told his wife nothing of\nthe encounter in Hyde Park.\n\nThey heard Eleanor's clear voice: \u201cWhere's Mummy? Or Daddy?\u201d and then:\n\u201cCan't stay now, dears. Where's Mummy or Daddy?\u201d\n\n\u201cI ought to have told you,\u201d said Scrope quickly. \u201cI met Eleanor in the\nPark. By accident. She's come up unexpectedly. To meet a boy going to\nthe front. Quite a nice boy. Son of Riverton the doctor. The parting had\nmade them understand one another. It's all right, Ella. It's a little\nirregular, but I'd stake my life on the boy. She's very lucky.\u201d\n\nEleanor appeared through the folding doors. She came to business at\nonce.\n\n\u201cI promised you I'd come back to supper here, Daddy,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I\ndon't want to have supper here. I want to stay out late.\u201d\n\nShe saw her mother look perplexed. \u201cHasn't Daddy told you?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut where is young Riverton?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe's outside.\u201d\n\nEleanor became aware of a broad chink in the folding doors that was\nmaking the dining-room an auditorium for their dialogue. She shut them\ndeftly.\n\n\u201cI have told Mummy,\u201d Scrope explained. \u201cBring him in to supper. We ought\nto see him.\u201d\n\nEleanor hesitated. She indicated her sisters beyond the folding doors.\n\u201cThey'll all be watching us, Mummy,\u201d she said. \u201cWe'd be uncomfortable.\nAnd besides--\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you can't go out and dine with him alone!\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, Mummy! It's our only chance.\u201d\n\n\u201cCustoms are changing,\u201d said Scrope.\n\n\u201cBut can they?\u201d asked Lady Ella.\n\n\u201cI don't see why not.\u201d\n\nThe mother was still doubtful, but she was in no mood to cross her\nhusband that night. \u201cIt's an exceptional occasion,\u201d said Scrope, and\nEleanor knew her point was won. She became radiant. \u201cI can be late?\u201d\n\nScrope handed her his latch-key without a word.\n\n\u201cYou dear kind things,\u201d she said, and went to the door. Then turned and\ncame back and kissed her father. Then she kissed her mother. \u201cIt is\nso kind of you,\u201d she said, and was gone. They listened to her passage\nthrough a storm of questions in the dining-room.\n\n\u201cThree months ago that would have shocked me,\u201d said Lady Ella.\n\n\u201cYou haven't seen the boy,\u201d said Scrope.\n\n\u201cBut the appearances!\u201d\n\n\u201cAren't we rather breaking with appearances?\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cAnd he goes to-morrow--perhaps to get killed,\u201d he added. \u201cA lad like\na schoolboy. A young thing. Because of the political foolery that we\npriests and teachers have suffered in the place of the Kingdom of God,\nbecause we have allowed the religion of Europe to become a lie; because\nno man spoke the word of God. You see--when I see that--see those two,\nthose children of one-and-twenty, wrenched by tragedy, beginning with\na parting.... It's like a knife slashing at all our appearances and\ndiscretions.... Think of our lovemaking....\u201d\n\nThe front door banged.\n\nHe had some idea of resuming their talk. But his was a scattered mind\nnow.\n\n\u201cIt's a quarter to eight,\u201d he said as if in explanation.\n\n\u201cI must see to the supper,\u201d said Lady Ella.\n\n(16)\n\n\nThere was an air of tension at supper as though the whole family felt\nthat momentous words impended. But Phoebe had emerged victorious from\nher mathematical struggle, and she seemed to eat with better appetite\nthan she had shown for some time. It was a cold meat supper; Lady Ella\nhad found it impossible to keep up the regular practice of a cooked\ndinner in the evening, and now it was only on Thursdays that the\nScropes, to preserve their social tradition, dressed and dined; the rest\nof the week they supped. Lady Ella never talked very much at supper;\nthis evening was no exception. Clementina talked of London University\nand Bedford College; she had been making enquiries; Daphne described\nsome of the mistresses at her new school. The feeling that something was\nexpected had got upon Scrope's nerves. He talked a little in a flat and\nobvious way, and lapsed into thoughtful silences. While supper was being\ncleared away he went back into his study.\n\nThence he returned to the dining-room hearthrug as his family resumed\ntheir various occupations.\n\nHe tried to speak in a casual conversational tone.\n\n\u201cI want to tell you all,\u201d he said, \u201cof something that has happened\nto-day.