diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/old/sbshp10.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/sbshp10.txt | 10222 |
1 files changed, 10222 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/old/sbshp10.txt b/old/old/sbshp10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8300936 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/sbshp10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10222 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Soul of a Bishop, by H. G. Wells +#15 in our series, by H. G. Wells + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Soul of a Bishop + +by H. G. Wells + +April, 1998 [Etext #1269] + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Soul of a Bishop, by H. G. Wells +*****This file should be named sbshp10.txt or sbshp10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, sbshp11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, sbshp10a.txt + + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, +all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a +copyright notice is included. Therefore, we do NOT keep these books +in compliance with any particular paper edition, usually otherwise. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, for time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text +files per month, or 384 more Etexts in 1998 for a total of 1500+ +If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the +total should reach over 150 billion Etexts given away. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only 10% of the present number of computer users. 2001 +should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it +will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001. + + +We need your donations more than ever! + + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie- +Mellon University). + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails try our Executive Director: +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +We would prefer to send you this information by email +(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail). + +****** +If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please +FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives: +[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type] + +ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd etext/etext90 through /etext96 +or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information] +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET INDEX?00.GUT +for a list of books +and +GET NEW GUT for general information +and +MGET GUT* for newsletters. + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +THE SOUL OF A BISHOP +BY +H. G. WELLS + + + + +CONTENTS +CHAPTER THE FIRST - THE DREAM +CHAPTER THE SECOND - THE WEAR AND TEAR OF EPISCOPACY +CHAPTER THE THIRD - INSOMNIA +CHAPTER THE FOURTH - THE SYMPATHY OF LADY SUNDERBUND +CHAPTER THE FIFTH - THE FIRST VISION +CHAPTER THE SIXTH - EXEGETICAL +CHAPTER THE SEVENTH - THE SECOND VISION +CHAPTER THE EIGHTH - THE NEW WORLD +CHAPTER THE NINTH - THE THIRD VISION + + +"Man's true Environment is God" +J. H. OLDHAM in "The Christian Gospel" +(Tract of the N. M. R. and H.) + + + + +THE SOUL OF A BISHOP + + + + +CHAPTER THE FIRST - THE DREAM + +(1) + + +IT was a scene of bitter disputation. A hawk-nosed young man +with a pointing finger was prominent. His face worked violently, +his lips moved very rapidly, but what he said was inaudible. + +Behind him the little rufous man with the big eyes twitched at +his robe and offered suggestions. + +And behind these two clustered a great multitude of heated, +excited, swarthy faces.... + +The emperor sat on his golden throne in the midst of the +gathering, commanding silence by gestures, speaking inaudibly to +them in a tongue the majority did not use, and then prevailing. +They ceased their interruptions, and the old man, Arius, took up +the debate. For a time all those impassioned faces were intent +upon him; they listened as though they sought occasion, and +suddenly as if by a preconcerted arrangement they were all +thrusting their fingers into their ears and knitting their brows +in assumed horror; some were crying aloud and making as if to +fly. Some indeed tucked up their garments and fled. They spread +out into a pattern. They were like the little monks who run from +St. Jerome's lion in the picture by Carpaccio. Then one zealot +rushed forward and smote the old man heavily upon the mouth.... + +The hall seemed to grow vaster and vaster, the disputing, +infuriated figures multiplied to an innumerable assembly, they +drove about like snowflakes in a gale, they whirled in +argumentative couples, they spun in eddies of contradiction, they +made extraordinary patterns, and then amidst the cloudy darkness +of the unfathomable dome above them there appeared and increased +a radiant triangle in which shone an eye. The eye and the +triangle filled the heavens, sent out flickering rays, glowed to +a blinding incandescence, seemed to be speaking words of thunder +that were nevertheless inaudible. It was as if that thunder +filled the heavens, it was as if it were nothing but the beating +artery in the sleeper's ear. The attention strained to hear and +comprehend, and on the very verge of comprehension snapped like a +fiddle-string. + +"Nicoea!" + +The word remained like a little ash after a flare. + +The sleeper had awakened and lay very still, oppressed by a +sense of intellectual effort that had survived the dream in which +it had arisen. Was it so that things had happened? The slumber- +shadowed mind, moving obscurely, could not determine whether it +was so or not. Had they indeed behaved in this manner when the +great mystery was established? Who said they stopped their ears +with their fingers and fled, shouting with horror? Shouting? Was +it Eusebius or Athanasius? Or Sozomen.... Some letter or apology +by Athanasius?... And surely it was impossible that the Trinity +could have appeared visibly as a triangle and an eye. Above such +an assembly. + +That was mere dreaming, of course. Was it dreaming after +Raphael? After Raphael? The drowsy mind wandered into a side +issue. Was the picture that had suggested this dream the one in +the Vatican where all the Fathers of the Church are shown +disputing together? But there surely God and the Son themselves +were painted with a symbol--some symbol--also? But was that +disputation about the Trinity at all? Wasn't it rather about a +chalice and a dove? Of course it was a chalice and a dove! Then +where did one see the triangle and the eye? And men disputing? +Some such picture there was.... + +What a lot of disputing there had been! What endless disputing! +Which had gone on. Until last night. When this very disagreeable +young man with the hawk nose and the pointing finger had tackled +one when one was sorely fagged, and disputed; disputed. Rebuked +and disputed. "Answer me this," he had said.... And still one's +poor brains disputed and would not rest.... About the Trinity.... + +The brain upon the pillow was now wearily awake. It was at once +hopelessly awake and active and hopelessly unprogressive. It was +like some floating stick that had got caught in an eddy in a +river, going round and round and round. And round. Eternally-- +eternally--eternally begotten. + +"But what possible meaning do you attach then to such a phrase +as eternally begotten?" + +The brain upon the pillow stared hopelessly at this question, +without an answer, without an escape. The three repetitions spun +round and round, became a swiftly revolving triangle, like some +electric sign that had got beyond control, in the midst of which +stared an unwinking and resentful eye. + +(2) + + +Every one knows that expedient of the sleepless, the counting +of sheep. + +You lie quite still, you breathe regularly, you imagine sheep +jumping over a gate, one after another, you count them quietly +and slowly until you count yourself off through a fading string +of phantom numbers to number Nod.... + +But sheep, alas! suggest an episcopal crook. + +And presently a black sheep had got into the succession and was +struggling violently with the crook about its leg, a hawk-nosed +black sheep full of reproof, with disordered hair and a pointing +finger. A young man with a most disagreeable voice. + +At which the other sheep took heart and, deserting the numbered +succession, came and sat about the fire in a big drawing-room and +argued also. In particular there was Lady Sunderbund, a pretty +fragile tall woman in the corner, richly jewelled, who sat with +her pretty eyes watching and her lips compressed. What had she +thought of it? She had said very little. + +It is an unusual thing for a mixed gathering of this sort to +argue about the Trinity. Simply because a tired bishop had fallen +into their party. It was not fair to him to pretend that the +atmosphere was a liberal and inquiring one, when the young man +who had sat still and dormant by the table was in reality a keen +and bitter Irish Roman Catholic. Then the question, a +question-begging question, was put quite suddenly, without +preparation or prelude, by surprise. "Why, Bishop, was the +Spermaticos Logos identified with the Second and not the Third +Person of the Trinity?" + +It was indiscreet, it was silly, to turn upon the speaker and +affect an air of disengagement and modernity and to say: "Ah, +that indeed is the unfortunate aspect of the whole affair." + +Whereupon the fierce young man had exploded with: +"To that, is it, that you Anglicans have come?" + +The whole gathering had given itself up to the disputation, +Lady Sunderbund, an actress, a dancer--though she, it is true, +did not say very much--a novelist, a mechanical expert of some +sort, a railway peer, geniuses, hairy and Celtic, people of no +clearly definable position, but all quite unequal to the task of +maintaining that air of reverent vagueness, that tenderness of +touch, which is by all Anglican standards imperative in so deep, +so mysterious, and, nowadays, in mixed society at least, so +infrequent a discussion. + +It was like animals breaking down a fence about some sacred +spot. Within a couple of minutes the affair had become highly +improper. They had raised their voices, they had spoken with the +utmost familiarity of almost unspeakable things. There had been +even attempts at epigram. Athanasian epigrams. Bent the novelist +had doubted if originally there had been a Third Person in the +Trinity at all. He suggested a reaction from a too-Manichaean +dualism at some date after the time of St. John's Gospel. He +maintained obstinately that that Gospel was dualistic. + +The unpleasant quality of the talk was far more manifest in the +retrospect than it had been at the time. It had seemed then bold +and strange, but not impossible; now in the cold darkness it +seemed sacrilegious. And the bishop's share, which was indeed +only the weak yielding of a tired man to an atmosphere he had +misjudged, became a disgraceful display of levity and bad faith. +They had baited him. Some one had said that nowadays every one +was an Arian, knowingly or unknowingly. They had not concealed +their conviction that the bishop did not really believe in the +Creeds he uttered. + +And that unfortunate first admission stuck terribly in his +throat. + +Oh! Why had he made it? + +(3) + + +Sleep had gone. + +The awakened sleeper groaned, sat up in the darkness, and felt +gropingly in this unaccustomed bed and bedroom first for the edge +of the bed and then for the electric light that was possibly on +the little bedside table. + +The searching hand touched something. A water-bottle. The hand +resumed its exploration. Here was something metallic and smooth, +a stem. Either above or below there must be a switch.... + +The switch was found, grasped, and turned. + +The darkness fled. + +In a mirror the sleeper saw the reflection of his face and a +corner of the bed in which he lay. The lamp had a tilted shade +that threw a slanting bar of shadow across the field of +reflection, lighting a right-angled triangle very brightly and +leaving the rest obscure. The bed was a very great one, a bed for +the Anakim. It had a canopy with yellow silk curtains, surmounted +by a gilded crown of carved wood. Between the curtains was a +man's face, clean-shaven, pale, with disordered brown hair and +weary, pale-blue eyes. He was clad in purple pyjamas, and the +hand that now ran its fingers through the brown hair was long and +lean and shapely. + +Beside the bed was a convenient little table bearing the light, +a water-bottle and glass, a bunch of keys, a congested pocket- +book, a gold-banded fountain pen, and a gold watch that indicated +a quarter past three. On the lower edge of the picture in the +mirror appeared the back of a gilt chair, over which a garment of +peculiar construction had been carelessly thrown. It was in the +form of that sleeveless cassock of purple, opening at the side, +whose lower flap is called a bishop's apron; the corner of the +frogged coat showed behind the chair-back, and the sash lay +crumpled on the floor. Black doeskin breeches, still warmly lined +with their pants, lay where they had been thrust off at the +corner of the bed, partly covering black hose and silver-buckled +shoes. + +For a moment the tired gaze of the man in the bed rested upon +these evidences of his episcopal dignity. Then he turned from +them to the watch at the bedside. + +He groaned helplessly. + +(4) + + +These country doctors were no good. There wasn't a physician in +the diocese. He must go to London. + +He looked into the weary eyes of his reflection and said, as +one makes a reassuring promise, "London." + +He was being worried. He was being intolerably worried, and he +was ill and unable to sustain his positions. This doubt, this +sudden discovery of controversial unsoundness, was only one +aspect of his general neurasthenia. It had been creeping into his +mind since the "Light Unden the Altar" controversy. Now suddenly +it had leapt upon him from his own unwary lips. + +The immediate trouble arose from his loyalty. He had followed +the King's example; he had become a total abstainer and, in +addition, on his own account he had ceased to smoke. And his +digestion, which Princhester had first made sensitive, was +deranged. He was suffering chemically, suffering one of those +nameless sequences of maladjustments that still defy our ordinary +medical science. It was afflicting him with a general malaise, it +was affecting his energy, his temper, all the balance and comfort +of his nerves. All day he was weary; all night he was wakeful. He +was estranged from his body. He was distressed by a sense of +detachment from the things about him, by a curious intimation of +unreality in everything he experienced. And with that went this +levity of conscience, a heaviness of soul and a levity of +conscience, that could make him talk as though the Creeds did not +matter--as though nothing mattered.... + +If only he could smoke! + +He was persuaded that a couple of Egyptian cigarettes, or three +at the outside, a day, would do wonders in restoring his nervous +calm. That, and just a weak whisky and soda at lunch and dinner. +Suppose now--! + +His conscience, his sense of honour, deserted him. Latterly he +had had several of these conscience-blanks; it was only when they +were over that he realized that they had occurred. + +One might smoke up the chimney, he reflected. But he had no +cigarettes! Perhaps if he were to slip downstairs.... + +Why had he given up smoking? + +He groaned aloud. He and his reflection eyed one another in +mutual despair. + +There came before his memory the image of a boy's face, a +swarthy little boy, grinning, grinning with a horrible +knowingness and pointing his finger--an accusing finger. It had +been the most exasperating, humiliating, and shameful incident in +the bishop's career. It was the afternoon for his fortnightly +address to the Shop-girls' Church Association, and he had been +seized with a panic fear, entirely irrational and unjustifiable, +that he would not be able to deliver the address. The fear had +arisen after lunch, had gripped his mind, and then as now had +come the thought, "If only I could smoke!" And he had smoked. It +seemed better to break a vow than fail the Association. He had +fallen to the temptation with a completeness that now filled him +with shame and horror. He had stalked Dunk, his valet-butler, out +of the dining-room, had affected to need a book from the +book-case +beyond the sideboard, had gone insincerely to the sideboard +humming "From Greenland's icy mountains," and then, glancing over +his shoulder, had stolen one of his own cigarettes, one of the +fatter sort. With this and his bedroom matches he had gone off to +the bottom of the garden among the laurels, looked everywhere +except above the wall to be sure that he was alone, and at last +lit up, only as he raised his eyes in gratitude for the first +blissful inhalation to discover that dreadful little boy peeping +at him from the crotch in the yew-tree in the next garden. As +though God had sent him to be a witness! + +Their eyes had met. The bishop recalled with an agonized +distinctness every moment, every error, of that shameful +encounter. He had been too surprised to conceal the state of +affairs from the pitiless scrutiny of those youthful eyes. He had +instantly made as if to put the cigarette behind his back, and +then as frankly dropped it.... + +His soul would not be more naked at the resurrection. The +little boy had stared, realized the state of affairs slowly but +surely, pointed his finger.... + +Never had two human beings understood each other more +completely. + +A dirty little boy! Capable no doubt of a thousand kindred +scoundrelisms. + +It seemed ages before the conscience-stricken bishop could tear +himself from the spot and walk back, with such a pretence of +dignity as he could muster, to the house. + +And instead of the discourse he had prepared for the +Shop-girls' Church Association, he had preached on temptation and +falling, and how he knew they had all fallen, and how he +understood and could sympathize with the bitterness of a secret +shame, a moving but unsuitable discourse that had already been +subjected to misconstruction and severe reproof in the local +press of Princhester. + +But the haunting thing in the bishop's memory was the face and +gesture of the little boy. That grubby little finger stabbed him +to the heart. + +"Oh, God!" he groaned. "The meanness of it! How did I bring +myself--?" + +He turned out the light convulsively, and rolled over in the +bed, making a sort of cocoon of himself. He bored his head into +the pillow and groaned, and then struggled impatiently to throw +the bed-clothes off himself. Then he sat up and talked aloud. + +"I must go to Brighton-Pomfrey," he said. "And get a medical +dispensation. If I do not smoke--" + +He paused for a long time. + +Then his voice sounded again in the darkness, speaking quietly, +speaking with a note almost of satisfaction. + +"I shall go mad. I must smoke or I shall go mad." + +For a long time he sat up in the great bed with his arms about +his knees. + +(5) + + +Fearful things came to him; things at once dreadfully +blasphemous and entirely weak-minded. + +The triangle and the eye became almost visible upon the black +background of night. They were very angry. They were spinning +round and round faster and faster. Because he was a bishop and +because really he did not believe fully and completely in the +Trinity. At one and the same time he did not believe in the +Trinity and was terrified by the anger of the Trinity at his +unbelief.... He was afraid. He was aghast.... And oh! he was +weary.... + +He rubbed his eyes. + +"If I could have a cup of tea!" he said. + +Then he perceived with surprise that he had not thought of +praying. What should he say? To what could he pray? + +He tried not to think of that whizzing Triangle, that seemed +now to be nailed like a Catherine wheel to the very centre of his +forehead, and yet at the same time to be at the apex of the +universe. Against that--for protection against that--he was +praying. It was by a great effort that at last he pronounced the +words: + +"Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord ...." + +Presently be had turned up his light, and was prowling about +the room. The clear inky dinginess that comes before the raw dawn +of a spring morning, found his white face at the window, looking +out upon the great terrace and the park. + + + + +CHAPTER THE SECOND - THE WEAR AND TEAR OF EPISCOPACY + +(1) + + +IT was only in the last few years that the bishop had +experienced these nervous and mental crises. He was a belated +doubter. Whatever questionings had marked his intellectual +adolescence had either been very slight or had been too +adequately answered to leave any serious scars upon his +convictions. + +And even now he felt that he was afflicted physically rather +than mentally, that some protective padding of nerve-sheath or +brain-case had worn thin and weak, and left him a prey to strange +disturbances, rather than that any new process of thought was +eating into his mind. These doubts in his mind were still not +really doubts; they were rather alien and, for the first time, +uncontrolled movements of his intelligence. He had had a +sheltered upbringing; he was the well-connected son of a +comfortable rectory, the only son and sole survivor of a family +of three; he had been carefully instructed and he had been a +willing learner; it had been easy and natural to take many things +for granted. It had been very easy and pleasant for him to take +the world as he found it and God as he found Him. Indeed for all +his years up to manhood he had been able to take life exactly as +in his infancy he took his carefully warmed and prepared bottle +--unquestioningly and beneficially. + +And indeed that has been the way with most bishops since +bishops began. + +It is a busy continuous process that turns boys into bishops, +and it will stand few jars or discords. The student of +ecclesiastical biography will find that an early vocation has in +every age been almost universal among them; few are there among +these lives that do not display the incipient bishop from the +tenderest years. Bishop How of Wakefield composed hymns before he +was eleven, and Archbishop Benson when scarcely older possessed a +little oratory in which he conducted services and--a pleasant +touch of the more secular boy--which he protected from a too +inquisitive sister by means of a booby trap. It is rare that +those marked for episcopal dignities go so far into the outer +world as Archbishop Lang of York, who began as a barrister. This +early predestination has always been the common episcopal +experience. Archbishop Benson's early attempts at religious +services remind one both of St. Thomas a Becket, the "boy +bishop," and those early ceremonies of St. Athanasius which were +observed and inquired upon by the good bishop Alexander. (For +though still a tender infant, St. Athanasius with perfect +correctness and validity was baptizing a number of his innocent +playmates, and the bishop who "had paused to contemplate the +sports of the child remained to confirm the zeal of the +missionary.") And as with the bishop of the past, so with the +bishop of the future; the Rev. H. J. Campbell, in his story of +his soul's pilgrimage, has given us a pleasant picture of himself +as a child stealing out into the woods to build himself a little +altar. + +Such minds as these, settled as it were from the outset, are +either incapable of real scepticism or become sceptical only +after catastrophic changes. They understand the sceptical mind +with difficulty, and their beliefs are regarded by the sceptical +mind with incredulity. They have determined their forms of belief +before their years of discretion, and once those forms are +determined they are not very easily changed. Within the shell it +has adopted the intelligence may be active and lively enough, may +indeed be extraordinarily active and lively, but only within the +shell. + +There is an entire difference in the mental quality of those +who are converts to a faith and those who are brought up in it. +The former know it from outside as well as from within. They know +not only that it is, but also that it is not. The latter have a +confidence in their creed that is one with their apprehension of +sky or air or gravitation. It is a primary mental structure, and +they not only do not doubt but they doubt the good faith of those +who do. They think that the Atheist and Agnostic really believe +but are impelled by a mysterious obstinacy to deny. So it had +been with the Bishop of Princhester; not of cunning or design but +in simple good faith he had accepted all the inherited assurances +of his native rectory, and held by Church, Crown, Empire, +decorum, respectability, solvency--and compulsory Greek at the +Little Go--as his father had done before him. If in his +undergraduate days he had said a thing or two in the modern vein, +affected the socialism of William Morris and learnt some +Swinburne by heart, it was out of a conscious wildness. He did +not wish to be a prig. He had taken a far more genuine interest +in the artistry of ritual. + +Through all the time of his incumbency of the church of the +Holy Innocents, St. John's Wood, and of his career as the bishop +suffragan of Pinner, he had never faltered from his profound +confidence in those standards of his home. He had been kind, +popular, and endlessly active. His undergraduate socialism had +expanded simply and sincerely into a theory of administrative +philanthropy. He knew the Webbs. He was as successful with +working-class audiences as with fashionable congregations. His +home life with Lady Ella (she was the daughter of the fifth Earl +of Birkenholme) and his five little girls was simple, beautiful, +and happy as few homes are in these days of confusion. Until he +became Bishop of Princhester--he followed Hood, the first +bishop, as the reign of his Majesty King Edward the Peacemaker +drew to its close--no anticipation of his coming distress fell +across his path. + +(2) + + +He came to Princhester an innocent and trustful man. The home +life at the old rectory of Otteringham was still his standard of +truth and reality. London had not disillusioned him. It was a +strange waste of people, it made him feel like a missionary in +infidel parts, but it was a kindly waste. It was neither +antagonistic nor malicious. He had always felt there that if he +searched his Londoner to the bottom, he would find the completest +recognition of the old rectory and all its data and implications. + +But Princhester was different. + +Princhester made one think that recently there had been a +second and much more serious Fall. + +Princhester was industrial and unashamed. It was a countryside +savagely invaded by forges and mine shafts and gaunt black +things. It was scarred and impeded and discoloured. Even before +that invasion, when the heather was not in flower it must have +been a black country. Its people were dour uncandid individuals, +who slanted their heads and knitted their brows to look at you. +Occasionally one saw woods brown and blistered by the gases from +chemical works. Here and there remained old rectories, closely +reminiscent of the dear old home at Otteringham, jostled and +elbowed and overshadowed by horrible iron cylinders belching +smoke and flame. The fine old abbey church of Princhester, which +was the cathedral of the new diocese, looked when first he saw it +like a lady Abbess who had taken to drink and slept in a coal +truck. She minced apologetically upon the market-place; the +parvenu Town Hall patronized and protected her as if she were a +poor relation.... + +The old aristocracy of the countryside was unpicturesquely +decayed. The branch of the Walshinghams, Lady Ella's cousins, who +lived near Pringle, was poor, proud and ignoble. And extremely +unpopular. The rich people of the country were self-made and +inclined to nonconformity, the working-people were not strictly +speaking a "poor," they were highly paid, badly housed, and +deeply resentful. They went in vast droves to football matches, +and did not care a rap if it rained. The prevailing wind was +sarcastic. To come here from London was to come from atmospheric +blue-greys to ashen-greys, from smoke and soft smut to grime and +black grimness. + +The bishop had been charmed by the historical associations of +Princhester when first the see was put before his mind. His +realization of his diocese was a profound shock. + +Only one hint had he had of what was coming. He had met during +his season of congratulations Lord Gatling dining unusually at +the Athenaeum. Lord Gatling and he did not talk frequently, but +on this occasion the great racing peer came over to him. "You +will feel like a cherub in a stokehole," Lord Gatling had +said.... + +"They used to heave lumps of slag at old Hood's gaiters," said +Lord Gatling. + +"In London a bishop's a lord and a lark and nobody minds him," +said Lord Gatling, "but Princhester is different. It isn't used +to bishops.... Well,--I hope you'll get to like 'em." + +(3) + + +Trouble began with a fearful row about the position of the +bishop's palace. Hood had always evaded this question, and a +number of strong-willed self-made men of wealth and influence, +full of local patriotism and that competitive spirit which has +made England what it is, already intensely irritated by Hood's +prevarications, were resolved to pin his successor to an +immediate decision. Of this the new bishop was unaware. Mindful +of a bishop's constant need to travel, he was disposed to seek a +home within easy reach of Pringle Junction, from which nearly +every point in the diocese could be simply and easily reached. +This fell in with Lady Ella's liking for the rare rural quiet of +the Kibe valley and the neighbourhood of her cousins the +Walshinghams. Unhappily it did not fall in with the inflexible +resolution of each and every one of the six leading towns of the +see to put up, own, obtrude, boast, and swagger about the biggest +and showiest thing in episcopal palaces in all industrial +England, and the new bishop had already taken a short lease and +gone some way towards the acquisition of Ganford House, two miles +from Pringle, before he realized the strength and fury of these +local ambitions. + +At first the magnates and influences seemed to be fighting only +among themselves, and he was so ill-advised as to broach the +Ganford House project as a compromise that would glorify no one +unfairly, and leave the erection of an episcopal palace for some +future date when he perhaps would have the good fortune to have +passed to "where beyond these voices there is peace," forgetting +altogether among other oversights the importance of architects +and builders in local affairs. His proposal seemed for a time to +concentrate the rich passions of the whole countryside upon +himself and his wife. + +Because they did not leave Lady Ella alone. The Walshinghams +were already unpopular in their county on account of a poverty +and shyness that made them seem "stuck up" to successful captains +of industry only too ready with the hand of friendship, the iron +grip indeed of friendship, consciously hospitable and eager for +admission and endorsements. And Princhester in particular was +under the sway of that enterprising weekly, The White Blackbird, +which was illustrated by, which indeed monopolized the gifts of, +that brilliant young caricaturist "The Snicker." + +It had seemed natural for Lady Ella to acquiesce in the +proposals of the leading Princhester photographer. She had always +helped where she could in her husband's public work, and she had +been popular upon her own merits in Wealdstone. The portrait was +abominable enough in itself; it dwelt on her chin, doubled her +age, and denied her gentleness, but it was a mere starting-point +for the subtle extravagance of The Snicker's poisonous gift.... +The thing came upon the bishop suddenly from the book-stall at +Pringle Junction. + +He kept it carefully from Lady Ella.... It was only later that +he found that a copy of The White Blackbird had been sent to her, +and that she was keeping the horror from him. It was in her vein +that she should reproach herself for being a vulnerable side to +him. + +Even when the bishop capitulated in favour of Princhester, that +decision only opened a fresh trouble for him. Princhester wanted +the palace to be a palace; it wanted to combine all the best +points of Lambeth and Fulham with the marble splendours of a good +modern bank. The bishop's architectural tastes, on the other +hand, were rationalistic. He was all for building a useful palace +in undertones, with a green slate roof and long horizontal lines. +What he wanted more than anything else was a quite remote wing +with a lot of bright little bedrooms and a sitting-room and so +on, complete in itself, examination hall and everything, with a +long intricate connecting passage and several doors, to prevent +the ordination candidates straying all over the place and getting +into the talk and the tea. But the diocese wanted a proud archway +--and turrets, and did not care a rap if the ordination +candidates slept about on the carpets in the bishop's bedroom. +Ordination candidates were quite outside the sphere of its +imagination. + +And he disappointed Princhester with his equipage. Princhester +had a feeling that it deserved more for coming over to the church +from nonconformity as it was doing. It wanted a bishop in a mitre +and a gilt coach. It wanted a pastoral crook. It wanted something +to go with its mace and its mayor. And (obsessed by The Snicker) +it wanted less of Lady Ella. The cruelty and unreason of these +attacks upon his wife distressed the bishop beyond measure, and +baffled him hopelessly. He could not see any means of checking +them nor of defending or justifying her against them. + +The palace was awaiting its tenant, but the controversies and +bitternesses were still swinging and swaying and developing when +King George was being crowned. Close upon that event came a wave +of social discontent, the great railway strike, a curious sense +of social and political instability, and the first beginnings of +the bishop's ill health. + +(4) + + +There came a day of exceptional fatigue and significance. + +The industrial trouble was a very real distress to the bishop. +He had a firm belief that it is a function of the church to act +as mediator between employer and employed. It was a common saying +of his that the aim of socialism--the right sort of socialism +--was to Christianize employment. Regardless of suspicion on +either hand, regardless of very distinct hints that he should +"mind his own business," he exerted himself in a search for +methods of reconciliation. He sought out every one who seemed +likely to be influential on either side, and did his utmost to +discover the conditions of a settlement. As far as possible and +with the help of a not very efficient chaplain he tried to +combine such interviews with his more normal visiting. + +At times, and this was particularly the case on this day, he +seemed to be discovering nothing but the incurable perversity and +militancy of human nature. It was a day under an east wind, when +a steely-blue sky full of colourless light filled a stiff-necked +world with whitish high lights and inky shadows. These bright +harsh days of barometric high pressure in England rouse and +thwart every expectation of the happiness of spring. And as the +bishop drove through the afternoon in a hired fly along a rutted +road of slag between fields that were bitterly wired against the +Sunday trespasser, he fell into a despondent meditation upon the +political and social outlook. + +His thoughts were of a sort not uncommon in those days. The +world was strangely restless. Since the passing of Victoria the +Great there had been an accumulating uneasiness in the national +life. It was as if some compact and dignified paper-weight had +been lifted from people's ideas, and as if at once they had begun +to blow about anyhow. Not that Queen Victoria had really been a +paper-weight or any weight at all, but it happened that she died +as an epoch closed, an epoch of tremendous stabilities. Her son, +already elderly, had followed as the selvedge follows the piece, +he had passed and left the new age stripped bare. In nearly every +department of economic and social life now there was upheaval, +and it was an upheaval very different in character from the +radicalism and liberalism of the Victorian days. There were not +only doubt and denial, but now there were also impatience and +unreason. People argued less and acted quicker. There was a pride +in rebellion for its own sake, an indiscipline and disposition to +sporadic violence that made it extremely hard to negotiate any +reconciliations or compromises. Behind every extremist it seemed +stood a further extremist prepared to go one better.... + +The bishop had spent most of the morning with one of the big +employers, a tall dark man, lean and nervous, and obviously tired +and worried by the struggle. He did not conceal his opinion that +the church was meddling with matters quite outside its sphere. +Never had it been conveyed to the bishop before how remote a rich +and established Englishman could consider the church from +reality. + +"You've got no hold on them," he said. "It isn't your sphere." + +And again: "They'll listen to you--if you speak well. But +they don't believe you know anything about it, and they don't +trust your good intentions. They won't mind a bit what you say +unless you drop something they can use against us." + +The bishop tried a few phrases. He thought there might be +something in co-operation, in profit-sharing, in some more +permanent relationship between the business and the employee. + +"There isn't," said the employer compactly. "It's just the +malice of being inferior against the man in control. It's just +the spirit of insubordination and boredom with duty. This +trouble's as old as the Devil." + +"But that is exactly the business of the church," said the +bishop brightly, "to reconcile men to their duty." + +"By chanting the Athanasian creed at 'em, I suppose," said the +big employer, betraying the sneer he had been hiding hitherto. + +"This thing is a fight," said the big employer, carrying on +before the bishop could reply. "Religion had better get out of +the streets until this thing is over. The men won't listen to +reason. They don't mean to. They're bit by Syndicalism. They're +setting out, I tell you, to be unreasonable and impossible. It +isn't an argument; it's a fight. They don't want to make friends +with the employer. They want to make an end to the employer. +Whatever we give them they'll take and press us for more. +Directly we make terms with the leaders the men go behind it.... +It's a raid on the whole system. They don't mean to work the +system--anyhow. I'm the capitalist, and the capitalist has to +go. I'm to be bundled out of my works, and some--some "--he +seemed to be rejecting unsuitable words--" confounded politician +put in. Much good it would do them. But before that happens I'm +going to fight. You would." + +The bishop walked to the window and stood staring at the +brilliant spring bulbs in the big employer's garden, and at a +long vista of newly-mown lawn under great shapely trees just +budding into green. + +"I can't admit," he said, "that these troubles lie outside the +sphere of the church." + +The employer came and stood beside him. He felt he was being a +little hard on the bishop, but he could not see any way of making +things easier. + +"One doesn't want Sacred Things," he tried, "in a scrap like +this. + +"We've got to mend things or end things," continued the big +employer. "Nothing goes on for ever. Things can't last as they +are going on now...." + +Then he went on abruptly to something that for a time he had +been keeping back. + +"Of course just at present the church may do a confounded lot +of harm. Some of you clerical gentlemen are rather too fond of +talking socialism and even preaching socialism. Don't think I +want to be overcritical. I admit there's no end of things to be +said for a proper sort of socialism, Ruskin, and all that. We're +all Socialists nowadays. Ideals--excellent. But--it gets +misunderstood. It gives the men a sense of moral support. It +makes them fancy that they are It. Encourages them to forget +duties and set up preposterous claims. Class war and all that +sort of thing. You gentlemen of the clergy don't quite realize +that socialism may begin with Ruskin and end with Karl Marx. And +that from the Class War to the Commune is just one step." + +(5) + + +From this conversation the bishop had made his way to the +vicarage of Mogham Banks. The vicar of Mogham Banks was a +sacerdotal socialist of the most advanced type, with the +reputation of being closely in touch with the labour extremists. +He was a man addicted to banners, prohibited ornaments, special +services at unusual hours, and processions in the streets. His +taste in chasubles was loud, he gardened in a cassock and, it was +said, he slept in his biretta; he certainly slept in a hair +shirt, and he littered his church with flowers, candles, side +altars, confessional boxes, requests for prayers for the +departed, and the like. There had already been two Kensitite +demonstrations at his services, and altogether he was a source of +considerable anxiety to the bishop. The bishop did his best not +to know too exactly what was going on at Mogham Banks. Sooner or +later he felt he would be forced to do something--and the +longer he could put that off the better. But the Rev. Morrice +Deans had promised to get together three or four prominent labour +leaders for tea and a frank talk, and the opportunity was one not +to be missed. So the bishop, after a hasty and not too digestible +lunch in the refreshment room at Pringle, was now in a fly that +smelt of straw and suggested infectious hospital patients, on his +way through the industry-scarred countryside to this second +conversation. + +The countryside had never seemed so scarred to him as it did +that day. + +It was probably the bright hard spring sunshine that emphasized +the contrast between that dear England of hedges and homes and +the south-west wind in which his imagination lived, and the crude +presences of a mechanical age. Never before had the cuttings and +heapings, the smashing down of trees, the obtrusion of corrugated +iron and tar, the belchings of smoke and the haste, seemed so +harsh and disregardful of all the bishop's world. Across the +fields a line of gaunt iron standards, abominably designed, +carried an electric cable to some unknown end. The curve of the +hill made them seem a little out of the straight, as if they +hurried and bent forward furtively. + +"Where are they going?" asked the bishop, leaning forward to +look out of the window of the fly, and then: "Where is it all +going?" + +And presently the road was under repair, and was being done at +a great pace with a huge steam-roller, mechanically smashed +granite, and kettles of stinking stuff, asphalt or something of +that sort, that looked and smelt like Milton's hell. Beyond, a +gaunt hoarding advertised extensively the Princhester Music Hall, +a mean beastly place that corrupted boys and girls; and also it +clamoured of tyres and potted meats.... + +The afternoon's conference gave him no reassuring answer to his +question, "Where is it all going?" + +The afternoon's conference did no more than intensify the new +and strange sense of alienation from the world that the morning's +talk had evoked. + +The three labour extremists that Morrice Deans had assembled +obviously liked the bishop and found him picturesque, and were +not above a certain snobbish gratification at the purple-trimmed +company they were in, but it was clear that they regarded his +intervention in the great dispute as if it were a feeble waving +from the bank across the waters of a great river. + +"There's an incurable misunderstanding between the modern +employer and the modern employed," the chief labour spokesman +said, speaking in a broad accent that completely hid from him and +the bishop and every one the fact that he was by far the +best-read man of the party. "Disraeli called them the Two +Nations, but that was long ago. Now it's a case of two species. +Machinery has made them into different species. The employer +lives away from his work-people, marries a wife foreign, out of a +county family or suchlike, trains his children from their very +birth in a different manner. Why, the growth curve is different +for the two species. They haven't even a common speech between +them. One looks east and the other looks west. How can you expect +them to agree? Of course they won't agree. We've got to fight it +out. They say we're their slaves for ever. Have you ever read +Lady Bell's 'At the Works'? A well-intentioned woman, but she +gives the whole thing away. We say, No! It's our sort and not +your sort. We'll do without you. We'll get a little more +education and then we'll do without you. We're pressing for all +we can get, and when we've got that we'll take breath and press +for more. We're the Morlocks. Coming up. It isn't our fault that +we've differentiated." + +"But you haven't understood the drift of Christianity," said +the bishop. "It's just to assert that men are One community and +not two." + +"There's not much of that in the Creeds," said a second labour +leader who was a rationalist. "There's not much of that in the +services of the church." + +The vicar spoke before his bishop, and indeed he had plenty of +time to speak before his bishop. "Because you will not set +yourselves to understand the symbolism of her ritual," he said. + +"If the church chooses to speak in riddles," said the +rationalist. + +"Symbols," said Morrice Deans, "need not be riddles," and for a +time the talk eddied about this minor issue and the chief labour +spokesman and the bishop looked at one another. The vicar +instanced and explained certain apparently insignificant +observances, his antagonist was contemptuously polite to these +explanations. "That's all very pratty," he said.... + +The bishop wished that fine points of ceremonial might have +been left out of the discussion. + +Something much bigger than that was laying hold of his +intelligence, the realization of a world extravagantly out of +hand. The sky, the wind, the telegraph poles, had been jabbing in +the harsh lesson of these men's voices, that the church, as +people say, "wasn't in it." And that at the same time the church +held the one remedy for all this ugliness and contention in its +teaching of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal +brotherhood of men. Only for some reason he hadn't the phrases +and he hadn't the voice to assert this over their wrangling and +their stiff resolution. He wanted to think the whole business out +thoroughly, for the moment he had nothing to say, and there was +the labour leader opposite waiting smilingly to hear what he had +to say so soon as the bout between the vicar and the rationalist +was over. + +(6) + + +That morning in the long galleries of the bishop's imagination +a fresh painting had been added. It was a big wall painting +rather in the manner of Puvis de Chavannes. And the central +figure had been the bishop of Princhester himself. He had been +standing upon the steps of the great door of the cathedral that +looks upon the marketplace where the tram-lines meet, and he had +been dressed very magnificently and rather after the older use. +He had been wearing a tunicle and dalmatic under a chasuble, a +pectoral cross, purple gloves, sandals and buskins, a mitre and +his presentation ring. In his hand he had borne his pastoral +staff. And the clustering pillars and arches of the great doorway +were painted with a loving flat particularity that omitted +nothing but the sooty tinge of the later discolourations. + +On his right hand had stood a group of employers very richly +dressed in the fashion of the fifteenth century, and on the left +a rather more numerous group of less decorative artisans. With +them their wives and children had been shown, all greatly +impressed by the canonicals. Every one had been extremely +respectful. + +He had been reconciling the people and blessing them and +calling them his "sheep" and his "little children." + +But all this was so different. + +Neither party resembled sheep or little children in the least +degree. . + +The labour leader became impatient with the ritualistic +controversy; he set his tea-cup aside out of danger and leant +across the corner of the table to the bishop and spoke in a +sawing undertone. "You see," he said, "the church does not talk +our language. I doubt if it understands our language. I doubt if +we understand clearly where we are ourselves. These things have +to be fought out and hammered out. It's a big dusty dirty noisy +job. It may be a bloody job before it's through. You can't +suddenly call a halt in the middle of the scrap and have a sort +of millennium just because you want it.... + +"Of course if the church had a plan," he said, "if it had a +proposal to make, if it had anything more than a few pious +palliatives to suggest, that might be different. But has it?" + +The bishop had a bankrupt feeling. On the spur of the moment he +could say no more than: "It offers its mediation." + +(7) + + +Full as he was with the preoccupation of these things and so a +little slow and inattentive in his movements, the bishop had his +usual luck at Pringle Junction and just missed the 7.27 for +Princhester. He might perhaps have got it by running through the +subway and pushing past people, but bishops must not run through +subways and push past people. His mind swore at the mischance, +even if his lips refrained. + +He was hungry and, tired; he would not get to the palace now +until long after nine; dinner would be over and Lady Ella would +naturally suppose he had dined early with the Rev. Morrice Deans. +Very probably there would be nothing ready for him at all. + +He tried to think he was exercising self-control, but indeed +all his sub-conscious self was busy in a manner that would not +have disgraced Tertullian with the eternal welfare of those city +fathers whose obstinacy had fixed the palace at Princhester. He +walked up and down the platform, gripping his hands very tightly +behind him, and maintaining a serene upcast countenance by a +steadfast effort. It seemed a small matter to him that the +placards of the local evening papers should proclaim "Lloyd +George's Reconciliation Meeting at Wombash Broken up by +Suffragettes." For a year now he had observed a strict rule +against buying the products of the local press, and he saw no +reason for varying this protective regulation. + +His mind was full of angry helplessness. + +Was he to blame, was the church to blame, for its powerlessness +in these social disputes? Could an abler man with a readier +eloquence have done more? + +He envied the cleverness of Cardinal Manning. Manning would +have got right into the front of this