\u201d\n\nHe waited. Phoebe had begun to figure at a fresh sheet of computations.\nMiriam bent her head closer over her work, as though she winced at what\nwas coming. Daphne and Clementina looked at one another. Their eyes said\n\u201cEleanor!\u201d But he was too full of his own intention to read that glance.\nOnly his wife regarded him attentively.\n\n\u201cIt concerns you all,\u201d he said.\n\nHe looked at Phoebe. He saw Lady Ella's hand go out and touch the girl's\nhand gently to make her desist. Phoebe obeyed, with a little sigh.\n\n\u201cI want to tell you that to-day I refused an income that would certainly\nhave exceeded fifteen hundred pounds a year.\u201d\n\nClementina looked up now. This was not what she expected. Her expression\nconveyed protesting enquiry.\n\n\u201cI want you all to understand why I did that and why we are in the\nposition we are in, and what lies before us. I want you to know what has\nbeen going on in my mind.\u201d\n\nHe looked down at the hearthrug, and tried to throw off a memory of his\nPrinchester classes for young women, that oppressed him. His manner\nhe forced to a more familiar note. He stuck his hands into his trouser\npockets.\n\n\u201cYou know, my dears, I had to give up the church. I just simply didn't\nbelieve any more in orthodox Church teaching. And I feel I've never\nexplained that properly to you. Not at all clearly. I want to explain\nthat now. It's a queer thing, I know, for me to say to you, but I want\nyou to understand that I am a religious man. I believe that God matters\nmore than wealth or comfort or position or the respect of men, that he\nalso matters more than your comfort and prosperity. God knows I have\ncared for your comfort and prosperity. I don't want you to think that in\nall these changes we have been through lately, I haven't been aware of\nall the discomfort into which you have come--the relative discomfort.\nCompared with Princhester this is dark and crowded and poverty-stricken.\nI have never felt crowded before, but in this house I know you are\nhorribly crowded. It is a house that seems almost contrived for small\ndiscomforts. This narrow passage outside; the incessant going up and\ndown stairs. And there are other things. There is the blankness of our\nLondon Sundays. What is the good of pretending? They are desolating.\nThere's the impossibility too of getting good servants to come into our\ndug-out kitchen. I'm not blind to all these sordid consequences. But all\nthe same, God has to be served first. I had to come to this. I felt I\ncould not serve God any longer as a bishop in the established church,\nbecause I did not believe that the established church was serving God.\nI struggled against that conviction--and I struggled against it largely\nfor your sakes. But I had to obey my conviction.... I haven't talked\nto you about these things as much as I should have done, but partly at\nleast that is due to the fact that my own mind has been changing and\nreconsidering, going forward and going back, and in that fluid state\nit didn't seem fair to tell you things that I might presently find\nmistaken. But now I begin to feel that I have really thought out things,\nand that they are definite enough to tell you....\u201d\n\nHe paused and resumed. \u201cA number of things have helped to change the\nopinions in which I grew up and in which you have grown up. There were\nworries at Princhester; I didn't let you know much about them, but there\nwere. There was something harsh and cruel in that atmosphere. I saw for\nthe first time--it's a lesson I'm still only learning--how harsh and\ngreedy rich people and employing people are to poor people and working\npeople, and how ineffective our church was to make things better. That\nstruck me. There were religious disputes in the diocese too, and they\nshook me. I thought my faith was built on a rock, and I found it was\nbuilt on sand. It was slipping and sliding long before the war. But the\nwar brought it down. Before the war such a lot of things in England and\nEurope seemed like a comedy or a farce, a bad joke that one tolerated.\nOne tried half consciously, half avoiding the knowledge of what one was\ndoing, to keep one's own little circle and life civilized. The war shook\nall those ideas of isolation, all that sort of evasion, down. The world\nis the rightful kingdom of God; we had left its affairs to kings and\nemperors and suchlike impostors, to priests and profit-seekers and\ngreedy men. We were genteel condoners. The war has ended that. It\nthrusts into all our lives. It brings death so close--A fortnight ago\ntwenty-seven people were killed and injured within a mile of this by\nZeppelin bombs.... Every one loses some one.... Because through all that\ntime men like myself were going through our priestly mummeries, abasing\nourselves to kings and politicians, when we ought to have been crying\nout: 'No! No! There is no righteousness in the world, there is no right\ngovernment, except it be the kingdom of God.'\u201d\n\nHe paused and looked at them. They were all listening to him now. But he\nwas still haunted by a dread of preaching in his own family. He dropped\nto the conversational note again.\n\n\u201cYou see what I had in mind. I saw I must come out of this, and preach\nthe kingdom of God. That was my idea. I don't want to force it upon you,\nbut I want you to understand why I acted as I did. But let me come to\nthe particular thing that has happened to-day. I did not think when I\nmade my final decision to leave the church that it meant such poverty as\nthis we are living in--permanently. That is what I want to make clear to\nyou. I thought there would be a temporary dip into dinginess, but that\nwas all. There was a plan; at the time it seemed a right and reasonable\nplan; for setting up a chapel in London, a very plain and simple\nundenominational chapel, for the simple preaching of the world kingdom\nof God. There was some one who seemed prepared to meet all the immediate\ndemands for such a chapel.\u201d\n\n\u201cWas it Lady Sunderbund?\u201d asked Clementina.\n\nScrope was pulled up abruptly. \u201cYes,\u201d he said. \u201cIt seemed at first a\nquite hopeful project.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe'd have hated that,\u201d said Clementina, with a glance as if for assent,\nat her mother. \u201cWe should all have hated that.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnyhow it has fallen through.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe don't mind that,\u201d said Clementina, and Daphne echoed her words.\n\n\u201cI don't see that there is any necessity to import this note\nof--hostility to Lady Sunderbund into this matter.\u201d He addressed\nhimself rather more definitely to Lady Ella. \u201cShe's a woman of a very\nextraordinary character, highly emotional, energetic, generous to an\nextraordinary extent....\u201d\n\nDaphne made a little noise like a comment.\n\nA faint acerbity in her father's voice responded.\n\n\u201cAnyhow you make a mistake if you think that the personality of Lady\nSunderbund has very much to do with this thing now. Her quality may have\nbrought out certain aspects of the situation rather more sharply than\nthey might have been brought out under other circumstances, but if\nthis chapel enterprise had been suggested by quite a different sort of\nperson, by a man, or by a committee, in the end I think I should have\ncome to the same conclusion. Leave Lady Sunderbund out. Any chapel was\nimpossible. It is just this specialization that has been the trouble\nwith religion. It is just this tendency to make it the business of\na special sort of man, in a special sort of building, on a special\nday--Every man, every building, every day belongs equally to God.\nThat is my conviction. I think that the only possible existing sort of\nreligions meeting is something after the fashion of the Quaker meeting.\nIn that there is no professional religious man at all; not a trace of\nthe sacrifices to the ancient gods.... And no room for a professional\nreligions man....\u201d He felt his argument did a little escape him. He\nsnatched, \u201cThat is what I want to make clear to you. God is not a\nspeciality; he is a universal interest.\u201d\n\nHe stopped. Both Daphne and Clementina seemed disposed to say something\nand did not say anything.\n\nMiriam was the first to speak. \u201cDaddy,\u201d she said, \u201cI know I'm stupid.\nBut are we still Christians?\u201d\n\n\u201cI want you to think for yourselves.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I mean,\u201d said Miriam, \u201care we--something like Quakers--a sort of\nvery broad Christians?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are what you choose to be. If you want to keep in the church, then\nyou must keep in the church. If you feel that the Christian doctrine is\nalive, then it is alive so far as you are concerned.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut the creeds?\u201d asked Clementina.