affair. He would have +accumulated credit for his church and himself.... + +But would he have done much?... + +The bishop wandered along the platform to its end, and stood +contemplating the convergent ways that gather together beyond the +station and plunge into the hillside and the wilderness of +sidings and trucks, signal-boxes, huts, coal-pits, electric +standards, goods sheds, turntables, and engine-houses, that ends +in a bluish bricked-up cliff against the hill. A train rushed +with a roar and clatter into the throat of the great tunnel and +was immediately silenced; its rear lights twinkled and vanished, +and then out of that huge black throat came wisps of white steam +and curled slowly upward like lazy snakes until they caught the +slanting sunshine. For the first time the day betrayed a softness +and touched this scene of black energy to gold. All late +afternoons are beautiful, whatever the day has been--if only +there is a gleam of sun. And now a kind of mechanical greatness +took the place of mere black disorder in the bishop's perception +of his see. It was harsh, it was vast and strong, it was no lamb +he had to rule but a dragon. Would it ever be given to him to +overcome his dragon, to lead it home, and bless it? + +He stood at the very end of the platform, with his gaitered +legs wide apart and his hands folded behind him, staring beyond +all visible things. + +Should he do something very bold and striking? Should he invite +both men and masters to the cathedral, and preach tremendous +sermons to them upon these living issues? + +Short sermons, of course. + +But stating the church's attitude with a new and convincing +vigour. + +He had a vision of the great aisle strangely full and alive and +astir. The organ notes still echoed in the fretted vaulting, as +the preacher made his way from the chancel to the pulpit. The +congregation was tense with expectation, and for some reason his +mind dwelt for a long time upon the figure of the preacher +ascending the steps of the pulpit. Outside the day was dark and +stormy, so that the stained-glass windows looked absolutely dead. +For a little while the preacher prayed. Then in the attentive +silence the tenor of the preacher would begin, a thin jet of +sound, a ray of light in the darkness, speaking to all these men +as they had never been spoken to before.... + +Surely so one might call a halt to all these harsh conflicts. +So one might lay hands afresh upon these stubborn minds, one +might win them round to look at Christ the Master and Servant.... + +That, he thought, would be a good phrase: "Christ the Master +and Servant.".... + +"Members of one Body," that should be his text.... At last it +was finished. The big congregation, which had kept so still, +sighed and stirred. The task of reconciliation was as good as +done. "And now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy +Ghost...." + +Outside the day had become suddenly bright, the threatening +storm had drifted away, and great shafts of coloured light from +the pictured windows were smiting like arrows amidst his +hearers.... + +This idea of a great sermon upon capital and labour did so +powerfully grip the bishop's imagination that he came near to +losing the 8.27 train also. + +He discovered it when it was already in the station. He had to +walk down the platform very quickly. He did not run, but his +gaiters, he felt, twinkled more than a bishop's should. + +(8) + + +Directly he met his wife he realized that he had to hear +something important and unpleasant. + +She stood waiting for him in the inner hall, looking very grave +and still. The light fell upon her pale face and her dark hair +and her long white silken dress, making her seem more delicate +and unworldly than usual and making the bishop feel grimy and +sordid. + +"I must have a wash," he said, though before he had thought of +nothing but food. "I have had nothing to eat since tea-time-- +and that was mostly talk." + +Lady Ella considered. "There are cold things.... You shall have +a tray in the study. Not in the dining-room. Eleanor is there. I +want to tell you something. But go upstairs first and wash your +poor tired face." + +"Nothing serious, I hope?" he asked, struck by an unusual +quality in her voice. + +"I will tell you," she evaded, and after a moment of mutual +scrutiny he went past her upstairs. + +Since they had come to Princhester Lady Ella had changed very +markedly. She seemed to her husband to have gained in dignity; +she was stiller and more restrained; a certain faint arrogance, a +touch of the "ruling class" manner had dwindled almost to the +vanishing point. There had been a time when she had inclined to +an authoritative hauteur, when she had seemed likely to develop +into one of those aggressive and interfering old ladies who play +so overwhelming a part in British public affairs. She had been +known to initiate adverse judgments, to exercise the snub, to cut +and humiliate. Princhester had done much to purge her of such +tendencies. Princhester had made her think abundantly, and had +put a new and subtler quality into her beauty. It had taken away +the least little disposition to rustle as she moved, and it had +softened her voice. + +Now, when presently she stood in the study, she showed a new +circumspection in her treatment of her husband. She surveyed the +tray before him. + +"You ought not to drink that Burgundy," she said. "I can see +you are dog-tired. It was uncorked yesterday, and anyhow it is +not very digestible. This cold meat is bad enough. You ought to +have one of those quarter bottles of champagne you got for my +last convalescence. There's more than a dozen left over." + +The bishop felt that this was a pretty return of his own kindly +thoughts "after many days," and soon Dunk, his valet-butler, was +pouring out the precious and refreshing glassful.... + +"And now, dear?" said the bishop, feeling already much better. + +Lady Ella had come round to the marble fireplace. The +mantel-piece was a handsome work by a Princhester artist in the +Gill style--with contemplative ascetics as supporters. + +"I am worried about Eleanor," said Lady Ella. + +"She is in the dining-room now," she said, "having some dinner. +She came in about a quarter past eight, half way through dinner." + +"Where had she been?" asked the bishop. + +"Her dress was torn--in two places. Her wrist had been +twisted and a little sprained." + +"My dear!" + +"Her face--Grubby! And she had been crying." + +"But, my dear, what had happened to her? You don't mean--?" + +Husband and wife stared at one another aghast. Neither of them +said the horrid word that flamed between them. + +"Merciful heaven!" said the bishop, and assumed an attitude of +despair. + +"I didn't know she knew any of them. But it seems it is the +second Walshingham girl--Phoebe. It's impossible to trace a +girl's thoughts and friends. She persuaded her to go." + +"But did she understand?" + +"That's the serious thing," said Lady Ella. + +She seemed to consider whether he could bear the blow. + +"She understands all sorts of things. She argues.... I am quite +unable to argue with her." + +"About this vote business?" + +"About all sorts of things. Things I didn't imagine she had +heard of. I knew she had been reading books. But I never imagined +that she could have understood...." + +The bishop laid down his knife and fork. + +"One may read in books, one may even talk of things, without +fully understanding," he said. + +Lady Ella tried to entertain this comforting thought. "It isn't +like that," she said at last. "She talks like a grown-up person. +This--this escapade is just an accident. But things have gone +further than that. She seems to think--that she is not being +educated properly here, that she ought to go to a College. As if +we were keeping things from her...." + +The bishop reconsidered his plate. + +"But what things?" he said. + +"She says we get all round her," said Lady Ella, and left the +implications of that phrase to unfold. + +(9) + + +For a time the bishop said very little. + +Lady Ella had found it necessary to make her first announcement +standing behind him upon the hearthrug, but now she sat upon the +arm of the great armchair as close to him as possible, and spoke +in a more familiar tone. + +The thing, she said, had come to her as a complete surprise. +Everything had seemed so safe. Eleanor had been thoughtful, it +was true, but it had never occurred to her mother that she had +really been thinking--about such things as she had been +thinking about. She had ranged in the library, and displayed a +disposition to read the weekly papers and the monthly reviews. +But never a sign of discontent. + +"But I don't understand," said the bishop. "Why is she +discontented? What is there that she wants different?" + +"Exactly," said Lady Ella. + +"She has got this idea that life here is secluded in some way," +she expanded. "She used words like 'secluded' and 'artificial' +and--what was it?--'cloistered.' And she said--" + +Lady Ella paused with an effect of exact retrospection. + +"'Out there,' she said, 'things are alive. Real things are +happening.' It is almost as if she did not fully believe--" + +Lady Ella paused again. + +The bishop sat with his arm over the back of his chair, and his +face downcast. + +"The ferment of youth," he said at last. "The ferment of youth. +Who has given her these ideas?" + +Lady Ella did not know. She could have thought a school like +St. Aubyns would have been safe, but nowadays nothing was safe. +It was clear the girls who went there talked as girls a +generation ago did not talk. Their people at home encouraged them +to talk and profess opinions about everything. It seemed that +Phoebe Walshingham and Lady Kitty Kingdom were the leaders in +these premature mental excursions. Phoebe aired religious doubts. + +"But little Phoebe!" said the bishop. + +"Kitty," said Lady Ella, "has written a novel." + +"Already! " + +"With elopements in it--and all sorts of things. She's had it +typed. You'd think Mary Crosshampton would know better than to +let her daughter go flourishing the family imagination about in +that way." + +"Eleanor told you?" + +"By way of showing that they think of--things in general." + +The bishop reflected. "She wants to go to College." + +"They want to go in a set." + +"I wonder if college can be much worse than school.... She's +eighteen--? But I will talk to her...." + +(10) + + +All our children are changelings. They are perpetually fresh +strangers. Every day they vanish and a new person masquerades as +yesterday's child until some unexpected development betrays the +cheat. + +The bishop had still to learn this perennial newness of the +young. He learnt it in half an hour at the end of a fatiguing +day. + +He went into the dining-room. He went in as carelessly as +possible and smoking a cigarette. He had an honourable dread of +being portentous in his family; almost ostentatiously he laid the +bishop aside. Eleanor had finished her meal, and was sitting in +the arm-chair by the fire with one hand holding her sprained +wrist. + +"Well," he said, and strolled to the hearthrug. He had had an +odd idea that he would find her still dirty, torn, and tearful, +as her mother had described her, a little girl in a scrape. But +she had changed into her best white evening frock and put up her +hair, and became in the firelight more of a lady, a very young +lady but still a lady, than she had ever been to him before. She +was dark like her mother, but not of the same willowy type; she +had more of her father's sturdy build, and she had developed her +shoulders at hockey and tennis. The firelight brought out the +gracious reposeful lines of a body that ripened in adolescence. +And though there was a vibration of resolution in her voice she +spoke like one who is under her own control. + +"Mother has told you that I have disgraced myself," she began. + +"No," said the bishop, weighing it. "No. But you seem to have +been indiscreet, little Norah." + +"I got excited," she said. "They began turning out the other +women--roughly. I was indignant." + +"You didn't go to interrupt?" he asked. + +She considered. "No," she said. "But I went." + +He liked her disposition to get it right. "On that side," he +assisted. + +"It isn't the same thing as really meaning, Daddy," she said. + +"And then things happened?" + +"Yes," she said to the fire. + +A pause followed. If they had been in a law-court, her +barrister would have said, "That is my case, my lord." The bishop +prepared to open the next stage in the proceedings. + +"I think, Norah, you shouldn't have been there at all," he +said. + +"Mother says that." + +"A man in my position is apt to be judged by his family. You +commit more than yourself when you commit an indiscretion. Apart +from that, it wasn't the place for a girl to be at. You are not a +child now. We give you freedom--more freedom than most girls +get--because we think you will use it wisely. You knew-- +enough to know that there was likely to be trouble." + +The girl looked into the fire and spoke very carefully. "I +don't think that I oughtn't to know the things that are going +on." + +The bishop studied her face for an instant. It struck him that +they had reached something very fundamental as between parent and +child. His modernity showed itself in the temperance of his +reply. + +"Don't you think, my dear, that on the whole your mother and I, +who have lived longer and know more, are more likely to know when +it is best that you should begin to know--this or that?" + +The girl knitted her brows and seemed to be reading her answer +out of the depths of the coals. She was on the verge of speaking, +altered her mind and tried a different beginning. + +"I think that every one must do their thinking--his thinking +--for--oneself," she said awkwardly. + +"You mean you can't trust--?" + +"It isn't trusting. But one knows best for oneself when one is +hungry." + +"And you find yourself hungry?" + +"I want to find out for myself what all this trouble about +votes and things means." + +"And we starve you--intellectually?" + +"You know I don't think that. But you are busy...." + +"Aren't you being perhaps a little impatient, Eleanor? After +all--you are barely eighteen.... We have given you all sorts of +liberties." + +Her silence admitted it. "But still," she said after a long +pause, "there are other girls, younger than I am, in these +things. They talk about--oh, all sorts of things. Freely...." + +"You've been awfully good to me," she said irrelevantly. "And +of course this meeting was all pure accident." + +Father and daughter remained silent for awhile, seeking a +better grip. + +"What exactly do you want, Eleanor? " he asked. + +She looked up at him. "Generally?" she asked. + +"Your mother has the impression that you are discontented." + +"Discontented is a horrid word." + +"Well--unsatisfied." + +She remained still for a time. She felt the moment had come to +make her demand. + +"I would like to go to Newnham or Somerville--and work. I +feel--so horribly ignorant. Of all sorts of things. If I were a +son I should go--" + +"Ye--es," said the bishop and reflected. + +He had gone rather far in the direction of the Woman Suffrage +people; he had advocated equality of standard in all sorts of +matters, and the memory of these utterances hampered him. + +"You could read here," he tried. + +"If I were a son, you wouldn't say that." + +His reply was vague. "But in this home," he said, "we have a +certain atmosphere. . + +He left her to imply her differences in sensibility and +response from the hardier male. + +Her hesitation marked the full gravity of her reply. "It's just +that," she said. "One feels--" She considered it further. "As if +we were living in a kind of magic world--not really real. Out +there--" she glanced over her shoulder at the drawn blind that +hid the night. "One meets with different sorts of minds and +different--atmospheres. All this is very beautiful. I've had +the most wonderful home. But there's a sort of feeling as though +it couldn't really go on, as though all these strikes and doubts +and questionings--" + +She stopped short at questionings, for the thing was said. + +The bishop took her meaning gallantly and honestly. + +"The church of Christ, little Norah, is built upon a rock." + +She made no answer. She moved her head very slightly so that he +could not see her face, and remained sitting rather stiffly and +awkwardly with her eyes upon the fire. + +Her silence was the third and greatest blow the bishop received +that day.... + +It seemed very long indeed before either of them spoke. At last +he said: "We must talk about these things again, Norah, when we +are less tired and have more time.... You have been reading +books.... When Caxton set up his printing-press he thrust a new +power between church and disciple and father and child.... And I +am tired. We must talk it over a little later." + +The girl stood up. She took her father's hands. "Dear, dear +Daddy," she said, "I am so sorry to be a bother. I am so sorry I +went to that meeting.... You look tired out." + +"We must talk--properly," said the bishop, patting +one hand, then discovering from her wincing face that it was the +sprained one. "Your poor wrist," he said. + +"It's so hard to talk, but I want to talk to you, Daddy. It +isn't that I have hidden things...." + +She kissed him, and the bishop had the odd fancy that she +kissed him as though she was sorry for him.... + +It occurred to him that really there could be no time like the +present for discussing these "questionings" of hers, and then his +fatigue and shyness had the better of him again. + +(11) + + +The papers got hold of Eleanor's share in the suffragette +disturbance. The White Blackbird said things about her. + +It did not attack her. It did worse. It admired her +...impudently. + +It spoke of her once as "Norah," and once as "the Scrope +Flapper." + +Its headline proclaimed: "Plucky Flappers Hold Up L. G." + + + + +CHAPTER THE THIRD - INSOMNIA + +(1) + + +THE night after his conversation with Eleanor was the first +night of the bishop's insomnia. It was the definite beginning of +a new phase in his life. + +Doctors explain to us that the immediate cause of insomnia is +always some poisoned or depleted state of the body, and no doubt +the fatigues and hasty meals of the day had left the bishop in a +state of unprecedented chemical disorder, with his nerves +irritated by strange compounds and unsoothed by familiar +lubricants. But chemical disorders follow mental disturbances, +and the core and essence of his trouble was an intellectual +distress. For the first time in his life he was really in doubt, +about himself, about his way of living, about all his +persuasions. It was a general doubt. It was not a specific +suspicion upon this point or that. It was a feeling of detachment +and unreality at once extraordinarily vague and extraordinarily +oppressive. It was as if he discovered himself flimsy and +transparent in a world of minatory solidity and opacity. It was +as if he found himself made not of flesh and blood but of tissue +paper. + +But this intellectual insecurity extended into his physical +sensations. It affected his feeling in his skin, as if it were +not absolutely his own skin. + +And as he lay there, a weak phantom mentally and bodily, an +endless succession and recurrence of anxieties for which he could +find no reassurance besieged him. + +Chief of this was his distress for Eleanor. + +She was the central figure in this new sense of illusion in +familiar and trusted things. It was not only that the world of +his existence which had seemed to be the whole universe had +become diaphanous and betrayed vast and uncontrollable realities +beyond it, but his daughter had as it were suddenly opened a door +in this glassy sphere of insecurity that had been his abiding +refuge, a door upon the stormy rebel outer world, and she stood +there, young, ignorant, confident, adventurous, ready to step +out. + +"Could it be possible that she did not believe?" + +He saw her very vividly as he had seen her in the dining-room, +slender and upright, half child, half woman, so fragile and so +fearless. And the door she opened thus carelessly gave upon a +stormy background like one of the stormy backgrounds that were +popular behind portrait Dianas in eighteenth century paintings. +Did she believe that all be had taught her, all the life he led +was--what was her phrase?--a kind of magic world, not really +real? + +He groaned and turned over and repeated the words: +"A kind of magic world--not really real!" + +The wind blew through the door she opened, and scattered +everything in the room. And still she held the door open. + +He was astonished at himself. He started up in swift +indignation. Had he not taught the child? Had he not brought her +up in an atmosphere of faith? What right had she to turn upon him +in this matter? It was--indeed it was--a sort of insolence, a +lack of reverence.... + +It was strange he had not perceived this at the time. + +But indeed at the first mention of "questionings" he ought to +have thundered. He saw that quite clearly now. He ought to have +cried out and said, "On your knees, my Norah, and ask pardon of +God!" + +Because after all faith is an emotional thing.... + +He began to think very rapidly and copiously of things he ought +to have said to Eleanor. And now the eloquence of reverie was +upon him. In a little time he was also addressing the tea-party +at Morrice Deans'. Upon them too he ought to have thundered. And +he knew now also all that he should have said to the recalcitrant +employer. Thunder also. Thunder is surely the privilege of the +higher clergy--under Jove. + +But why hadn't he thundered? + +He gesticulated in the darkness, thrust out a clutching hand. + +There are situations that must be gripped--gripped firmly. +And without delay. In the middle ages there had been grip enough +in a purple glove. + +(2) + + +From these belated seizures of the day's lost opportunities the +bishop passed to such a pessimistic estimate of the church as had +never entered his mind before. + +It was as if he had fallen suddenly out of a spiritual balloon +into a world of bleak realism. He found himself asking +unprecedented and devastating questions, questions that implied +the most fundamental shiftings of opinion. Why was the church +such a failure? Why had it no grip upon either masters or men +amidst this vigorous life of modern industrialism, and why had it +no grip upon the questioning young? It was a tolerated thing, he +felt, just as sometimes he had felt that the Crown was a +tolerated thing. He too was a tolerated thing; a curious +survival.... + +This was not as things should be. He struggled to recover a +proper attitude. But he remained enormously dissatisfied.... + +The church was no Levite to pass by on the other side away from +the struggles and wrongs of the social conflict. It had no right +when the children asked for the bread of life to offer them +Gothic stone.... + +He began to make interminable weak plans for fulfilling his +duty to his diocese and his daughter. + +What could he do to revivify his clergy? He wished he had more +personal magnetism, he wished he had a darker and a larger +presence. He wished he had not been saddled with Whippham's +rather futile son as his chaplain. He wished he had a dean +instead of being his own dean. With an unsympathetic rector. He +wished he had it in him to make some resounding appeal. He might +of course preach a series of thumping addresses and sermons, +rather on the lines of "Fors Clavigera," to masters and men, in +the Cathedral. Only it was so difficult to get either masters or +men into the Cathedral. + +Well, if the people will not come to the bishop the bishop must +go out to the people. Should he go outside the Cathedral--to +the place where the trains met? + +Interweaving with such thoughts the problem of Eleanor rose +again into his consciousness. + +Weren't there books she ought to read? Weren't there books she +ought to be made to read? And books--and friends--that ought +to be imperatively forbidden? Imperatively! + +But how to define the forbidden? + +He began to compose an address on Modern Literature +(so-called). + +It became acrimonious. + +Before dawn the birds began to sing. + +His mind had seemed to be a little tranquillized, there had +been a distinct feeling of subsidence sleepwards, when first one +and then another little creature roused itself and the bishop to +greet the gathering daylight. + +It became a little clamour, a misty sea of sound in which +individuality appeared and disappeared. For a time a distant +cuckoo was very perceptible, like a landmark looming up over a +fog, like the cuckoo in the Pastoral Symphony. + +The bishop tried not to heed these sounds, but they were by +their very nature insistent sounds. He lay disregarding them +acutely. + +Presently he pulled the coverlet over his ears. + +A little later he sat up in bed. + +Again in a slight detail he marked his strange and novel +detachment from the world of his upbringing. His hallucination of +disillusionment had spread from himself and his church and his +faith to the whole animate creation. He knew that these were the +voices of "our feathered songsters," that this was "a joyous +chorus" greeting the day. He knew that a wakeful bishop ought to +bless these happy creatures, and join with them by reciting Ken's +morning hymn. He made an effort that was more than half habit, to +repeat and he repeated with a scowling face and the voice of a +schoolmaster: + + +"Awake my soul, and with the sun + + Thy daily stage of duty run...." + + +He got no further. He stopped short, sat still, thinking what +utterly detestable things singing birds were. A. blackbird had +gripped his attention. Never had he heard such vain repetitions. +He struggled against the dark mood of criticism. "He prayeth best +who loveth best--" + +No, he did not love the birds. It was useless to pretend. +Whatever one may say about other birds a cuckoo is a low +detestable cad of a bird. + +Then the bishop began to be particularly tormented by a bird +that made a short, insistent, wheezing sound at regular intervals +of perhaps twenty seconds. If a bird could have whooping-cough, +that, he thought, was the sort of whoop it would have. But even +if it had whooping-cough he could not pity it. He hung in its +intervals waiting for the return of the wheeze. + +And then that blackbird reasserted itself. It had a rich +boastful note; it seemed proud of its noisy reiteration of simple +self-assertion. For some obscure reason the phrase "oleographic +sounds" drifted into the bishop's thoughts. This bird produced +the peculiar and irrational impression that it had recently made +a considerable sum of money by shrewd industrialism. It was, he +thought grimly, a genuine Princhester blackbird. + +This wickedly uncharitable reference to his diocese ran all +unchallenged through the bishop's mind. And others no less wicked +followed it. + +Once during his summer holidays in Florence he and Lady Ella +had subscribed to an association for the protection of +song-birds. He recalled this now with a mild wonder. It seemed to +him that perhaps after all it was as well to let fruit-growers +and Italians deal with singing-birds in their own way. Perhaps +after all they had a wisdom.... + +He passed his hands over his face. The world after all is not +made entirely for singing-birds; there is such a thing as +proportion. Singing-birds may become a luxury, an indulgence, an +excess. + +Did the birds eat the fruit in Paradise? + +Perhaps there they worked for some collective musical effect, +had some sort of conductor in the place of this--hullabaloo.... + +He decided to walk about the room for a time and then remake +his bed.... + +The sunrise found the bishop with his head and shoulders out of +the window trying to see that blackbird. He just wanted to look +at it. He was persuaded it was a quite exceptional blackbird. + +Again came that oppressive sense of the futility of the +contemporary church, but this time it came in the most grotesque +form. For hanging half out of the casement he was suddenly +reminded of St. Francis of Assisi, and how at his rebuke the +wheeling swallow stilled their cries. + +But it was all so different then. + +(3) + + +It was only after he had passed four similar nights, with +intervening days of lassitude and afternoon siestas, that the +bishop realized that he was in the grip of insomnia. + +He did not go at once to a doctor, but he told his trouble to +every one he met and received much tentative advice. He had meant +to have his talk with Eleanor on the morning next after their +conversation in the dining-room, but his bodily and spiritual +anaemia prevented him. + +The fifth night was the beginning of the Whitsuntide Ember +week, and he wore a red cassock and had a distracting and rather +interesting day welcoming his ordination candidates. They had a +good effect upon him; we spiritualize ourselves when we seek to +spiritualize others, and he went to bed in a happier frame of +mind than he had done since the day of the shock. He woke in the +night, but he woke much more himself than he had been since the +trouble began. He repeated that verse of Ken's: + +"When in the night I sleepless lie, +My soul with heavenly thoughts supply; +Let no ill dreams disturb my rest, +No powers of darkness me molest." + + +Almost immediately after these there floated into his mind, as +if it were a message, the dear familiar words: + +"He giveth his Beloved sleep." + + +These words irradiated and soothed him quite miraculously, the +clouds of doubt seemed to dissolve and vanish and leave him safe +and calm under a clear sky; he knew those words were a promise, +and very speedily he fell asleep and slept until he was called. + +But the next day was a troubled one. Whippham had muddled his +timetable and crowded his afternoon; the strike of the transport +workers had begun, and the ugly noises they made at the tramway +depot, where they were booing some one, penetrated into the +palace. He had to snatch a meal between services, and the sense +of hurry invaded his afternoon lectures to the candidates. He +hated hurry in Ember week. His ideal was one of quiet serenity, +of grave things said slowly, of still, kneeling figures, of a +sort of dark cool spiritual germination. But what sort of dark +cool spiritual germination is possible with an ass like Whippham +about? + +In the fresh courage of the morning the bishop had arranged for +that talk with Eleanor he had already deferred too long, and this +had proved less satisfactory than he had intended it to be. + +The bishop's experience with the ordination candidates was +following the usual course. Before they came there was something +bordering upon distaste for the coming invasion; then always +there was an effect of surprise at the youth and faith of the +neophytes and a real response of the spirit to the occasion. +Throughout the first twenty-four hours they were all simply +neophytes, without individuality to break up their uniformity of +self-devotion. Then afterwards they began to develop little +personal traits, and scarcely ever were these pleasing traits. +Always one or two of them would begin haunting the bishop, giving +way to an appetite for special words, special recognitions. He +knew the expression of that craving on their faces. He knew the +way-laying movements in room and passage that presently began. + +This time in particular there was a freckled underbred young +man who handed in what was evidently a carefully prepared +memorandum upon what he called "my positions." Apparently he had +a muddle of doubts about the early fathers and the dates of the +earlier authentic copies of the gospels, things of no conceivable +significance. + +The bishop glanced through this bale of papers--it had of +course no index and no synopsis, and some of the pages were not +numbered--handed it over to Whippham, and when he proved, as +usual, a broken reed, the bishop had the brilliant idea of +referring the young man to Canon Bliss (of Pringle), "who has a +special knowledge quite beyond my own in this field." + +But he knew from the young man's eye even as he said this that +it was not going to put him off for more than a day or so. + +The immediate result of glancing over these papers was, +however, to enhance in the bishop's mind a growing disposition to +minimize the importance of all dated and explicit evidences and +arguments for orthodox beliefs, and to resort to vague symbolic +and liberal interpretations, and it was in this state that he +came to his talk with Eleanor. + +He did not give her much time to develop her objections. He met +her half way and stated them for her, and overwhelmed her with +sympathy and understanding. She had been "too literal." "Too +literal" was his keynote. He was a little astonished at the +liberality of his own views. He had been getting along now for +some years without looking into his own opinions too closely and +he was by no means prepared to discover how far he had come to +meet his daughter's scepticisms. But he did meet them. He met +them so thoroughly that he almost conveyed that hers was a +needlessly conservative and oldfashioned attitude. + +Occasionally he felt he was being a little evasive, but she did +not seem to notice it. As she took his drift, her relief and +happiness were manifest. And he had never noticed before how +clear and pretty her eyes were; they were the most honest eyes he +had ever seen. She looked at him very steadily as he explained, +and lit up at his points. She brightened wonderfully as she +realized that after all they were not apart, they had not +differed; simply they had misunderstood.... + +And before he knew where he was, and in a mere parenthetical +declaration of liberality, he surprised himself by conceding her +demand for Newnham even before she had repeated it. It helped his +case wonderfully. + +"Call in every exterior witness you can. The church will +welcome them.... No, I want you to go, my dear...." + +But his mind was stirred again to its depths by this +discussion. And in particular he was surprised and a little +puzzled by this Newnham concession and the necessity of making +his new attitude clear to Lady Ella.... + +It was with a sense of fatality that he found himself awake +again that night, like some one lying drowned and still and yet +perfectly conscious at the bottom of deep cold water. + +He repeated, "He giveth his Beloved sleep," but all the +conviction had gone out of the words. + +(4) + + +Neither the bishop's insomnia nor his incertitudes about +himself and his faith developed in a simple and orderly manner. +There were periods of sustained suffering and periods of +recovery; it was not for a year or so that he regarded these +troubles as more than acute incidental interruptions of his +general tranquillity or realized that he was passing into a new +phase of life and into a new quality of thought. He told every +one of the insomnia and no one of his doubts; these he betrayed +only by an increasing tendency towards vagueness, symbolism, +poetry and toleration. Eleanor seemed satisfied with his +exposition; she did not press for further enlightenment. She +continued all her outward conformities except that after a time +she ceased to communicate; and in September she went away to +Newnham. Her doubts had not visibly affected Clementina or her +other sisters, and the bishop made no further attempts to explore +the spiritual life of his family below the surface of its formal +acquiescence. + +As a matter of fact his own spiritual wrestlings were almost +exclusively nocturnal. During his spells of insomnia he led a +curiously double existence. In the daytime he was largely the +self he had always been, able, assured, ecclesiastical, except +that he was a little jaded and irritable or sleepy instead of +being quick and bright; he believed in God and the church and the +Royal Family and himself securely; in the wakeful night time he +experienced a different and novel self, a bare-minded self, +bleakly fearless at its best, shamelessly weak at its worst, +critical, sceptical, joyless, anxious. The anxiety was quite the +worst element of all. Something sat by his pillow asking grey +questions: "What are you doing? Where are you going? Is it really +well with the children? Is it really well with the church? Is it +really well with the country? Are you indeed doing anything at +all? Are you anything more than an actor wearing a costume in an +archaic play? The people turn their backs on you." + +He would twist over on his pillow. He would whisper hymns and +prayers that had the quality of charms. + +"He giveth his Beloved sleep"; that answered many times, and +many times it failed. + +The labour troubles of 1912 eased off as the year wore on, and +the bitterness of the local press over the palace abated very +considerably. Indeed there was something like a watery gleam of +popularity when he brought down his consistent friend, the dear +old Princess Christiana of Hoch and Unter, black bonnet, +deafness, and all, to open a new wing of the children's hospital. +The Princhester conservative paper took the occasion to inform +the diocese that he was a fluent German scholar and consequently +a persona grata with the royal aunts, and that the Princess +Christiana was merely just one of a number of royalties now +practically at the beck and call of Princhester. It was not true, +but it was very effective locally, and seemed to justify a little +the hauteur of which Lady Ella was so unjustly suspected. Yet it +involved a possibility of disappointments in the future. + +He went to Brighton-Pomfrey too upon the score of his general +health, and Brighton-Pomfrey revised his general regimen, +discouraged indiscreet fasting, and suggested a complete +abstinence from red wine except white port, if indeed that can be +called a red wine, and a moderate use of Egyptian cigarettes. + +But 1913 was a strenuous year. The labour troubles revived, the +suffragette movement increased greatly in violence and +aggressiveness, and there sprang up no less than three +ecclesiastical scandals in the diocese. First, the Kensitites set +themselves firmly to make presentations and prosecutions against +Morrice Deans, who was reserving the sacrament, wearing, they +said, "Babylonish garments," going beyond all reason in the +matter of infant confession, and generally brightening up Mogham +Banks; next, a popular preacher in Wombash, published a book +under the exasperating title, "The Light Under the Altar," in +which he showed himself as something between an Arian and a +Pantheist, and treated the dogma of the Trinity with as little +respect as one would show to an intrusive cat; while thirdly, an +obscure but overworked missioner of a tin mission church in the +new working-class district at Pringle, being discovered in some +sort of polygamous relationship, had seen fit to publish in +pamphlet form a scandalous admission and defence, a pamphlet +entitled "Marriage True and False," taking the public needlessly +into his completest confidence and quoting the affairs of Abraham +and Hosea, reviving many points that are better forgotten about +Luther, and appealing also to such uncanonical authorities as +Milton, Plato, and John Humphrey Noyes. This abnormal concurrence +of indiscipline was extremely unlucky for the bishop. It plunged +him into strenuous controversy upon three fronts, so to speak, +and involved a great number of personal encounters far too vivid +for his mental serenity. + +The Pringle polygamist was the most moving as Morrice Deans was +the most exacting and troublesome and the Wombash Pantheist the +most insidiously destructive figure in these three toilsome +disputes. The Pringle man's soul had apparently missed the normal +distribution of fig-leaves; he was an illiterate, open-eyed, +hard-voiced, freckled, rational-minded creature, with large +expository hands, who had come by a side way into the church +because he was an indefatigable worker, and he insisted upon +telling the bishop with an irrepressible candour and completeness +just exactly what was the matter with his intimate life. The +bishop very earnestly did not want these details, and did his +utmost to avoid the controversial questions that the honest man +pressed respectfully but obstinately upon him. + +"Even St. Paul, my lord, admitted that it is better to marry +than burn," said the Pringle misdemeanant, "and here was I, my +lord, married and still burning!" and, "I think you would find, +my lord, considering all Charlotte's peculiarities, that the +situation was really much more trying than the absolute celibacy +St. Paul had in view."... + +The bishop listened to these arguments as little as possible, +and did not answer them at all. But afterwards the offender came +and wept and said he was ruined and heartbroken and unfairly +treated because he wasn't a gentleman, and that was distressing. +It was so exactly true--and so inevitable. He had been +deprived, rather on account of his voice and apologetics than of +his offence, and public opinion was solidly with the sentence. He +made a gallant effort to found what he called a Labour Church in +Pringle, and after some financial misunderstandings departed with +his unambiguous menage to join the advanced movement on the +Clyde. + +The Morrice Deans enquiry however demanded an amount of +erudition that greatly fatigued the bishop. He had a very fair +general knowledge of vestments, but he had never really cared for +anything but the poetry of ornaments, and he had to work +strenuously to master the legal side of the question. Whippham, +his chaplain, was worse than useless as a helper. The bishop +wanted to end the matter as quickly, quietly, and favourably to +Morrice Deans as possible; he thought Morrice Deans a thoroughly +good man in his parish, and he believed that the substitution of +a low churchman would mean a very complete collapse of church +influence in Mogham Banks, where people were now thoroughly +accustomed to a highly ornate service. But Morrice Deans was +intractable and his pursuers indefatigable, and on several +occasions the bishop sat far into the night devising compromises +and equivocations that should make the Kensitites think that +Morrice Deans wasn't wearing vestments when he was, and that +should make Morrice Deans think he was wearing vestments when he +wasn't. And it was Whippham who first suggested green tea as a +substitute for coffee, which gave the bishop indigestion, as his +stimulant for these nocturnal bouts. + +Now green tea is the most lucid of poisons. + +And while all this extra activity about Morrice Deans, these +vigils and crammings and writings down, were using all and more +energy than the bishop could well spare, he was also doing his +quiet utmost to keep "The Light under the Altar" ease from coming +to a head. + +This man he hated. + +And he dreaded him as well as hated him. Chasters, the author +of "The Light under the Altar," was a man who not only reasoned +closely but indelicately. There was a demonstrating, jeering, air +about his preaching and writing, and everything he said and did +was saturated by the spirit of challenge. He did not so much +imitate as exaggerate the style of Matthew Arnold. And whatever +was done publicly against him would have to be done very publicly +because his book had got him a London reputation. + +From the bishop's point of view Chasters was one of nature's +ignoblemen. He seemed to have subscribed to the Thirty-Nine +Articles and passed all the tests and taken all the pledges that +stand on the way to ordination, chiefly for the pleasure of +attacking them more successfully from the rear; he had been given +the living of Wombash by a cousin, and filled it very largely +because it was not only more piquant but more remunerative and +respectable to be a rationalist lecturer in a surplice. And in a +hard kind of ultra-Protestant way his social and parochial work +was not badly done. But his sermons were terrible. "He takes a +text," said one informant, "and he goes on firstly, secondly, +thirdly, fourthly, like somebody tearing the petals from a +flower. 'Finally,' he says, and throws the bare stalk into the +dustbin." + +The bishop avoided "The Light under the Altar" for nearly a +year. It was only when a second book was announced with the +winning title of "The Core of Truth in Christianity" that he +perceived he must take action. He sat up late one night with a +marked copy, a very indignantly marked copy, of the former work +that an elderly colonel, a Wombash parishioner, an orthodox +Layman of the most virulent type, had sent him. He perceived that +he had to deal with a dialectician of exceptional ability, who +had concentrated a quite considerable weight of scholarship upon +the task of explaining away every scrap of spiritual significance +in the Eucharist. From Chasters the bishop was driven by +reference to the works of Legge and Frazer, and for the first +time he began to measure the dimensions and power of the modern +criticism of church doctrine and observance. Green tea should +have lit his way to refutation; instead it lit up the whole +inquiry with a light of melancholy confirmation. Neither by night +nor by day could the bishop find a proper method of opening a +counter attack upon Chasters, who was indisputably an +intellectually abler man and a very ruthless beast indeed to +assail, and meanwhile the demand that action should be taken +increased. + +The literature of church history and the controversies arising +out of doctrinal development became the employment of the +bishop's leisure and a commanding preoccupation. He would have +liked to discuss with some one else the network of perplexities +in which he was entangling himself, and more particularly with +Canon Bliss, but his own positions were becoming so insecure that +he feared to betray them by argument. He had grown up with a kind +of intellectual modesty. Some things he had never yet talked +about; it made his mind blench to think of talking about them. +And his great aching gaps of wakefulness began now, thanks to the +green tea, to be interspersed with theological dreams and visions +of an extravagant vividness. He would see Frazer's sacrificial +kings butchered picturesquely and terribly amidst strange and +grotesque rituals; he would survey long and elaborate processions +and ceremonials in which the most remarkable symbols were borne +high in the sight of all men; he would cower before a gigantic +and threatening Heaven. These green-tea dreams and visions were +not so much phases of sleep as an intensification and vivid +furnishing forth of insomnia. It added greatly to his disturbance +that--exceeding the instructions of Brighton-Pomfrey--he had +now experimented ignorantly and planlessly with one or two +narcotics and sleeping mixtures that friends and acquaintances +had mentioned in his hearing. For the first time in his life he +became secretive from his wife. He knew he ought not to take +these things, he knew they were physically and morally evil, but +a tormenting craving drove him to them. Subtly and insensibly his +character was being undermined by the growing nervous trouble. + +He astonished himself by the cunning and the hypocritical +dignity he could display in procuring these drugs. He arranged to +have a tea-making set in his bedroom, and secretly substituted +green tea, for which he developed a powerful craving, in the +place of the delicate China tea Lady Ella procured him. + +(5) + + +These doctrinal and physical anxieties and distresses were at +their worst in the spring and early summer of 1914. That was a +time of great mental and moral disturbance. There was premonition +in the air of those days. It was like the uneasiness sensitive +people experience before a thunderstorm. The moral atmosphere was +sullen and close. The whole world seemed irritable and +mischievous. The suffragettes became extraordinarily malignant; +the democratic movement went rotten with sabotage and with a cant +of being "rebels"; the reactionary Tories and a crew of noisy old +peeresses set themselves to create incurable confusion again in +the healing wounds of Ireland, and feuds and frantic folly broke +out at every point of the social and political edifice. And then +a bomb burst at Sarajevo that silenced all this tumult. The +unstable polity of Europe heeled over like a ship that founders. + +Through the swiftest, tensest week in history Europe capsized +into war. + +(6) + + +The first effect of the war upon the mind of the bishop, as +upon most imaginative minds, was to steady and exalt it. +Trivialities and exasperations seemed swept out of existence. Men +lifted up their eyes from disputes that had seemed incurable and +wrangling that promised to be interminable, and discovered a +plain and tragic issue that involved every one in a common call +for devotion. For a great number of men and women who had been +born and bred in security, the August and September of 1914 were +the supremely heroic period of their lives. Myriads of souls were +born again to ideas of service and sacrifice in those tremendous +days. + +Black and evil thing as the war was, it was at any rate a great +thing; it did this much for countless minds that for the first +time they realized the epic quality of history and their own +relationship to the destinies of the race. The flimsy roof under +which we had been living our lives of comedy fell and shattered +the floor under our feet; we saw the stars above and the abyss +below. We perceived that life was insecure and adventurous, part +of one vast adventure in space and time.... + +Presently the smoke and dust of battle hid the great distances +again, but they could not altogether destroy the memories of this +revelation. + +For the first two months the bishop's attention was so detached +from his immediate surroundings and employments, so absorbed by +great events, that his history if it were told in detail would +differ scarcely at all from the histories of most comparatively +unemployed minds during those first dramatic days, the days when +the Germans made their great rush upon Paris and it seemed that +France was down, France and the whole fabric of liberal +civilization. He emerged from these stunning apprehensions after +the Battle of the Marne, to find himself busy upon a score of +dispersed and disconnected war jobs, and trying to get all the +new appearances and forces and urgencies of the war into +relations with himself. One thing became very vivid indeed, that +he wasn't being used in any real and effective way in the war. +There was a mighty going to and fro upon Red Cross work and +various war committees, a vast preparation for wounded men and +for the succour of dislocated families; a preparation, that +proved to be needless, for catastrophic unemployment. The war +problem and the puzzle of German psychology ousted for a time all +other intellectual interests; like every one else the bishop swam +deep in Nietzsche, Bernhardi, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and +the like; he preached several sermons upon German materialism and +the astonishing decay of the German character. He also read