\n\nHe shook his head. \u201cSo far as Christianity is defined by its creeds,\nI am not a Christian. If we are going to call any sort of religious\nfeeling that has a respect for Jesus, Christianity, then no doubt I am\na Christian. But so was Mohammed at that rate. Let me tell you what I\nbelieve. I believe in God, I believe in the immediate presence of God in\nevery human life, I believe that our lives have to serve the Kingdom of\nGod....\u201d\n\n\u201cThat practically is what Mr. Chasters calls 'The Core of Truth in\nChristianity.'\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have been reading him?\u201d\n\n\u201cEleanor lent me the book. But Mr. Chasters keeps his living.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am not Chasters,\u201d said Scrope stiffly, and then relenting: \u201cWhat he\ndoes may be right for him. But I could not do as he does.\u201d\n\nLady Ella had said no word for some time.\n\n\u201cI would be ashamed,\u201d she said quietly, \u201cif you had not done as you\nhave done. I don't mind--The girls don't mind--all this.... Not when we\nunderstand--as we do now.\u201d\n\nThat was the limit of her eloquence.\n\n\u201cNot now that we understand, Daddy,\u201d said Clementina, and a faint\nflavour of Lady Sunderbund seemed to pass and vanish.\n\nThere was a queer little pause. He stood rather distressed and\nperplexed, because the talk had not gone quite as he had intended it\nto go. It had deteriorated towards personal issues. Phoebe broke the\nawkwardness by jumping up and coming to her father. \u201cDear Daddy,\u201d she\nsaid, and kissed him.\n\n\u201cWe didn't understand properly,\u201d said Clementina, in the tone of one who\nexplains away much--that had never been spoken....\n\n\u201cDaddy,\u201d said Miriam with an inspiration, \u201cmay I play something to you\npresently?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut the fire!\u201d interjected Lady Ella, disposing of that idea.\n\n\u201cI want you to know, all of you, the faith I have,\u201d he said.\n\nDaphne had remained seated at the table.\n\n\u201cAre we never to go to church again?\u201d she asked, as if at a loss.\n\n(17)\n\n\nScrope went back into his little study. He felt shy and awkward with his\ndaughters now. He felt it would be difficult to get back to usualness\nwith them. To-night it would be impossible. To-morrow he must come\ndown to breakfast as though their talk had never occurred.... In his\nrehearsal of this deliverance during his walk home he had spoken much\nmore plainly of his sense of the coming of God to rule the world and end\nthe long age of the warring nations and competing traders, and he had\nintended to speak with equal plainness of the passionate subordination\nof the individual life to this great common purpose of God and man, an\naspect he had scarcely mentioned at all. But in that little room, in the\npresence of those dear familiar people, those great horizons of life\nhad vanished. The room with its folding doors had fixed the scale.\nThe wallpaper had smothered the Kingdom of God; he had been, he felt,\ndomestic; it had been an after-supper talk. He had been put out, too, by\nthe mention of Lady Sunderbund and the case of Chasters....\n\nIn his study he consoled himself for this diminution of his intention.\nIt had taken him five years, he reflected, to get to his present real\nsense of God's presence and to his personal subordination to God's\npurpose. It had been a little absurd, he perceived, to expect these\ngirls to leap at once to a complete understanding of the halting hints,\nthe allusive indications of the thoughts that now possessed his soul. He\ntried like some maiden speaker to recall exactly what it was he had said\nand what it was he had forgotten to say.... This was merely a beginning,\nmerely a beginning.\n\nAfter the girls had gone to bed, Lady Ella came to him and she was\nglowing and tender; she was in love again as she had not been since the\nshadow had first fallen between them. \u201cI was so glad you spoke to them,\u201d\n she said. \u201cThey had been puzzled. But they are dear loyal girls.\u201d\n\nHe tried to tell her rather more plainly what he felt about the whole\nquestion of religion in their lives, but eloquence had departed from\nhim.\n\n\u201cYou see, Ella, life cannot get out of tragedy--and sordid\ntragedy--until we bring about the Kingdom of God. It's no unreality that\nhas made me come out of the church.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, dear. No,\u201d she said soothingly and reassuringly. \u201cWith all these\nmere boys going to the most dreadful deaths in the trenches, with death,\nhardship and separation running amok in the world--\u201d\n\n\u201cOne has to do something,\u201d she agreed.