every +newspaper he could lay his hands on--like any secular man. He +signed an address to the Russian Orthodox church, beginning +"Brethren," and he revised his impressions of the Filioque +controversy. The idea of a reunion of the two great state +churches of Russia and England had always attracted him. But +hitherto it had been a thing quite out of scale, visionary, +utopian. Now in this strange time of altered perspectives it +seemed the most practicable of suggestions. The mayor and +corporation and a detachment of the special reserve in uniform +came to a great intercession service, and in the palace there +were two conferences of local influential people, people of the +most various types, people who had never met tolerantly before, +expressing now opinions of unprecedented breadth and liberality. + +All this sort of thing was fresh and exciting at first, and +then it began to fall into a routine and became habitual, and as +it became habitual he found that old sense of detachment and +futility was creeping back again. One day he realized that indeed +the whole flood and tumult of the war would be going on almost +exactly as it was going on now if there had been neither +cathedral nor bishop in Princhester. It came to him that if +archbishops were rolled into patriarchs and patriarchs into +archbishops, it would matter scarcely more in the world process +that was afoot than if two men shook hands while their house was +afire. At times all of us have inappropriate thoughts. The +unfortunate thought that struck the bishop as a bullet might +strike a man in an exposed trench, as he was hurrying through the +cloisters to a special service and address upon that doubly +glorious day in our English history, the day of St. Crispin, was +of Diogenes rolling his tub. + +It was a poisonous thought. + +It arose perhaps out of an article in a weekly paper at which +he had glanced after lunch, an article written by one of those +sceptical spirits who find all too abundant expression in our +periodical literature. The writer boldly charged the "Christian +churches" with absolute ineffectiveness. This war, he declared, +was above all other wars a war of ideas, of material organization +against rational freedom, of violence against law; it was a war +more copiously discussed than any war had ever been before, the +air was thick with apologetics. And what was the voice of the +church amidst these elemental issues? Bishops and divines who +were patriots one heard discordantly enough, but where were the +bishops and divines who spoke for the Prince of Peace? Where was +the blessing of the church, where was the veto of the church? +When it came to that one discovered only a broad preoccupied back +busied in supplementing the Army Medical Corps with Red Cross +activities, good work in its way--except that the canonicals +seemed superfluous. Who indeed looked to the church for any voice +at all? And so to Diogenes. + +The bishop's mind went hunting for an answer to that +indictment. And came back and came back to the image of Diogenes. + +It was with that image dangling like a barbed arrow from his +mind that the bishop went into the pulpit to preach upon St. +Crispin's day, and looked down upon a thin and scattered +congregation in which the elderly, the childless, and the +unoccupied predominated. + +That night insomnia resumed its sway. + +Of course the church ought to be controlling this great storm, +the greatest storm of war that had ever stirred mankind. It ought +to be standing fearlessly between the combatants like a figure in +a wall painting, with the cross of Christ uplifted and the +restored memory of Christendom softening the eyes of the armed +nations. "Put down those weapons and listen to me," so the church +should speak in irresistible tones, in a voice of silver +trumpets. + +Instead it kept a long way from the fighting, tucked up its +vestments, and was rolling its local tubs quite briskly. + +(7) + + +And then came the aggravation of all these distresses by an +abrupt abandonment of smoking and alcohol. Alcoholic relaxation, +a necessary mitigation of the unreality of peacetime politics, +becomes a grave danger in war, and it was with an understandable +desire to forward the interests of his realm that the King +decided to set his statesmen an example--which unhappily was +not very widely followed--by abstaining from alcohol during the +continuance of the struggle. It did however swing over the Bishop +of Princhester to an immediate and complete abandonment of both +drink and tobacco. At that time he was finding comfort for his +nerves in Manila cheroots, and a particularly big and heavy type +of Egyptian cigarette with a considerable amount of opium, and +his disorganized system seized upon this sudden change as a +grievance, and set all his jangling being crying aloud for one +cigarette--just one cigarette. + +The cheroots, it seemed, he could better spare, but a cigarette +became his symbol for his lost steadiness and ease. + +It brought him low. + +The reader has already been told the lamentable incident of the +stolen cigarette and the small boy, and how the bishop, tormented +by that shameful memory, cried aloud in the night. + +The bishop rolled his tub, and is there any tub-rolling in the +world more busy and exacting than a bishop's? He rolled in it +spite of ill-health and insomnia, and all the while he was +tormented by the enormous background of the world war, by his +ineffective realization of vast national needs, by his passionate +desire, for himself and his church, not to be ineffective. + +The distressful alternation between nights of lucid doubt and +days of dull acquiescence was resumed with an intensification of +its contrasts. The brief phase of hope that followed the turn of +the fighting upon the Maine, the hope that after all the war +would end swiftly, dramatically, and justly, and everything be as +it had been before--but pleasanter, gave place to a phase that +bordered upon despair. The fall of Antwerp and the doubts and +uncertainties of the Flanders situation weighed terribly upon the +bishop. He was haunted for a time by nightmares of Zeppelins +presently raining fire upon London. These visions became +Apocalyptic. The Zeppelins came to England with the new year, and +with the close of the year came the struggle for Ypres that was +so near to being a collapse of the allied defensive. The events +of the early spring, the bloody failure of British generalship at +Neuve Chapelle, the naval disaster in the Dardanelles, the +sinking of the Falaba, the Russian defeat in the Masurian Lakes, +all deepened the bishop's impression of the immensity of the +nation's difficulties and of his own unhelpfulness. He was +ashamed that the church should hold back its curates from +enlistment while the French priests were wearing their uniforms +in the trenches; the expedition of the Bishop of London to hold +open-air services at the front seemed merely to accentuate the +tub-rolling. It was rolling the tub just where it was most in the +way. + +What was wrong? What was wanting? + +The Westminster Gazette, The Spectator, and several other of +the most trusted organs of public opinion were intermittently +discussing the same question. Their discussions implied at once +the extreme need that was felt for religion by all sorts of +representative people, and the universal conviction that the +church was in some way muddling and masking her revelation. "What +is wrong with the Churches?" was, for example, the general +heading of The Westminster Gazette's correspondence. + +One day the bishop skimmed a brief incisive utterance by Sir +Harry Johnston that pierced to the marrow of his own shrinking +convictions. Sir Harry is one of those people who seem to write +as well as speak in a quick tenor. "Instead of propounding +plainly and without the acereted mythology of Asia Minor, Greece +and Rome, the pure Gospel of Christ.... they present it +overloaded with unbelievable myths (such as, among a thousand +others, that Massacre of the Innocents which never took +place).... bore their listeners by a Tibetan repetition of creeds +that have ceased to be credible.... Mutually contradictory +propositions.... Prayers and litanies composed in Byzantine and +mediaeval times.... the want of actuality, the curious silliness +which has, ever since the destruction of Jerusalem, hung about +the exposition of Christianity.... But if the Bishops continue +to fuss about the trappings of religion.... the maintenance of +codes compiled by people who lived sixteen hundred or two +thousand five hundred years ago.... the increasingly educated and +practical-minded working classes will not come to church, weekday +or Sunday." + +The bishop held the paper in his hand, and with a mind that he +felt to be terribly open, asked himself how true that sharp +indictment might be, and, granting its general truth, what was +the duty of the church, that is to say of the bishops, for as +Cyprian says, ecelesia est in episcopo. We say the creeds; how +far may we unsay them? + +So far be had taken no open action against Chasters. Suppose +now be were to side with Chasters and let the whole diocese, the +church of Princhester, drift as far as it chose under his +inaction towards an extreme modernism, risking a conflict with, +and if necessary fighting, the archbishop.... It was but for a +moment that his mind swung to this possibility and then recoiled. +The Laymen, that band of bigots, would fight. He could not +contemplate litigation and wrangling about the teaching of the +church. Besides, what were the "trappings of religion" and what +the essentials? What after all was "the pure gospel of Christ" of +which this writer wrote so glibly? He put the paper down and took +a New Testament from his desk and opened it haphazard. He felt a +curious wish that he could read it for the first time. It was +over-familiar. Everything latterly in his theology and beliefs +had become over-familiar. It had all become mechanical and dead +and unmeaning to his tired mind.... + +Whippham came with a reminder of more tub-rolling, and the +bishop's speculations were broken off. + + + + +CHAPTER THE FOURTH - THE SYMPATHY OF LADY SUNDERBUND + +(1) + + +THAT night when he cried aloud at the memory of his furtive +cigarette, the bishop was staying with a rich man named Garstein +Fellows. These Garstein Fellows people were steel people with a +financial side to them; young Garstein Fellows had his fingers in +various chemical businesses, and the real life of the firm was in +various minor partners called Hartstein and Blumenhart and so +forth, who had acquired a considerable amount of ungentlemanly +science and energy in Germany and German Switzerland. But the +Fellows element was good old Princhester stuff. There had been a +Fellows firm in Princhester in 1819. They were not people the +bishop liked and it was not a house the bishop liked staying at, +but it had become part of his policy to visit and keep in touch +with as many of the local plutocracy as he could, to give and +take with them, in order to make the presence of the church a +reality to them. It had been not least among the negligences and +evasions of the sainted but indolent Hood that he had invariably +refused overnight hospitality whenever it was possible for him to +get back to his home. The morning was his working time. His books +and hymns had profited at the cost of missing many a generous +after-dinner subscription, and at the expense of social unity. +From the outset Scrope had set himself to alter this. A certain +lack of enthusiasm on Lady Ella's part had merely provoked him to +greater effort on his own. His ideal of what was needed with the +people was something rather jolly and familiar, something like a +very good and successful French or Irish priest, something that +came easily and readily into their homes and laid a friendly hand +on their shoulders. The less he liked these rich people naturally +the more familiar his resolution to be successfully intimate made +him. He put down the names and brief characteristics of their +sons and daughters in a little note-book and consulted it before +every visit so as to get his most casual enquiries right. And he +invited himself to the Garstein Fellows house on this occasion by +telegram. + + +"A special mission and some business in Wombash may I have a +scrap of supper and a bed?" + + +Now Mrs. Garstein Fellows was a thoroughly London woman; she +was one of the banking Grunenbaums, the fair tall sort, and she +had a very decided tendency to smartness. She had a little party +in the house, a sort of long week-end party, that made her +hesitate for a minute or so before she framed a reply to the +bishop's request. + + +It was the intention of Mrs. Garstein Fellows to succeed very +conspicuously in the British world, and the British world she +felt was a complicated one; it is really not one world but +several, and if you would surely succeed you must keep your peace +with all the systems and be a source of satisfaction to all of +them. So at least Mrs. Garstein Fellows saw it, and her method +was to classify her acquaintances according to their systems, to +keep them in their proper bundles, and to give every one the +treatment he or she was accustomed to receive. And since all +things British are now changing and passing away, it may not be +uninteresting to record the classification Mrs. Garstein Fellows +adopted. First she set apart as most precious and desirable, and +requiring the most careful treatment, the "court dowdies "--for +so it was that the dignity and quiet good taste that radiated +from Buckingham Palace impressed her restless, shallow mind-- +the sort of people who prefer pair horse carriages to +automobiles, have quiet friendships in the highest quarters, +quietly do not know any one else, busy themselves with charities, +dress richly rather than impressively, and have either little +water-colour accomplishments or none at all, and no other +relations with "art." At the skirts of this crowning British +world Mrs. Garstein Fellows tugged industriously and expensively. +She did not keep a carriage and pair and an old family coachman +because that, she felt, would be considered pushing and +presumptuous; she had the sense to stick to her common +unpretending 80 h.p. Daimler; but she wore a special sort of +blackish hat-bonnet for such occasions as brought her near the +centre of honour, which she got from a little good shop known +only to very few outside the inner ring, which hat-bonnet she was +always careful to sit on for a few minutes before wearing. And it +was to this first and highest and best section of her social +scheme that she considered that bishops properly belonged. But +some bishops, and in particular such a comparatively bright +bishop as the Bishop of Princhester, she also thought of as being +just as comfortably accommodated in her second system, the +"serious liberal lot," which was more fatiguing and less boring, +which talked of books and things, visited the Bells, went to all +first-nights when Granville Barker was the producer, and knew and +valued people in the grey and earnest plains between the Cecils +and the Sidney Webbs. And thirdly there were the smart +intellectual lot, again not very well marked off, and on the +whole practicable to bishops, of whom fewer particulars are +needed because theirs is a perennial species, and then finally +there was that fourth world which was paradoxically at once very +brilliant and a little shady, which had its Night Club side, and +seemed to set no limit to its eccentricities. It seemed at times +to be aiming to shock and yet it had its standards, but here it +was that the dancers and actresses and forgiven divorcees came in +--and the bishops as a rule, a rule hitherto always respected, +didn't. This was the ultimate world of Mrs. Garstein Fellows; she +had no use for merely sporting people and the merely correct +smart and the duller county families, sets that led nowhere, and +it was from her fourth system of the Glittering Doubtfuls that +this party which made her hesitate over the bishop's telegram, +was derived. + +She ran over their names as she sat considering her reply. + +What was there for a bishop to object to? There was that +admirable American widow, Lady Sunderbund. She was enormously +rich, she was enthusiastic. She was really on probation for +higher levels; it was her decolletage delayed her. If only she +kept off theosophy and the Keltic renascence and her disposition +to profess wild intellectual passions, there would be no harm in +her. Provided she didn't come down to dinner in anything too +fantastically scanty--but a word in season was possible. No! +there was no harm in Lady Sunderbund. Then there were Ridgeway +Kelso and this dark excitable Catholic friend of his, Paidraig +O'Gorman. Mrs. Garstein Fellows saw no harm in them. Then one had +to consider Lord Gatling and Lizzie Barusetter. But nothing +showed, nothing was likely to show even if there was anything. +And besides, wasn't there a Church and Stage Guild? + +Except for those people there seemed little reason for alarm. +Mrs. Garstein Fellows did not know that Professor Hoppart, who so +amusingly combined a professorship of political economy with the +writing of music-hall lyrics, was a keen amateur theologian, nor +that Bent, the sentimental novelist, had a similar passion. She +did not know that her own eldest son, a dark, romantic-looking +youngster from Eton, had also come to the theological stage of +development. She did however weigh the possibilities of too +liberal opinions on what are called social questions on the part +of Miss Sharsper, the novelist, and decided that if that lady was +watched nothing so terrible could be said even in an undertone; +and as for the Mariposa, the dancer, she had nothing but Spanish +and bad French, she looked all right, and it wasn't very likely +she would go out of her way to startle an Anglican bishop. Simply +she needn't dance. Besides which even if a man does get a glimpse +of a little something--it isn't as if it was a woman. + +But of course if the party mustn't annoy the bishop, the bishop +must do his duty by the party. There must be the usual purple and +the silver buckles. + +She wired back: + + +"A little party but it won't put you out send your man with +your change." + +(2) + + +In making that promise Mrs. Garstein Fellows reckoned without +the morbid sensibility of the bishop's disorganized nervous +system and the unsuspected theological stirrings beneath the +apparent worldliness of Hoppart and Bent. + +The trouble began in the drawing-room after dinner. Out of +deference to the bishop's abstinence the men did not remain to +smoke, but came in to find the Mariposa and Lady Sunderbund +smoking cigarettes, which these ladies continued to do a little +defiantly. They had hoped to finish them before the bishop came +up. The night was chilly, and a cheerful wood fire cracking and +banging on the fireplace emphasized the ordinary heating. Mrs. +Garstein Fellows, who had not expected so prompt an appearance of +the men, had arranged her chairs in a semicircle for a little +womanly gossip, and before she could intervene she found her +party, with the exception of Lord Gatling, who had drifted just a +little too noticeably with Miss Barnsetter into a window, sitting +round with a conscious air, that was perhaps just a trifle too +apparent, of being "good." + +And Mr. Bent plunged boldly into general conversation. + +"Are you reading anything now, Mrs. Garstein Fellows?" he +asked. "I'm an interested party." + +She was standing at the side of the fireplace. She bit her lip +and looked at the cornice and meditated with a girlish +expression. "Yes," she said. "I am reading again. I didn't think +I should but I am." + +"For a time," said Hoppart, "I read nothing but the papers. I +bought from a dozen to twenty a day." + +"That is wearing off," said the bishop. + +"The first thing I began to read again," said Mrs. Garstein +Fellows, "--I'm not saying it for your sake, Bishop--was the +Bible." + +"I went to the Bible," said Bent as if he was surprised. + +"I've heard that before," said Ridgeway Kelso, in that slightly +explosive manner of his. "All sorts of people who don't usually +read the Bible--" + +"But Mr. Kelso!" protested their hostess with raised eyebrows. + +"I was thinking of Bent. But anyhow there's been a great wave +of seriousness, a sudden turning to religion and religious +things. I don't know if it comes your way, Bishop...." + +"I've had no rows of penitents yet." + +"We may be coming," said Hoppart. + +He turned sideways to face the bishop. "I think we should be +coming if--if it wasn't for old entangled difficulties. I don't +know if you will mind my saying it to you, but...." + +The bishop returned his frank glance. "I'd like to know above +all things," he said. "If Mrs. Garstein Fellow will permit us. +It's my business to know." + +"We all want to know," said Lady Sunderbund, speaking from the +low chair on the other side of the fireplace. There was a +vibration in her voice and a sudden gleam of enthusiasm in her +face. "Why shouldn't people talk se'iously sometimes?" + +"Well, take my own case," said Hoppart. "In the last few weeks, +I've been reading not only in the Bible but in the Fathers. I've +read most of Athanasius, most of Eusebius, and--I'll confess it +--Gibbon. I find all my old wonder come back. Why are we pinned +to--to the amount of creed we are pinned to? Why for instance +must you insist on the Trinity?" + +"Yes," said the Eton boy explosively, and flushed darkly to +find he had spoken. + +"Here is a time when men ask for God," said Hoppart. "And you +give them three!" cried Bent rather cheaply. "I confess I find +the way encumbered by these Alexandrian elaborations," Hoppart +completed. + +"Need it be?" whispered Lady Sunderbund very softly. + +"Well," said the bishop, and leant back in his armchair and +knitted his brow at the fire. "I do not think," he said, "that +men coming to God think very much of the nature of God. +Nevertheless," he spoke slowly and patted the arm of his chair, +"nevertheless the church insists that certain vitally important +truths have to be conveyed, certain mortal errors are best +guarded against, by these symbols." + +"You admit they are symbols." + +"So the church has always called them." + +Hoppart showed by a little movement and grimace that he thought +the bishop quibbled. + +"In every sense of the word," the bishop hastened to explain, +"the creeds are symbolical. It is clear they seek to express +ineffable things by at least an extended use of familiar words. I +suppose we are all agreed nowadays that when we speak of the +Father and of the Son we mean something only in a very remote and +exalted way parallel with--with biological fatherhood and +sonship." + +Lady Sunderbund nodded eagerly. "Yes," she said, "oh, yes," and +held up an expectant face for more. + +"Our utmost words, our most elaborately phrased creeds, can at +the best be no better than the shadow of something unseen thrown +upon the screen of experience." + +He raised his rather weary eyes to Hoppart as if he would know +what else needed explanation. He was gratified by Lady +Sunderbund's approval, but he affected not to see or hear it. But +it was Bent who spoke. + +He spoke in the most casual way. He made the thing seem the +most incidental of observations. + +"What puzzles me," he said, "is why the early Christians +identified the Spermaticos Logos of the Stoics with the second +and not with the third person of the Trinity." + +To which the bishop, rising artlessly to the bait, replied, +"Ah! that indeed is the unfortunate aspect of the whole affair." + +And then the Irish Catholic came down on him.... + +(3) + + +How the bishop awakened in the night after this dispute has +been told already in the opening section of this story. To that +night of discomfort we now return after this comprehensive +digression. He awoke from nightmares of eyes and triangles to +bottomless remorse and perplexity. For the first time he fully +measured the vast distances he had travelled from the beliefs and +attitudes of his early training, since his coming to Princhester. +Travelled--or rather slipped and fallen down the long slopes of +doubt. + +That clear inky dimness that comes before dawn found his white +face at the window looking out upon the great terrace and the +park. + +(4) + + +After a bout of mental distress and sleeplessness the bishop +would sometimes wake in the morning not so much exhausted as in a +state of thin mental and bodily activity. This was more +particularly so if the night had produced anything in the nature +of a purpose. So it was on this occasion. The day was clear +before him; at least it could be cleared by sending three +telegrams; his man could go back to Princhester and so leave him +perfectly free to go to Brighton-Pomfrey in London and secure +that friendly dispensation to smoke again which seemed the only +alternative to a serious mental breakdown. He would take his bag, +stay the night in London, smoke, sleep well, and return the next +morning. Dunk, his valet-butler, found him already bathed and +ready for a cup of tea and a Bradshaw at half-past seven. He went +on dressing although the good train for London did not start +until 10.45. + +Mrs. Garstein Fellows was by nature and principle a late riser; +the breakfast-room showed small promise yet of the repast, though +the table was set and bright with silver and fresh flowers, and a +wood fire popped and spurted to greet and encourage the March +sunshine. But standing in the doorway that led to the promise and +daffodils and crocuses of Mrs. Garstein Fellows' garden stood +Lady Sunderbund, almost with an effect of waiting, and she +greeted the bishop very cheerfully, doubted the immediate +appearance of any one else, and led him in the most natural +manner into the new but already very pleasant shrubbery. + +In some indefinable special way the bishop had been aware of +Lady Sunderbund's presence since first he had met her, but it was +only now that he could observe her with any particularity. She +was tall like his own Lady Ella but not calm and quiet; she was +electric, her eyes, her smiles, her complexion had as it were an +established brightness that exceeded the common lustre of things. +This morning she was dressed in grey that was nevertheless not +grey but had an effect of colour, and there was a thread of black +along the lines of her body and a gleam of gold. She carried her +head back with less dignity than pride; there was a little frozen +movement in her dark hair as if it flamed up out of her head. +There were silver ornaments in her hair. She spoke with a pretty +little weakness of the r's that had probably been acquired +abroad. And she lost no time in telling him, she was eager to +tell him, that she had been waylaying him. "I did so want to talk +to you some maw," she said. "I was shy last night and they we' +all so noisy and eaga'. I p'ayed that you might come down early. + +"It's an oppo'tunity I've longed for," she said. + +She did her very pretty best to convey what it was had been +troubling her. 'iligion bad been worrying her for years. Life was +--oh--just ornaments and games and so wea'isome, so wea'isome, +unless it was 'iligious. And she couldn't get it 'iligious. + +The bishop nodded his head gravely. + +"You unde'stand?" she pressed. + +"I understand too well--the attempt to get hold--and keep +hold." + +"I knew you would!" she cried. + +She went on with an impulsive rapidity. O'thodoxy had always +'ipelled her,--always. She had felt herself confronted by the +most insurmountable difficulties, and yet whenever she had gone +away from Christianity--she had gone away from Christianity, to +the Theosophists and the Christian Scientists--she had felt she +was only "st'aying fu'tha." And then suddenly when he was +speaking last night, she had felt he knew. It was so wonderful to +hear the "k'eed was only a symbol." + +"Symbol is the proper name for it," said the bishop. "It wasn't +for centuries it was called the Creed." + +Yes, and so what it really meant was something quite different +from what it did mean. + +The bishop felt that this sentence also was only a symbol, and +nodded encouragingly--but gravely, warily. + +And there she was, and the point was there were thousands and +thousands and thousands of educated people like her who were +dying to get through these old-fashioned symbols to the true +faith that lay behind them. That they knew lay behind them. She +didn't know if he had read "The Light under the Altar"? + +"He's vicar of Wombash--in my diocese," said the bishop with +restraint. + +"It's wonde'ful stuff," said Lady Sunderbund. "It's spi'tually +cold, but it's intellectually wonde'ful. But we want that with +spi'tuality. We want it so badly. If some one--" + +She became daring. She bit her under lip and flashed her spirit +at him. + +"If you--" she said and paused. + +"Could think aloud," said the bishop. + +"Yes," she said, nodding rapidly, and became breathless to +hear. + +It would certainly be an astonishing end to the Chasters +difficulty if the bishop went over to the heretic, the bishop +reflected. + +"My dear lady, I won't disguise," he began; "in fact I don't +see how I could, that for some years I have been growing more and +more discontented with some of our most fundamental formulae. But +it's been very largely a shapeless discontent--hitherto. I +don't think I've said a word to a single soul. No, not a word. +You are the first person to whom I've ever made the admission +that even my feelings are at times unorthodox." + +She lit up marvellously at his words. "Go on," she whispered. + +But she did not need to tell him to go on. Now that he had once +broached the casket of his reserves he was only too glad of a +listener. He talked as if they were intimate and loving friends, +and so it seemed to both of them they were. It was a wonderful +release from a long and painful solitude. + +To certain types it is never quite clear what has happened to +them until they tell it. So that now the bishop, punctuated very +prettily by Lady Sunderbund, began to measure for the first time +the extent of his departure from the old innate convictions of +Otteringham Rectory. He said that it was strange to find doubt +coming so late in life, but perhaps it was only in recent years +that his faith had been put to any really severe tests. It had +been sheltered and unchallenged. + +"This fearful wa'," Lady Sunderbund interjected. + +But Princhester had been a critical and trying change, and "The +Light under the Altar" case had ploughed him deeply. It was +curious that his doubts always seemed to have a double strand; +there was a moral objection based on the church's practical +futility and an intellectual strand subordinated to this which +traced that futility largely to its unconvincing formulae. + +"And yet you know," said the bishop, "I find I can't go with +Chasters. He beats at the church; he treats her as though she +were wrong. I feel like a son, growing up, who finds his mother +isn't quite so clear-spoken nor quite so energetic as she seemed +to be once. She's right, I feel sure. I've never doubted her +fundamental goodness." + +"Yes," said Lady Sunderbund, very eagerly, "yes." + +"And yet there's this futility.... You know, my dear lady, I +don't know what to do. One feels on the one hand, that here is a +cloud of witnesses, great men, sainted men, subtle men, figures +permanently historical, before whom one can do nothing but bow +down in the utmost humility, here is a great instrument and +organization--what would the world be without the witness of the +church?--and on the other hand here are our masses out of hand +and hostile, our industrial leaders equally hostile; there is a +failure to grip, and that failure to grip is so clearly traceable +to the fact that our ideas are not modern ideas, that when we +come to profess our faith we find nothing in our mouths but +antiquated Alexandrian subtleties and phrases and ideas that may +have been quite alive, quite significant, quite adequate in Asia +Minor or Egypt, among men essentially orientals, fifteen hundred +years ago, but which now--Ä + +He expressed just what they came to now by a gesture. + +She echoed his gesture. + +"Probably I'm not alone among my brethren," he went on, and +then: "But what is one to do?" + +With her hands she acted her sense of his difficulty. + +"One may be precipitate," he said. "There's a kind of loyalty +and discipline that requires one to keep the ranks until one's +course of action is perfectly clear. One owes so much to so many. +One has to consider how one may affect--oh! people one has never +seen." + +He was lugging things now into speech that so far had been +scarcely above the threshold of his conscious thought. He went on +to discuss the entire position of the disbelieving cleric. He +discovered a fine point. + +"If there was something else, an alternative, another religion, +another Church, to which one could go, the whole case would be +different. But to go from the church to nothingness isn't to go +from falsehood to truth. It's to go from truth, rather badly +expressed, rather conservatively hidden by its protections, truth +in an antiquated costume, to the blackest lie--in the world." + +She took that point very brightly. + +"One must hold fast to 'iligion," she said, and looked +earnestly at him and gripped fiercely, pink thumbs out, with her +beautiful hands held up. + +That was it, exactly. He too was gripping. But while on the +outside the Midianites of denial were prowling for these clinging +souls, within the camp they were assailed by a meticulous +orthodoxy that was only too eager to cast them forth. The bishop +dwelt for a time upon the curious fierceness orthodoxy would +sometimes display. Nowadays atheism can be civil, can be +generous; it is orthodoxy that trails a scurrilous fringe. + +"Who was that young man with a strong Irish accent--who +contradicted me so suddenly?" he asked. + +"The dark young man?" + +"The noisy young man." + +"That was Mist' Pat'ick O'Go'man. He is a Kelt and all that. +Spells Pat'ick with eva so many letters. You know. They say he +spends ouas and ouas lea'ning E'se. He wo'ies about it. They all +t'y to lea'n E'se, and it wo'ies them and makes them hate England +moa and moa." + +"He is orthodox. He--is what I call orthodox to the +ridiculous extent." + +"'idiculous." + +A deep-toned gong proclaimed breakfast over a square mile or so +of territory, and Lady Sunderbund turned about mechanically +towards the house. But they continued their discussion. + +She started indeed a new topic. "Shall we eva, do 'ou think, +have a new 'iligion--t'ua and betta?" + +That was a revolutionary idea to him. + +He was still fending it off from him when a gap in the shrubs +brought them within sight of the house and of Mrs. Garstein +Fellows on the portico waving a handkerchief and crying +"Break-fast." + +"I wish we could talk for houas," said Lady Sunderbund. + +"I've been glad of this talk," said the bishop. "Very glad." + +She lifted her soft abundant skirts and trotted briskly across +the still dewy lawn towards the house door. The bishop followed +gravely and slowly with his hands behind his back and an +unusually peaceful expression upon his face. He was thinking how +rare and precious a thing it is to find intelligent friendship in +women. More particularly when they were dazzlingly charming and +pretty. It was strange, but this was really his first woman +friend. If, as he hoped, she became his friend. + +Lady Sunderbund entered the breakfast room in a gusty abundance +like Botticelli's Primavera, and kissed Mrs. Garstein Fellows +good-morning. She exhaled a glowing happiness. "He is wondyful," +she panted. "He is most wondyful." + +"Mr. Hidgeway Kelso?" + +"No, the dee' bishop! I love him. Are those the little sausages +I like? May I take th'ee? I've been up houas." + +The dee' bishop appeared in the sunlit doorway. + +(5) + + +The bishop felt more contentment in the London train than he +had felt for many weeks. He had taken two decisive and relieving +steps. One was that he had stated his case to another human +being, and that a very charming and sympathetic human being, he +was no longer a prey to a current of secret and concealed +thoughts running counter to all the appearances of his outward +life; and the other was that he was now within an hour or so of +Brighton-Pomfrey and a cigarette. He would lunch on the train, +get to London about two, take a taxi at once to the wise old +doctor, catch him over his coffee in a charitable and +understanding mood, and perhaps be smoking a cigarette publicly +and honourably and altogether satisfyingly before three. + +So far as Brighton-Pomfrey's door this program was fulfilled +without a hitch. The day was fine and he had his taxi opened, and +noted with a patriotic satisfaction as he rattled through the +streets, the glare of the recruiting posters on every vacant +piece of wall and the increasing number of men in khaki in the +streets. But at the door he had a disappointment. Dr. +Brighton-Pomfrey was away at the front--of all places; he had +gone for some weeks; would the bishop like to see Dr. Dale? + +The bishop hesitated. He had never set eyes on this Dr. Dale. + +Indeed, he had never heard of Dr. Dale. + +Seeing his old friend Brighton-Pomfrey and being gently and +tactfully told to do exactly what he was longing to do was one +thing; facing some strange doctor and going slowly and +elaborately through the whole story of his illness, his vow and +his breakdown, and perhaps having his reaction time tested and +all sorts of stripping and soundings done, was quite another. He +was within an ace of turning away. + +If he had turned away his whole subsequent life would have been +different. It was the very slightest thing in the world tipped +the beam. It was the thought that, after all, whatever +inconvenience and unpleasantness there might be in this +interview, there was at the end of it a very reasonable prospect +of a restored and legitimate cigarette. + + + + +CHAPTER THE FIFTH - THE FIRST VISION + +(1) + + +Dr. DALE exceeded the bishop's worst apprehensions. He was a +lean, lank, dark young man with long black hair and irregular, +rather prolonged features; his chin was right over to the left; +he looked constantly at the bishop's face with a distinctly +sceptical grey eye; he could not have looked harder if he had +been a photographer or a portrait painter. And his voice was +harsh, and the bishop was particularly sensitive to voices. + +He began by understanding far too much of the bishop's illness, +and he insisted on various familiarities with the bishop's heart +and tongue and eye and knee that ruffled the bishop's soul. + +"Brighton-Pomfrey talked of neurasthenia?" he asked. "That was +his diagnosis," said the bishop. "Neurasthenia," said the young +man as though he despised the word. + +The bishop went on buttoning up his coat. + +"You don't of course want to break your vows about drinking and +smoking," said the young man with the very faintest suggestion of +derision in his voice. + +"Not if it can possibly be avoided," the bishop asserted. +"Without a loss, that is, of practical efficiency," he added. +"For I have much to do." + +"I think that it is possible to keep your vow," said the young +man, and the bishop could have sworn at him. "I think we can +manage that all right." + +(2) + + +The bishop sat at the table resting his arm upon it and +awaiting the next development of this unsatisfactory interview. +He was on the verge of asking as unpleasantly as possible when +Brighton-Pomfrey would return. + +The young man stood upon Brighton-Pomfrey's hearth-rug and was +evidently contemplating dissertations. + +"Of course," he said, as though he discussed a problem with +himself, "you must have some sort of comfort. You must get out of +this state, one way or another." + +The bishop nodded assent. He had faint hopes of this young +man's ideas of comfort. + +Dr. Dale reflected. Then he went off away from the question of +comfort altogether. "You see, the trouble in such a case as this +is peculiarly difficult to trace to its sources because it comes +just upon the border-line of bodily and mental things. You may +take a drug or alter your regimen and it disturbs your thoughts, +you may take an idea and it disturbs your health. It is easy +enough to say, as some do, that all ideas have a physical +substratum; it is almost as easy to say with the Christian +Scientist that all bodily states are amenable to our ideas. The +truth doesn't, I think, follow the border between those opposite +opinions very exactly on either side. I can't, for instance, tell +you to go home and pray against these uncertainties and despairs, +because it is just these uncertainties and despairs that rob you +of the power of efficient prayer." + +He did not seem to expect anything from the bishop. + +"I don't see that because a case brings one suddenly right up +against the frontier of metaphysics, why a doctor should +necessarily pull up short at that, why one shouldn't go on into +either metaphysics or psychology if such an extension is +necessary for the understanding of the case. At any rate if +you'll permit it in this consultation...." + +"Go on," said the bishop, holding on to that promise of +comfort. "The best thing is to thrash out the case in your own +way. And then come to what is practical." + +"What is really the matter here--the matter with you that is +--is a disorganization of your tests of reality. It's one of a +group of states hitherto confused. Neurasthenia, that +comprehensive phrase--well, it is one of the neurasthenias. +Here, I confess, I begin to talk of work I am doing, work still +to be published, finished first and then published.... But I go +off from the idea that every living being lives in a state not +differing essentially from a state of hallucination concerning +the things about it. Truth, essential truth, is hidden. Always. +Of course there must be a measure of truth in our working +illusions, a working measure of truth, or the creature would +smash itself up and end itself, but beyond that discretion of the +fire and the pitfall lies a wide margin of error about which we +may be deceived for years. So long as it doesn't matter, it +doesn't matter. I don't know if I make myself clear." + +"I follow you," said the bishop a little wearily, "I follow +you. Phenomena and noumena and so on and so on. Kant and so +forth. Pragmatism. Yes." + +With a sigh. + +"And all that," completed Dr. Dale in a voice that suggested +mockery. "But you see we grow into a way of life, we settle down +among habits and conventions, we say 'This is all right' and +'That is always so.' We get more and more settled into our life +as a whole and more and more confident. Unless something happens +to shake us out of our sphere of illusion. That may be some +violent contradictory fact, some accident, or it may be some +subtle change in one's health and nerves that makes us feel +doubtful. Or a change of habits. Or, as I believe, some subtle +quickening of the critical faculty. Then suddenly comes the +feeling as though we were lost in a strange world, as though we +had never really seen the world before." + +He paused. + +The bishop was reluctantly interested. "That does describe +something--of the mental side," he admitted. "I never believe +in concealing my own thoughts from an intelligent patient," said +Dr. Dale, with a quiet offensiveness. "That sort of thing belongs +to the dark ages of the 'pothecary's art. I will tell you exactly +my guesses and suppositions about you. At the base of it all is a +slight and subtle kidney trouble, due I suggest to your going to +Princhester and drinking the local water--" + +"But it's excellent water. They boast of it." + +"By all the established tests. As a matter of fact many of our +best drinking waters have all sorts of unspecified qualities. +Burton water, for example, is radioactive by Beetham's standards +up to the ninth degree. But that is by the way. My theory about +your case is that this produced a change in your blood, that +quickened your sensibilities and your critical faculties just at +a time when a good many bothers--I don't of course know what +they were, but I can, so to speak, see the marks all over you-- +came into your life." + +The bishop nodded. + +"You were uprooted. You moved from house to house, and failed +to get that curled up safe feeling one has in a real home in any +of them." + +"If you saw the fireplaces and the general decoration of the +new palace!" admitted the bishop. "I had practically no control." + +"That confirms me," said Dr. Dale. "Insomnia followed, and +increased the feeling of physical strangeness by increasing the +bodily disturbance. I suspect an intellectual disturbance." + +He paused. + +"There was," said the bishop. + +"You were no longer at home anywhere. You were no longer at +home in your diocese, in your palace, in your body, in your +convictions. And then came the war. Quite apart from everything +else the mind of the whole world is suffering profoundly from the +shock of this war--much more than is generally admitted. One +thing you did that you probably did not observe yourself doing, +you drank rather more at your meals, you smoked a lot more. That +was your natural and proper response to the shock." + +"Ah!" said the bishop, and brightened up. + +"It was remarked by Tolstoy, I think, that few intellectual men +would really tolerate the world as it is if it were not for +smoking and drinking. Even novelists have their moments of +lucidity. Certainly these things soothe the restlessness in men's +minds, deaden their sceptical sensibilities. And just at the time +when you were getting most dislodged--you gave them up." + +"And the sooner I go back to them the better," said the bishop +brightly. "I quite see that." + +"I wouldn't say that," said Dr. Dale.... + +(3) + + +"That," said Dr. Dale, "is just where my treatment of this case +differs from the treatment of "--he spoke the name reluctantly +as if he disliked the mere sound of it--"Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey." + +"Hitherto, of course," said the bishop, "I've been in his +hands." + +"He," said Dr. Dale, "would certainly set about trying to +restore your old sphere of illusion, your old familiar sensations +and ideas and confidences. He would in fact turn you back. He +would restore all your habits. He would order you a rest. He +would send you off to some holiday resort, fresh in fact but +familiar in character, the High lands, North Italy, or +Switzerland for example. He would forbid you newspapers and order +you to botanize and prescribe tranquillizing reading; Trollope's +novels, the Life of Gladstone, the works of Mr. A. C. Benson, +memoirs and so on. You'd go somewhere where there was a good +Anglican chaplain, and you'd take some of the services yourself. +And we'd wash out the effects of the Princhester water with +Contrexeville, and afterwards put you on Salutaris or Perrier. I +don't know whether I shouldn't have inclined to some such +treatment before the war began. Only--" + +He paused. + +"You think--?" + +Dr. Dale's face betrayed a sudden sombre passion. "It won't do +now," he said in a voice of quiet intensity. "It won't do now." + +He remained darkly silent for so long that at last the bishop +spoke. "Then what," he asked, "do you suggest? + +"Suppose we don't try to go back," said Dr. Dale. "Suppose we +go on and go through." + +"Where?" + +"To reality. + +"I know it's doubtful, I know it's dangerous," he went on, "but +I am convinced that now we can no longer keep men's minds and +souls in these feathered nests, these spheres of illusion. Behind +these veils there is either God or the Darkness.... Why should we +not go on?" + +The bishop was profoundly perplexed. He heard himself speaking. +"It would be unworthy of my cloth," he was saying. + +Dr. Dale completed the sentence: "to go back." + +"Let me explain a little more," he said, "what I mean by 'going +on.' I think that this loosening of the ties of association that +bind a man to his everyday life and his everyday self is in nine +cases out of ten a loosening of the ties that bind him to +everyday sanity. One common form of this detachment is the form +you have in those cases of people who are found wandering unaware +of their names, unaware of their places of residence, lost +altogether from themselves. They have not only lost their sense +of identity with themselves, but all the circumstances of their +lives have faded out of their minds like an idle story in a book +that has been read and put aside. I have looked into hundreds of +such cases. I don't think that loss of identity is a necessary +thing; it's just another side of the general weakening of the +grip upon reality, a kind of anaemia of the brain so that +interest fades and fails. There is no reason why you should +forget a story because you do not believe it--if your brain is +strong enough to hold it. But if your brain is tired and weak, +then so soon as you lose faith in your records, your mind is glad +to let them go. When you see these lost identity people that is +always your first impression, a tired brain that has let go." + +The bishop felt extremely like letting go. + +"But how does this apply to my case?" + +"I come to that," said Dr. Dale, holding up a long large hand. +"What if we treat this case of yours in a new way? What if we +give you not narcotics but stimulants and tonics? What if we so +touch the blood that we increase your sense of physical +detachment while at the same time feeding up your senses to a new +and more vivid apprehension of things about you?" He looked at +his patient's hesitation and added: "You'd lose all that craving +feeling, that you fancy at present is just the need of a smoke. +The world might grow a trifle--transparent, but you'd keep +real. Instead of drugging oneself back to the old contentment--" + +"You'd drug me on to the new," said the bishop. + +"But just one word more!" said Dr. Dale. "Hear why I would do +this! It was easy and successful to rest and drug people back to +their old states of mind when the world wasn't changing, wasn't +spinning round in the wildest tornado of change that it has ever +been in. But now--Where can I send you for a rest? Where can I +send you to get you out of sight and hearing of the Catastrophe? +Of course old Brighton-Pomfrey would go on sending people away +for rest and a nice little soothing change if the Day of Judgment +was coming in the sky and the earth was opening and the sea was +giving up its dead. He'd send 'em to the seaside. Such things as +that wouldn't shake his faith in the Channel crossing. My idea is +that it's not only right for you to go through with this, but +that it's the only thing to do. If you go right on and right +through with these doubts and intimations--" + +He paused. + +"You may die like a madman," he said, "but you won't die like a +tame rabbit." + +(4) + + +The bishop sat reflecting. What fascinated and attracted him +was the ending of all the cravings and uneasinesses and +restlessness that had distressed his life for over four years; +what