\n\n\u201cI know, dear,\u201d he said, \u201cthat all this year of doubt and change has\nbeen a dreadful year for you.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt was stupid of me,\u201d she said, \u201cbut I have been so unhappy. It's\nover now--but I was wretched. And there was nothing I could say....\nI prayed.... It isn't the poverty I feared ever, but the disgrace.\nNow--I'm happy. I'm happy again.\n\n\u201cBut how far do you come with me?\u201d\n\n\u201cI'm with you.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d he said, \u201cyou are still a churchwoman?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don't know,\u201d she said. \u201cI don't mind.\u201d\n\nHe stared at her.\n\n\u201cBut I thought always that was what hurt you most, my breach with the\nchurch.\u201d\n\n\u201cThings are so different now,\u201d she said.\n\nHer heart dissolved within her into tender possessiveness. There came\nflooding into her mind the old phrases of an ancient story: \u201cWhither\nthou goest I will go... thy people shall be my people and thy God my\nGod.... The Lord do so to me and more also if aught but death part thee\nand me.\u201d\n\nJust those words would Lady Ella have said to her husband now, but she\nwas capable of no such rhetoric.\n\n\u201cWhither thou goest,\u201d she whispered almost inaudibly, and she could get\nno further. \u201cMy dear,\u201d she said.\n\n(18)\n\n\nAt two o'clock the next morning Scrope was still up. He was sitting over\nthe snoring gas fire in his study. He did not want to go to bed. His\nmind was too excited, he knew, for any hope of sleep. In the last twelve\nhours, since he had gone out across the park to his momentous talk with\nLady Sunderbund, it seemed to him that his life had passed through its\ncardinal crisis and come to its crown and decision. The spiritual voyage\nthat had begun five years ago amidst a stormy succession of theological\nnightmares had reached harbour at last. He was established now in the\nsure conviction of God's reality, and of his advent to unify the lives\nof men and to save mankind. Some unobserved process in his mind had\nperfected that conviction, behind the cloudy veil of his vacillations\nand moods. Surely that work was finished now, and the day's experience\nhad drawn the veil and discovered God established for ever.\n\nHe contrasted this simple and overruling knowledge of God as the supreme\nfact in a practical world with that vague and ineffective subject for\nsentiment who had been the \u201cGod\u201d of his Anglican days. Some theologian\nonce spoke of God as \u201cthe friend behind phenomena\u201d; that Anglican deity\nhad been rather a vague flummery behind court and society, wealth,\n\u201crespectability,\u201d and the comfortable life. And even while he had lived\nin lipservice to that complaisant compromise, this true God had been\nhere, this God he now certainly professed, waiting for his allegiance,\nwaiting to take up the kingship of this distraught and bloodstained\nearth. The finding of God is but the stripping of bandages from the\neyes. Seek and ye shall find....\n\nHe whispered four words very softly: \u201cThe Kingdom of God!\u201d\n\nHe was quite sure he had that now, quite sure.\n\nThe Kingdom of God!\n\nThat now was the form into which all his life must fall. He recalled his\nvision of the silver sphere and of ten thousand diverse minds about the\nworld all making their ways to the same one conclusion. Here at last was\na king and emperor for mankind for whom one need have neither contempt\nnor resentment; here was an aim for which man might forge the steel\nand wield the scalpel, write and paint and till and teach. Upon this\nconception he must model all his life. Upon this basis he must found\nfriendships and co-operations. All the great religions, Christianity,\nIslam, in the days of their power and honesty, had proclaimed the advent\nof this kingdom of God. It had been their common inspiration. A religion\nsurrenders when it abandons the promise of its Millennium. He had\nrecovered that ancient and immortal hope. All men must achieve it, and\nwith their achievement the rule of God begins. He muttered his faith. It\nmade it more definite to put it into words and utter it. \u201cIt comes.\nIt surely comes. To-morrow I begin. I will do no work that goes not\nGodward. Always now it shall be the truth as near as I can put it.\nAlways now it shall be the service of the commonweal as well as I can\ndo it. I will live for the ending of all false kingship and priestcraft,\nfor the eternal growth of the spirit of man....