deterred him was the personality of this gaunt young man +with his long grey face, his excited manner, his shock of black +hair. He wanted that tonic--with grave misgivings. "If you +think this tonic is the wiser course," he began. "I'd give it you +if you were my father," said Dr. Dale. "I've got everything for +it," he added. + +"You mean you can make it up--without a prescription." + +"I can't give you a prescription. The essence of it--It's a +distillate I have been trying. It isn't in the Pharmacopeia." + +Again the bishop had a twinge of misgiving. + +But in the end he succumbed. He didn't want to take the stuff, +but also he did not want to go without his promised comfort. + +Presently Dale had given him a little phial--and was holding +up to the window a small medicine glass into which he was pouring +very carefully twenty drops of the precious fluid. "Take it +only," he said, "when you feel you must." + +"It is the most golden of liquids," said the bishop, peering at +it. + +"When you want more I will make you more. Later of course, it +will be possible to write a prescription. Now add the water-- +so. + +"It becomes opalescent. How beautifully the light plays in it! + +"Take it." + +The bishop dismissed his last discretion and drank. + +"Well?" said Dr. Dale. + +"I am still here," said the bishop, smiling, and feeling a +joyous tingling throughout his body. "It stirs me." + +(5) + + +The bishop stood on the pavement outside Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey's +house. The massive door had closed behind him. + +It had been an act of courage, of rashness if you will, to take +this draught. He was acutely introspective, ready for anything, +for the most disagreeable or the most bizarre sensations. He was +asking himself, Were his feet steady? Was his head swimming? + +His doubts glowed into assurance. + +Suddenly he perceived that he was sure of God. + +Not perhaps of the God of Nicaea, but what did these poor +little quibblings and definitions of the theologians matter? He +had been worrying about these definitions and quibblings for four +long restless years. Now they were just failures to express-- +what surely every one knew--and no one would ever express +exactly. Because here was God, and the kingdom of God was +manifestly at hand. The visible world hung before him as a mist +might hang before the rising sun. He stood proudly and +masterfully facing a universe that had heretofore bullied him +into doubt and apologetics, a universe that had hitherto been +opaque and was now betrayed translucent. + +That was the first effect of the new tonic, complete +reassurance, complete courage. He turned to walk towards Mount +Street and Berkeley Square as a sultan might turn to walk among +his slaves. + +But the tonic was only beginning. + +Before he had gone a dozen steps he was aware that he seemed +more solid and larger than the people about him. They had all a +curious miniature effect, as though he was looking at them +through the wrong end of an opera glass. The houses on either +side of the street and the traffic shared this quality in an +equal measure. It was as if he was looking at the world through +apertures in a miniature cinematograph peep-show. This surprised +him and a little dashed his first glow of satisfaction. + +He passed a man in khaki who, he fancied, looked at him with an +odd expression. He observed the next passers-by narrowly and +suspiciously, a couple of smartish young men, a lady with a +poodle, a grocer's boy with a basket, but none seemed to observe +anything remarkable about him. Then he caught the eye of a taxi- +driver and became doubtful again. + +He had a feeling that this tonic was still coming in like a +tide. It seemed to be filling him and distending him, in spite of +the fact that he was already full. After four years of flaccidity +it was pleasant to be distended again, but already he felt more +filled than he had ever been before. At present nothing was +showing, but all his body seemed braced and uplifted. He must be +careful not to become inflated in his bearing. + +And yet it was difficult not to betray a little inflation. He +was so filled with assurance that things were right with him and +that God was there with him. After all it was not mere fancy; he +was looking through the peepholes of his eyes at the world of +illusion and appearance. The world that was so intent upon its +immediate business, so regardless of eternal things, that had so +dominated him but a little while ago, was after all a thing more +mortal than himself. + +Another man in khaki passed him. + +For the first time he saw the war as something measurable, as +something with a beginning and an end, as something less than the +immortal spirit in man. He had been too much oppressed by it. He +perceived all these people in the street were too much oppressed +by it. He wanted to tell them as much, tell them that all was +well with them, bid them be of good cheer. He wanted to bless +them. He found his arm floating up towards gestures of +benediction. Self-control became increasingly difficult. + +All the way down Berkeley Square the bishop was in full-bodied +struggle with himself. He was trying to control himself, trying +to keep within bounds. He felt that he was stepping too high, +that his feet were not properly reaching the ground, that he was +walking upon cushions of air. + +The feeling of largeness increased, and the feeling of +transparency in things about him. He avoided collision with +passers-by--excessively. And he felt his attention was being +drawn more and more to something that was going on beyond the +veil of visible things. He was in Piccadilly now, but at the same +time Piccadilly was very small and he was walking in the presence +of God. + +He had a feeling that God was there though he could not see +him. And at the same time he was in this transitory world, with +people going to and fro, men with umbrellas tucked dangerously +under their arms, men in a hurry, policemen, young women rattling +Red Cross collecting boxes, smart people, loafers. They +distracted one from God. + +He set out to cross the road just opposite Prince's, and +jumping needlessly to give way to an omnibus had the narrowest +escape from a taxicab. + +He paused on the pavement edge to recover himself. The shock of +his near escape had, as people say, pulled him together. + +What was he to do? Manifestly this opalescent draught was +overpowering him. He ought never to have taken it. He ought to +have listened to the voice of his misgivings. It was clear that +he was not in a fit state to walk about the streets. He was-- +what had been Dr. Dale's term?--losing his sense of reality. +What was he to do? He was alarmed but not dismayed. His thoughts +were as full-bodied as the rest of his being, they came throbbing +and bumping into his mind. What was he to do? + +Brighton-Pomfrey ought never to have left his practice in the +hands of this wild-eyed experimenter. + +Strange that after a lifetime of discretion and men's respect +one should be standing on the Piccadilly pavement--intoxicated! + +It came into his head that he was not so very far from the +Athenaeum, and surely there if anywhere a bishop may recover his +sense of being--ordinary. + +And behind everything, behind the tall buildings and the +swarming people there was still the sense of a wide illuminated +space, of a light of wonder and a Presence. But he must not give +way to that again! He had already given way altogether too much. +He repeated to himself in a whisper, "I am in Piccadilly." + +If he kept tight hold upon himself he felt he might get to the +Athenaeum before--before anything more happened. + +He murmured directions to himself. "Keep along the pavement. +Turn to the right at the Circus. Now down the hill. Easily down +the hill. Don't float! Junior Army and Navy Stores. And the +bookseller." + +And presently he had a doubt of his name and began to repeat +it. + +"Edward Princhester. Edward Scrope, Lord Bishop of +Princhester." + +And all the while voices within him were asserting, "You are in +the kingdom of Heaven. You are in the presence of God. Place and +time are a texture of illusion and dreamland. Even now, you are +with God." + +(6) + + +The porter of the Athenaeum saw him come in, looking well-- +flushed indeed--but queer in expression; his blue eyes were +wide open and unusually vague and blue. + +He wandered across towards the dining-room, hesitated, went to +look at the news, seemed in doubt whether he would not go into +the smoking-room, and then went very slowly upstairs, past the +golden angel up to the great drawing-room. + +In the drawing-room he found only Sir James Mounce, the man who +knew the novels of Sir Walter Scott by heart and had the minutest +and most unsparing knowledge of every detail in the life of that +supreme giant of English literature. He had even, it was said, +acquired a Scotch burr in the enthusiasm of his hero-worship. It +was usually sufficient only to turn an ear towards him for him to +talk for an hour or so. He was now studying Bradshaw. + +The bishop snatched at him desperately. He felt that if he went +away there would be no hold left upon the ordinary things of +life. + +"Sir James," he said, "I was wondering the other day when was +the exact date of the earliest public ascription of Waverley to +Scott." + +"Eh!" said Sir James, "but I'd like to talk that over with ye. +Indeed I would. It would be depending very largely on what ye +called 'public.' But--" + +He explained something about an engagement in Birmingham that +night, a train to catch. Reluctantly but relentlessly he +abandoned the proffered ear. But he promised that the next time +they met in the club he would go into the matter "exhausteevely." + +The door closed upon him. The bishop was alone. He was flooded +with the light of the world that is beyond this world. The things +about him became very small and indistinct. + +He would take himself into a quiet corner in the library of +this doll's house, and sit his little body down in one of the +miniature armchairs. Then if he was going to faint or if the +trancelike feeling was to become altogether a trance--well, a +bishop asleep in an armchair in the library of the Athenaeum is +nothing to startle any one. + +He thought of that convenient hidden room, the North Library, +in which is the bust of Croker. There often one can be quite +alone.... It was empty, and he went across to the window that +looks out upon Pall Mall and sat down in the little uncomfortable +easy chair by the desk with its back to the Benvenuto Cellini. + +And as he sat down, something snapped--like the snapping of a +lute string--in his brain. + +(7) + + +With a sigh of deep relief the bishop realized that this world +had vanished. + +He was in a golden light. + +He perceived it as a place, but it was a place without +buildings or trees or any very definite features. There was a +cloudy suggestion of distant hills, and beneath his feet were +little gem-like flowers, and a feeling of divinity and infinite +friendliness pervaded his being. His impressions grew more +definite. His feet seemed to be bare. He was no longer a bishop +nor clad as a bishop. That had gone with the rest of the world. +He was seated on a slab of starry rock. + +This he knew quite clearly was the place of God. + +He was unable to disentangle thoughts from words. He seemed to +be speaking in his mind. + +"I have been very foolish and confused and perplexed. I have +been like a creature caught among thorns." + +"You served the purpose of God among those thorns." It seemed +to him at first that the answer also was among his thoughts. + +"I seemed so silly and so little. My wits were clay." + +"Clay full of desires." + +"Such desires!" + +"Blind desires. That will presently come to the light." + +"Shall we come to the light?" + +"But here it is, and you see it!" + +(8) + + +It became clearer in the mind of the bishop that a figure sat +beside him, a figure of great strength and beauty, with a smiling +face and kindly eyes. A strange thought and a strange courage +came to the bishop. + +"Tell me," he whispered, "are you God?" + +"I am the Angel of God." + +The bishop thought over that for some moments. + +"I want," he said, "to know about God. + +"I want," he said, with a deepening passion of the soul, "to +know about God. Slowly through four long years I have been +awakening to the need of God. Body and soul I am sick for the +want of God and the knowledge of God. I did not know what was the +matter with me, why my life had become so disordered and confused +that my very appetites and habits are all astray. But I am +perishing for God as a waterless man upon a raft perishes for +drink, and there is nothing but madness if I touch the seas about +me. Not only in my thoughts but in my under thoughts and in my +nerves and bones and arteries I have need of God. You see I grew +up in the delusion that I knew God, I did not know that I was +unprovisioned and unprovided against the tests and strains and +hardships of life. I thought that I was secure and safe. I was +told that we men--who were apes not a quarter of a million +years ago, who still have hair upon our arms and ape's teeth in +our jaws--had come to the full and perfect knowledge of God. It +was all put into a creed. Not a word of it was to be altered, not +a sentence was to be doubted any more. They made me a teacher of +this creed. They seemed to explain it to me. And when I came to +look into it, when my need came and I turned to my creed, it was +old and shrivelled up, it was the patched-up speculations of +vanished Greeks and Egyptians, it was a mummy of ancient +disputes, old and dry, that fell to dust as I unwrapped it. And I +was dressed up in the dress of old dead times and put before an +altar of forgotten sacrifices, and I went through ceremonies as +old as the first seedtime; and suddenly I knew clearly that God +was not there, God was not in my Creed, not in my cathedral, not +in my ceremonies, nowhere in my life. And at the same time I +knew, I knew as I had never known before, that certainly there +was God." + +He paused. "Tell me," said the friend at his side; "tell me." + +"It was as if a child running beside its mother, looked up and +saw that he had never seen her face before, that she was not his +mother, and that the words he had seemed to understand were-- +now that he listened--words in an unknown tongue. + +"You see, I am but a common sort of man, dear God; I have +neither lived nor thought in any way greatly, I have gone from +one day to the next day without looking very much farther than +the end of the day, I have gone on as life has befallen; if no +great trouble had come into my life, so I should have lived to +the end of my days. But life which began for me easily and safely +has become constantly more difficult and strange. I could have +held my services and given my benedictions, I could have believed +I believed in what I thought I believed.... But now I am lost and +astray--crying out for God...." + +(9) + + +"Let us talk a little about your troubles," said the Angel. +"Let us talk about God and this creed that worries you and this +church of yours." + +"I feel as though I had been struggling to this talk through +all the years--since my doubts began." + +"The story your Creed is trying to tell is much the same story +that all religions try to tell. In your heart there is God, +beyond the stars there is God. Is it the same God?" + +"I don't know," said the bishop. + +"Does any one know?" + +"I thought I knew." + +"Your creed is full of Levantine phrases and images, full of +the patched contradictions of the human intelligence utterly +puzzled. It is about those two Gods, the God beyond the stars and +the God in your heart. It says that they are the same God, but +different. It says that they have existed together for all time, +and that one is the Son of the other. It has added a third Person +--but we won't go into that." + +The bishop was reminded suddenly of the dispute at Mrs. +Garstein Fellows'. "We won't go into that," he agreed. "No!" + +"Other religions have told the story in a different way. The +Cathars and Gnostics did. They said that the God in your heart is +a rebel against the God beyond the stars, that the Christ in your +heart is like Prometheus--or Hiawatha--or any other of the +sacrificial gods, a rebel. He arises out of man. He rebels +against that high God of the stars and crystals and poisons and +monsters and of the dead emptiness of space.... The Manicheans +and the Persians made out our God to be fighting eternally +against that Being of silence and darkness beyond the stars. The +Buddhists made the Lord Buddha the leader of men out of the +futility and confusion of material existence to the great peace +beyond. But it is all one story really, the story of the two +essential Beings, always the same story and the same perplexity +cropping up under different names, the story of one being who +stirs us, calls to us, and leads us, and of another who is above +and outside and in and beneath all things, inaccessible and +incomprehensible. All these religions are trying to tell +something they do not clearly know--of a relationship between +these two, that eludes them, that eludes the human mind, as water +escapes from the hand. It is unity and opposition they have to +declare at the same time; it is agreement and propitiation, it is +infinity and effort." + +"And the truth?" said the bishop in an eager whisper. "You can +tell me the truth." + +The Angel's answer was a gross familiarity. He thrust his hand +through the bishop's hair and ruffled it affectionately, and +rested for a moment holding the bishop's cranium in his great +palm. + +"But can this hold it?" he said.... + +"Not with this little box of brains," said the Angel. "You +could as soon make a meal of the stars and pack them into your +belly. You haven't the things to do it with inside this." + +He gave the bishop's head a little shake and relinquished it. + +He began to argue as an elder brother might. + +"Isn't it enough for you to know something of the God that +comes down to the human scale, who has been born on your planet +and arisen out of Man, who is Man and God, your leader? He's more +than enough to fill your mind and use up every faculty of your +being. He is courage, he is adventure, he is the King, he fights +for you and with you against death...." + +"And he is not infinite? He is not the Creator?" asked the +bishop. + +"So far as you are concerned, no," said the Angel. + +"So far as I am concerned?" + +"What have you to do with creation?" + +And at that question it seemed that a great hand swept +carelessly across the blackness of the farther sky, and smeared +it with stars and suns and shining nebulas as a brush might smear +dry paint across a canvas. + +The bishop stared in front of him. Then slowly he bowed his +head, and covered his face with his hands. + +"And I have been in orders," he murmured; "I have been teaching +people the only orthodox and perfect truth about these things for +seven and twenty years." + +And suddenly he was back in his gaiters and his apron and his +shovel hat, a little black figure exceedingly small in a very +great space.... + +(10) + + +It was a very great space indeed because it was all space, and +the roof was the ebony of limitless space from which the stars +swung flaming, held by invisible ties, and the soil beneath his +feet was a dust of atoms and the little beginnings of life. And +long before the bishop bared his face again, he knew that he was +to see his God. + +He looked up slowly, fearing to be dazzled. + +But he was not dazzled. He knew that he saw only the likeness +and bodying forth of a being inconceivable, of One who is greater +than the earth and stars and yet no greater than a man. He saw a +being for ever young, for ever beginning, for ever triumphant. +The quality and texture of this being was a warm and living light +like the effulgence at sunrise; He was hope and courage like a +sunlit morning in spring. He was adventure for ever, and His +courage and adventure flowed into and submerged and possessed the +being of the man who beheld him. And this presence of God stood +over the bishop, and seemed to speak to him in a wordless speech. + +He bade him surrender himself. He bade him come out upon the +Adventure of Life, the great Adventure of the earth that will +make the atoms our bond-slaves and subdue the stars, that will +build up the white fires of ecstasy to submerge pain for ever, +that will overcome death. In Him the spirit of creation had +become incarnate, had joined itself to men, summoning men to Him, +having need of them, having need of them, having need of their +service, even as great kings and generals and leaders need and +use men. For a moment, for an endless age, the bishop bowed +himself in the being and glory of God, felI the glow of the +divine courage and confidence in his marrow, felt himself one +with God. + +For a timeless interval.... + +Never had the bishop had so intense a sense of reality. It +seemed that never before had he known anything real. He knew +certainly that God was his King and master, and that his unworthy +service could be acceptable to God. His mind embraced that idea +with an absolute conviction that was also absolute happiness. + +(11) + + +The thoughts and sensations of the bishop seemed to have lifted +for a time clean away from the condition of time, and then +through a vast orbit to be returning to that limitation. + +He was aware presently that things were changing, that the +light was losing its diviner rays, that in some indescribable +manner the glory and the assurance diminished. + +The onset of the new phase was by imperceptible degrees. From a +glowing, serene, and static realization of God, everything +relapsed towards change and activity. He was in time again and +things were happening, it was as if the quicksands of time poured +by him, and it was as if God was passing away from him. He fell +swiftly down from the heaven of self-forgetfulness to a +grotesque, pathetic and earthly self-consciousness. + +He became acutely aware of his episcopal livery. And that God +was passing away from him. + +It was as if God was passing, and as if the bishop was unable +to rise up and follow him. + +Then it was as if God had passed, and as if the bishop was in +headlong pursuit of him and in a great terror lest he should be +left behind. And he was surely being left behind. + +He discovered that in some unaccountable way his gaiters were +loose; most of their buttons seemed to have flown off, and his +episcopal sash had slipped down about his feet. He was sorely +impeded. He kept snatching at these things as he ran, in clumsy +attempts to get them off. + +At last he had to stop altogether and kneel down and fumble +with the last obstinate button. + +"Oh God!" he cried, "God my captain! Wait for me! Be patient +with me!" + +And as he did so God turned back and reached out his hand. It +was indeed as if he stood and smiled. He stood and smiled as a +kind man might do; he dazzled and blinded his worshipper, and yet +it was manifest that he had a hand a man might clasp. + +Unspeakable love and joy irradiated the whole being of the +bishop as he seized God's hand and clasped it desperately with +both his own. It was as if his nerves and arteries and all his +substance were inundated with golden light.... + +It was again as if he merged with God and became God.... + + + + +CHAPTER THE SIXTH - EXEGETICAL + +(1) + + +WITHOUT any sense of transition the bishop found himself +seated in the little North Library of the Athenaeum club and +staring at the bust of John Wilson Croker. He was sitting +motionless and musing deeply. He was questioning with a cool and +steady mind whether he had seen a vision or whether he had had a +dream. If it had been a dream it had been an extraordinarily +vivid and convincing dream. He still seemed to be in the presence +of God, and it perplexed him not at all that he should also be in +the presence of Croker. The feeling of mental rottenness and +insecurity that had weakened his thought through the period of +his illness, had gone. He was secure again within himself. + +It did not seem to matter fundamentally whether it was an +experience of things without or of things within him that had +happened to him. It was clear to him that much that he had seen +was at most expressive, that some was altogether symbolical. For +example, there was that sudden absurd realization of his sash and +gaiters, and his perception of them as encumbrances in his +pursuit of God. But the setting and essential of the whole thing +remained in his mind neither expressive nor symbolical, but as +real and immediately perceived, and that was the presence and +kingship of God. God was still with him and about him and over +him and sustaining him. He was back again in his world and his +ordinary life, in his clothing and his body and his club, but God +had been made and remained altogether plain and manifest. + +Whether an actual vision had made his conviction, or whether +the conviction of his own subconscious mind had made the dream, +seemed but a small matter beside the conviction that this was +indeed the God he had desired and the God who must rule his life. + +"The stuff? The stuff had little to do with it. It just cleared +my head.... I have seen. I have seen really. I know." + +(2) + + +For a long time as it seemed the bishop remained wrapped in +clouds of luminous meditation. Dream or vision it did not +matter; the essential thing was that he had made up his mind +about God, he had found God. Moreover, he perceived