\u201d\n\nHe was, he knew clearly, only one common soldier in a great army that\nwas finding its way to enlistment round and about the earth. He was not\nalone. While the kings of this world fought for dominion these others\ngathered and found themselves and one another, these others of the faith\nthat grows plain, these men who have resolved to end the bloodstained\nchronicles of the Dynasts and the miseries of a world that trades in\nlife, for ever. They were many men, speaking divers tongues. He was\nbut one who obeyed the worldwide impulse. He could smile at the artless\nvanity that had blinded him to the import of his earlier visions, that\nhad made him imagine himself a sole discoverer, a new Prophet, that had\nbrought him so near to founding a new sect. Every soldier in the new\nhost was a recruiting sergeant according to his opportunity.... And none\nwas leader. Only God was leader....\n\n\u201cThe achievement of the Kingdom of God;\u201d this was his calling.\nHenceforth this was his business in life....\n\nFor a time he indulged in vague dreams of that kingdom of God on earth\nof which he would be one of the makers; it was a dream of a shadowy\nsplendour of cities, of great scientific achievements, of a universal\nbeauty, of beautiful people living in the light of God, of a splendid\nadventure, thrusting out at last among the stars. But neither his\nnatural bent nor his mental training inclined him to mechanical or\nadministrative explicitness. Much more was his dream a vision of\nmen inwardly ennobled and united in spirit. He saw history growing\nreasonable and life visibly noble as mankind realized the divine aim.\nAll the outward peace and order, the joy of physical existence finely\nconceived, the mounting power and widening aim were but the expression\nand verification of the growth of God within. Then we would bear\nchildren for finer ends than the blood and mud of battlefields. Life\nwould tower up like a great flame. By faith we reached forward to that.\nThe vision grew more splendid as it grew more metaphorical. And the\nprice one paid for that; one gave sham dignities, false honour, a\nLevitical righteousness, immediate peace, one bartered kings and\nchurches for God.... He looked at the mean, poverty-struck room, he\nmarked the dinginess and tawdriness of its detail and all the sordid\nevidences of ungracious bargaining and grudging service in its\nappointments. For all his life now he would have to live in such rooms.\nHe who had been one of the lucky ones.... Well, men were living in\ndug-outs and dying gaily in muddy trenches, they had given limbs and\nlives, eyes and the joy of movement, prosperity and pride, for a smaller\ncause and a feebler assurance than this that he had found....\n\n(19)\n\n\nPresently his thoughts were brought back to his family by the sounds of\nEleanor's return. He heard her key in the outer door; he heard her move\nabout in the hall and then slip lightly up to bed. He did not go out to\nspeak to her, and she did not note the light under his door.\n\nHe would talk to her later when this discovery of her own emotions no\nlonger dominated her mind. He recalled her departing figure and how she\nhad walked, touching and looking up to her young mate, and he a little\nleaning to her....\n\n\u201cGod bless them and save them,\u201d he said....\n\nHe thought of her sisters. They had said but little to his clumsy\nexplanations. He thought of the years and experience that they must\nneeds pass through before they could think the fulness of his present\nthoughts, and so he tempered his disappointment. They were a gallant\ngroup, he felt. He had to thank Ella and good fortune that so they were.\nThere was Clementina with her odd quick combatant sharpness, a harder\nbeing than Eleanor, but nevertheless a fine-spirited and even more\nindependent. There was Miriam, indefatigably kind. Phoebe too had a real\npassion of the intellect and Daphne an innate disposition to service.\nBut it was strange how they had taken his proclamation of a conclusive\nbreach with the church as though it was a command they must, at least\noutwardly, obey. He had expected them to be more deeply shocked; he had\nthought he would have to argue against objections and convert them to\nhis views. Their acquiescence was strange. They were content he should\nthink all this great issue out and give his results to them. And his\nwife, well as he knew her, had surprised him. He thought of her words:\n\u201cWhither thou goest--\u201d\n\nHe was dissatisfied with this unconditional agreement. Why could not\nhis wife meet God as he had met God? Why must Miriam put the fantastic\nquestion--as though it was not for her to decide: \u201cAre we still\nChristians?\u201d And pursuing this thought, why couldn't Lady Sunderbund set\nup in religion for herself without going about the world seeking for\na priest and prophet. Were women Undines who must get their souls from\nmortal men? And who was it tempted men to set themselves up as priests?\nIt was the wife, the disciple, the lover, who was the last, the most\nfatal pitfall on the way to God.\n\nHe began to pray, still sitting as he prayed.\n\n\u201cOh God!\u201d he prayed. \u201cThou who has shown thyself to me, let me never\nforget thee again. Save me from forgetfulness. And show thyself to those\nI love; show thyself to all mankind. Use me, O God, use me; but keep my\nsoul alive. Save me from the presumption of the trusted servant; save me\nfrom the vanity of authority....\n\n\u201cAnd let thy light shine upon all those who are so dear to me.... Save\nthem from me. Take their dear loyalty....\u201d\n\nHe paused. A flushed, childishly miserable face that stared indignantly\nthrough glittering tears, rose before his eyes. He forgot that he had\nbeen addressing God.\n\n\u201cHow can I help you, you silly thing?\u201d he said. \u201cI would give my own\nsoul to know that God had given his peace to you. I could not do as you\nwished. And I have hurt you!... You hurt yourself.... But all the time\nyou would have hampered me and tempted me--and wasted yourself. It was\nimpossible.... And yet you are so fine!\u201d\n\nHe was struck by another aspect.\n\n\u201cElla was happy--partly because Lady Sunderbund was hurt and left\ndesolated....\u201d\n\n\u201cBoth of them are still living upon nothings. Living for nothings. A\nphantom way of living....\u201d\n\nHe stared blankly at the humming blue gas jets amidst the incandescent\nasbestos for a space.\n\n\u201cMake them understand,\u201d he pleaded, as though he spoke confidentially of\nsome desirable and reasonable thing to a friend who sat beside him. \u201cYou\nsee it is so hard for them until they understand. It is easy enough when\none understands. Easy--\u201d He reflected for some moments--\u201cIt is as if\nthey could not exist--except in relationship to other definite people.\nI want them to exist--as now I exist--in relationship to God. Knowing\nGod....\u201d\n\nBut now he was talking to himself again.\n\n\u201cSo far as one can know God,\u201d he said presently.\n\nFor a while he remained frowning at the fire. Then he bent forward,\nturned out the gas, arose with the air of a man who relinquishes a\ndifficult task. \u201cOne is limited,\u201d he said. \u201cAll one's ideas must fall\nwithin one's limitations. Faith is a sort of tour de force. A feat of\nthe imagination. For such things as we are. Naturally--naturally.... One\nperceives it clearly only in rare moments.... That alters nothing....\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMr. WELLS has also written the following novels:\n\n     LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM\n     KIPPS\n     MR. POLLY\n     THE WHEELS OF CHANCE\n     THE NEW MACHIAVELLI\n     ANN VERONICA\n     TONO BUNGAY\n     MARRIAGE\n     BEALBY\n     THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS\n     THE WIFE OF SIR ISAAC HARMAN\n     THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT\n     MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH\n\n     The following fantastic and imaginative romances:\n     THE WAR OF THE WORLDS\n     THE TIME MACHINE\n     THE WONDERFUL VISIT\n     THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU\n     THE SEA LADY\n     THE SLEEPER AWAKES\n     THE FOOD OF THE GODS\n     THE WAR IN THE AIR\n     THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON\n     IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET\n     THE WORLD SET FREE\n\n     And numerous Short Stories now collected in\n     One Volume under the title of\n     THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND\n\n     A Series of books upon Social, Religious and\n     Political questions:\n     ANTICIPATIONS (1900)\n     MANKIND IN THE MAKING\n     FIRST AND LAST THINGS (RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY)\n     NEW WORLDS FOR OLD\n     A MODERN UTOPIA\n     THE FUTURE IN AMERICA\n     AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD\n     WHAT IS COMING?\n     WAR AND THE FUTURE\n     GOD THE INVISIBLE KING\n\n     And two little books about children's play, called:\n     FLOOR GAMES and LITTLE WARS","title":"The soul of a bishop","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":79134}