that his +theological perplexities had gone. God was higher and simpler and +nearer than any theological God, than the God of the Three +Creeds. Those creeds lay about in his mind now like garments +flung aside, no trace nor suspicion of divinity sustained them +any longer. And now--Now he would go out into the world. + +The little Library of the Athenaeum has no visible door. He +went to the book-masked entrance in the corner, and felt among +the bookshelves for the hidden latch. Then he paused, held by a +curious thought. What exactly was the intention of that +symbolical struggle with his sash and gaiters, and why had they +impeded his pursuit of God? + +To what particularly significant action was he going out? + +The Three Creeds were like garments flung aside. But he was +still wearing the uniform of a priest in the service of those +three creeds. + +After a long interval he walked into the big reading-room. He +ordered some tea and dry toast and butter, and sat down very +thoughtfully in a corner. He was still sitting and thinking at +half-past eight. + +It may seem strange to the reader that this bishop who had been +doubting and criticizing the church and his system of beliefs for +four long years had never before faced the possibility of a +severance from his ecclesiastical dignity. But he had grown up in +the church, his life had been so entirely clerical and Anglican, +that the widest separation he had hitherto been able to imagine +from this past had left him still a bishop, heretical perhaps, +innovating in the broadening of beliefs and the liberalizing of +practice, defensive even as Chasters was defensive, but still +with the palace and his dignities, differing in opinion rather +than in any tangible reality from his previous self. For a +bishop, disbelief in the Church is a far profounder scepticism +than mere disbelief in God. God is unseen, and in daily things +unfelt; but the Church is with the predestined bishop always. His +concept of the extremest possible departure from orthodoxy had +been something that Chasters had phrased as "a restatement of +Christ." It was a new idea, an idea that had come with an immense +effect of severance and novelty, that God could be other than the +God of the Creed, could present himself to the imagination as a +figure totally unlike the white, gentle, and compromising +Redeemer of an Anglican's thought. That the bishop should treat +the whole teaching of the church and the church itself as wrong, +was an idea so new that it fell upon him now like a thunderbolt +out of a cloudless sky. But here, clear in his mind now, was a +feeling, amounting to conviction, that it was the purpose and +gesture of the true God that he should come right out of the +church and all his professions. + +And in the first glow of his vision he felt this gesture +imperative. He must step right out.... Whither? how? And when? + +To begin with it seemed to him that an immediate renunciation +was demanded. But it was a momentous step. He wanted to think. +And to go on thinking. Rather than to act precipitately. Although +the imperative seemed absolute, some delaying and arresting +instinct insisted that he must "think" If he went back to +Princhester, the everyday duties of his position would confront +him at once with an effect of a definite challenge. He decided to +take one of the Reform club bedrooms for two or three days, and +wire to Princhester that he was "unavoidably delayed in town," +without further explanations. Then perhaps this inhibitory force +would give way. + +It did not, however, give way. His mind sat down for two days +in a blank amazement at the course before him, and at the end of +that time this reasonless and formless institution was as strong +as ever. During that time, except for some incidental exchanges +at his clubs, he talked to no one. At first he did not want to +talk to any one. He remained mentally and practically active, +with a still intensely vivid sense that God, the true God, stood +watching him and waiting for him to follow. And to follow meant +slipping right out of all the world he had ever known. To thrust +his foot right over the edge of a cliff would scarcely have +demanded more from the bishop's store of resolution. He stood on +the very verge. The chief secretion of his mind was a shadowy +experiment or so in explanation of why he did not follow. + +(3) + + +Insensibly the extreme vividness of his sense of God's nearness +decreased. But he still retained a persuasion of the reality of +an immediate listener waiting, and of the need of satisfying him. + +On the third day he found his mind still further changed. He no +longer felt that God was in Pall Mall or St. James's Park, +whither he resorted to walk and muse. He felt now that God was +somewhere about the horizon.... + +He felt too no longer that he thought straight into the mind of +God. He thought now of what he would presently say to God. He +turned over and rehearsed phrases. With that came a desire to try +them first on some other hearer. And from that to the attentive +head of Lady Sunderbund, prettily bent towards him, was no great +leap. She would understand, if any one could understand, the +great change that had happened in his mind. + +He found her address in the telephone book. She could be quite +alone to him if he wouldn't mind "just me." It was, he said, +exactly what he desired. + +But when he got to her great airy flat overlooking Hyde Park, +with its Omega Workshop furniture and its arresting decoration, +he was not so sure whether this encounter was so exactly the +thing he had desired as he had supposed. + +The world had become opaque and real again as he walked up St. +James's Street and past the Ritz. He had a feeling that he was +taking an afternoon off from God. The adventurous modernity of +the room in which he waited intensified that. One whole white +wall was devoted to a small picture by Wyndham Lewis. It was like +a picture of an earthquake in a city of aniline pink and grey and +keen green cardboard, and he wished it had never existed. + +He turned his back upon it and stared out of the window over +the trees and greenery. The balcony was decorated with white and +pink geraniums in pots painted black and gold, and the railings +of the balcony were black and gold with crimson shape like +squares wildly out of drawing. + +Lady Sunderbund kept him waiting perhaps five minutes. Then she +came sailing in to him. + +She was dressed in a way and moved across the room in a way +that was more reminiscent of Botticelli's Spring than ever-- +only with a kind of superadded stiffish polonaise of lace--and +he did not want to be reminded of Botticelli's Spring or wonder +why she had taken to stiff lace polonaises. He did not enquire +whether he had met Lady Sunderbund to better advantage at Mrs. +Garstein Fellows' or whether his memory had overrated her or +whether anything had happened to his standard of taste, but his +feeling now was decidedly one of disappointment, and all the talk +and self-examination he had promised himself seemed to wither and +hide away within him. For a time he talked of her view, and then +admired her room and its arrangement, which he thought really +were quite unbecomingly flippant and undignified for a room. Then +came the black tea-things on their orange tray, and he searched +in his mind for small talk to sustain their interview. + +But he had already betrayed his disposition to "go on with our +talk" in his telephone enquiry, and Lady Sunderbund, perceiving +his shyness, began to make openings for him, at first just little +hinting openings, and then larger and larger ones, until at last +one got him. + +"I'm so glad," she said, "to see you again. I'm so glad to go +on with oua talk. I've thought about it and thought about it." + +She beamed at him happily. + +"I've thought ova ev'y wo'd you said," she went on, when she +had finished conveying her pretty bliss to him. "I've been so +helped by thinking the k'eeds are symbols. And all you said. And +I've felt time after time, you couldn't stay whe' you we'. That +what you we' saying to me, would have to be said 'ight out." + +That brought him in. He could not very well evade that opening +without incivility. After all he had asked to see her, and it was +a foolish thing to let little decorative accidentals put him off +his friendly purpose. A woman may have flower-pots painted gold +with black checkers and still be deeply understanding. He +determined to tell her what was in his mind. But he found +something barred him from telling that he had had an actual +vision of God. It was as if that had been a private and +confidential meeting. It wasn't, he felt, for him either to boast +a privilege or tell others of things that God had not chosen to +show them. + +"Since I saw you," he said, "I have thought a great deal--of +the subject of our conversation." + +"I have been t'ying to think," she said in a confirmatory tone, +as if she had co-operated. + +"My faith in God grows," he said. + +She glowed. Her lips fell apart. She flamed attention. + +"But it grows less like the faith of the church, less and less. +I was born and trained in Anglicanism, and it is with a sort of +astonishment I find myself passing now out of every sort of +Catholicism--seeing it from the outside...." + +"Just as one might see Buddhism," she supplied. + +"And yet feeling nearer Ä infinitely nearer to God," he said. + +"Yes," she panted; "yes." + +"I thought if one went out, one went out just to doubt and +darkness." + +"And you don't?" + +"No." + +"You have gone at one step to a new 'iligion!" + +He stared for a moment at the phrase. + +"To religion," he said. + +"It is so wondyful," she said, with her hands straight down +upon the couch upon which she was sitting, and leaning forward at +him, so as to seem almost as much out of drawing as a modern +picture. + +"It seems," he reflected; "--as if it were a natural thing." + +She came back to earth very slowly. She turned to the +tea-things with hushed and solemn movements as though she +administered a ceremony of peculiar significance. The bishop too +rose slowly out of the profundity of his confession. "No sugar +please," he said, arresting the lump in mid air. + +It was only when they were embarked upon cups of tea and had a +little refreshed themselves, that she carried the talk further. + +"Does it mean that you must leave the church?" she asked. + +"It seemed so at first," he said. "But now I do not know. I do +not know what I ought to do." + +She awaited his next thought. + +"It is as if one had lived in a room all one's life and thought +it the world--and then suddenly walked out through a door and +discovered the sea and the mountains and stars. So it was with me +and the Anglican Church. It seems so extraordinary now--and it +would have seemed the most natural thing a year ago--to think +that I ever believed that the Anglican Compromise was the final +truth of religion, that nothing more until the end of the world +could ever be known that Cosmo Gordon Lang did not know, that +there could be no conception of God and his quality that Randall +Davidson did not possess." + +He paused. + +"I did," he said. + +"I did," she responded with round blue eyes of wonder. + +"At the utmost the Church of England is a tabernacle on a +road." + +"A 'oad that goes whe'?" she rhetorized. + +"Exactly," said the bishop, and put down his cup. + +"You see, my dear Lady Sunderbund," he resumed, "I am exactly +in the same position of that man at the door." + +She quoted aptly and softly: "The wo'ld was all befo' them whe' +to choose." + +He was struck by the aptness of the words. + +"I feel I have to come right out into the bare truth. What +exactly then do I become? Do I lose my priestly function because +I discover how great God is? But what am I to do?" + +He opened a new layer of his thoughts to her. + +"There is a saying," he remarked, "once a priest, always a +priest. I cannot imagine myself as other than what I am." + +"But o'thodox no maw," she said. + +"Orthodox--self-satisfied, no longer. A priest who seeks, an +exploring priest." + +"In a Chu'ch of P'og'ess and B'othe'hood," she carried him on. + +"At any rate, in a progressive and learning church." + +She flashed and glowed assent. + +"I have been haunted," he said, "by those words spoken at +Athens. 'Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto +you.' That comes to me with an effect of--guidance is an +old-fashioned word--shall I say suggestion? To stand by the +altar bearing strange names and ancient symbols, speaking plainly +to all mankind of the one true God--!" + +(4) + + +He did not get much beyond this point at the time, though he +remained talking with Lady Sunderbund for nearly an hour longer. +The rest was merely a beating out of what had already been said. +But insensibly she renewed her original charm, and as he became +accustomed to her he forgot a certain artificiality in her manner +and the extreme modernity of her costume and furniture. She was a +wonderful listener; nobody else could have helped him to +expression in quite the same way, and when he left her he felt +that now he was capable of stating his case in a coherent and +acceptable form to almost any intelligent hearer. He had a point +of view now that was no longer embarrassed by the immediate +golden presence of God; he was no longer dazzled nor ecstatic; +his problem had diminished to the scale of any other great human +problem, to the scale of political problems and problems of +integrity and moral principle, problems about which there is no +such urgency as there is about a house on fire, for example. + +And now the desire for expression was running strong. He wanted +to state his situation; if he did not state he would have to act; +and as he walked back to the club dinner he turned over possible +interlocutors in his thoughts. Lord Rampound sat with him at +dinner, and he came near broaching the subject with him. But Lord +Rampound that evening had that morbid running of bluish legal +anecdotes which is so common an affliction with lawyers, and +theology sinks and dies in that turbid stream. + +But as he lay in bed that night he thought of his old friend +and helper Bishop Likeman, and it was borne in upon him that he +should consult him. And this he did next day. + +Since the days when the bishop had been only plain Mr. Scrope, +the youngest and most helpful of Likeman's historical band of +curates, their friendship had continued. Likeman had been a +second father to him; in particular his tact and helpfulness had +shone during those days of doubt and anxiety when dear old Queen +Victoria, God's representative on earth, had obstinately refused, +at the eleventh hour, to make him a bishop. She had those +pigheaded fits, and she was touchy about the bishops. She had +liked Scrope on account of the excellence of his German +pronunciation, but she had been irritated by newspaper paragraphs +--nobody could ever find out who wrote them and nobody could +ever find out who showed them to the old lady--anticipating his +elevation. She had gone very red in the face and stiffened in the +Guelphic manner whenever Scrope was mentioned, and so a rich +harvest of spiritual life had remained untilled for some months. +Likeman had brought her round. + +It seemed arguable that Scrope owed some explanation to Likeman +before he came to any open breach with the Establishment. + +He found Likeman perceptibly older and more shrivelled on +account of the war, but still as sweet and lucid and subtle as +ever. His voice sounded more than ever like a kind old woman's. + +He sat buried in his cushions--for "nowadays I must save +every scrap of vitality"--and for a time contented himself with +drawing out his visitor's story. + +Of course, one does not talk to Likeman of visions or +intuitions. "I am disturbed, I find myself getting out of touch;" +that was the bishop's tone. + +Occasionally Likeman nodded slowly, as a physician might do at +the recital of familiar symptoms. "Yes," he said, "I have been +through most of this.... A little different in the +inessentials.... How clear you are!" + +"You leave our stupid old Trinities--as I left them long +ago," said old Likeman, with his lean hand feeling and clawing at +the arm of his chair. + +"But--!" + +The old man raised his hand and dropped it. "You go away from +it all--straight as a line. I did. You take the wings of the +morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth. And there +you find--" + +He held up a lean finger, and inclined it to tick off each +point. + +"Fate--which is God the Father, the Power of the Heart, which +is God the Son, and that Light which comes in upon us from the +inaccessible Godhead, which is God the Holy Spirit." + +"But I know of no God the Holy Spirit, and Fate is not God at +all. I saw in my vision one sole God, uncrucified, militant-- +conquering and to conquer." + +Old Likeman stared. "You saw!" + +The Bishop of Princhester had not meant to go so far. But he +stuck to his words. "As if I saw with my eyes. A God of light and +courage." + +"You have had visions, Scrope?" + +"I seemed to see." + +"No, you have just been dreaming dreams." + +"But why should one not see?" + +"See! The things of the spirit. These symbols as realities! +These metaphors as men walking!" + +"You talk like an agnostic." + +"We are all agnostics. Our creeds are expressions of ourselves +and our attitude and relationship to the unknown. The triune God +is just the form of our need and disposition. I have always +assumed that you took that for granted. Who has ever really seen +or heard or felt God? God is neither of the senses nor of the +mind; he is of the soul. You are realistic, you are +materialistic...." + +His voice expostulated. + +The Bishop of Princhester reflected. The vision of God was far +off among his memories now, and difficult to recall. But he said +at last: "I believe there is a God and that he is as real a +person as you or I. And he is not the theological God we set out +before the world." + +"Personification," said Likeman. "In the eighteenth century +they used to draw beautiful female figures as Science and +Mathematics. Young men have loved Science--and Freedom--as +Pygmalion loved Galatea. Have it so if you will. Have a visible +person for your Deity. But let me keep up my--spirituality." + +"Your spirituality seems as thin as a mist. Do you really +believe--anything?" + +"Everything!" said Likeman emphatically, sitting up with a +transitory vigour. "Everything we two have ever professed +together. I believe that the creeds of my church do express all +that can possibly be expressed in the relationship of--That "-- +he made a comprehensive gesture with a twist of his hand upon its +wrist--"to the human soul. I believe that they express it as +well as the human mind can express it. Where they seem to be +contradictory or absurd, it is merely that the mystery is +paradoxical. I believe that the story of the Fall and of the +Redemption is a complete symbol, that to add to it or to subtract +from it or to alter it is to diminish its truth; if it seems +incredible at this point or that, then simply I admit my own +mental defect. And I believe in our Church, Scrope, as the +embodied truth of religion, the divine instrument in human +affairs. I believe in the security of its tradition, in the +complete and entire soundness of its teaching, in its essential +authority and divinity." + +He paused, and put his head a little on one side and smiled +sweetly. "And now can you say I do not believe?" + +"But the historical Christ, the man Jesus?" + +"A life may be a metaphor. Why not? Yes, I believe it all. +All." + +The Bishop of Princhester was staggered by this complete +acceptance. "I see you believe all you profess," he said, and +remained for a moment or so rallying his forces. + +"Your vision--if it was a vision--I put it to you, was just +some single aspect of divinity," said Likeman. "We make a mistake +in supposing that Heresy has no truth in it. Most heresies are +only a disproportionate apprehension of some essential truth. +Most heretics are men who have suddenly caught a glimpse through +the veil of some particular verity.... They are dazzled by that +aspect. All the rest has vanished.... They are obsessed. You are +obsessed clearly by this discovery of the militancy of God. God +the Son--as Hero. And you want to go out to the simple worship +of that one aspect. You want to go out to a Dissenter's tent in +the wilderness, instead of staying in the Great Temple of the +Ages." + +Was that true? + +For some moments it sounded true. + +The Bishop of Princhester sat frowning and looking at that. +Very far away was the vision now of that golden Captain who bade +him come. Then at a thought the bishop smiled. + +"The Great Temple of the Ages," he repeated. "But do you +remember the trouble we had when the little old Queen was so +pigheaded?" + +"Oh! I remember, I remember," said Likeman, smiling with +unshaken confidence. "Why not?" + +"For sixty years all we bishops in what you call the Great +Temple of the Ages, were appointed and bullied and kept in our +places by that pink irascible bit of dignity. I remember how at +the time I didn't dare betray my boiling indignation even to you +--I scarcely dared admit it to myself...." + +He paused. + +"It doesn't matter at all," and old Likeman waved it aside. + +"Not at all," he confirmed, waving again. + +"I spoke of the whole church of Christ on earth," he went on. +"These things, these Victorias and Edwards and so on, are +temporary accidents--just as the severance of an Anglican from +a Roman communion and a Greek orthodox communion are temporary +accidents. You will remark that wise men in all ages have been +able to surmount the difficulty of these things. Why? Because +they knew that in spite of all these splits and irregularities +and defacements--like the cracks and crannies and lichens on a +cathedral wall--the building held good, that it was shelter and +security. There is no other shelter and security. And so I come +to your problem. Suppose it is true that you have this incidental +vision of the militant aspect of God, and he isn't, as you see +him now that is,--he isn't like the Trinity, he isn't like the +Creed, he doesn't seem to be related to the Church, then comes +the question, are you going out for that? And whither do you go +if you do go out? The Church remains. We alter doctrines not by +changing the words but by shifting the accent. We can +underÄaccentuate below the threshold of consciousness." + +"But can we?" + +"We do. Where's Hell now? Eighty years ago it warmed the whole +Church. It was--as some atheist or other put it the other day +--the central heating of the soul. But never mind that point +now. Consider the essential question, the question of breaking +with the church. Ask yourself, whither would you go? To become an +oddity! A Dissenter. A Negative. Self emasculated. The spirit +that denies. You would just go out. You would just cease to serve +Religion. That would be all. You wouldn't do anything. The Church +would go on; everything else would go on. Only you would be lost +in the outer wilderness. + +"But then--" + +Old Likeman leant forward and pointed a bony finger. "Stay in +the Church and modify it. Bring this new light of yours to the +altar." + +There was a little pause. + +"No man," the bishop thought aloud, "putteth new wine into old +bottles." + +Old Likeman began to speak and had a fit of coughing. "Some of +these texts--whuff, whuff--like a conjuror's hat--whuff-- +make 'em--fit anything." + +A man-servant appeared and handed a silver box of lozenges into +which the old bishop dipped with a trembling hand. + +"Tricks of that sort," he said, "won't do, Scrope--among +professionals. + +"And besides," he was inspired; "true religion is old wine-- +as old as the soul. + +"You are a bishop in the Church of Christ on Earth," he summed +it up. "And you want to become a detached and wandering Ancient +Mariner from your shipwreck of faith with something to explain-- +that nobody wants to hear. You are going out I suppose you have +means?" + +The old man awaited the answer to his abrupt enquiry with a +handful of lozenges. + +"No," said the Bishop of Princhester, "practically--I +haven't." + +"My dear boy!" it was as if they were once more rector and +curate. "My dear brother! do you know what the value of an +ex-bishop is in the ordinary labour market?" + +"I have never thought of that." + +"Evidently. You have a wife and children?" + +"Five daughters." + +"And your wife married you--I remember, she married you soon +after you got that living in St. John's Wood. I suppose she took +it for granted that you were fixed in an ecclesiastical career. +That was implicit in the transaction." + +"I haven't looked very much at that side of the matter yet," +said the Bishop of Princhester. + +"It shouldn't be a decisive factor," said Bishop Likeman, "not +decisive. But it will weigh. It should weigh...." + +The old man opened out fresh aspects of the case. His argument +was for delay, for deliberation. He went on to a wider set of +considerations. A man who has held the position of a bishop for +some years is, he held, no longer a free man in matters of +opinion. He has become an official part of a great edifice which +supports the faith of multitudes of simple and dependant +believers. He has no right to indulge recklessly in intellectual +and moral integrities. He may understand, but how is the flock to +understand? He may get his own soul clear, but what will happen +to them? He will just break away their supports, astonish them, +puzzle them, distress them, deprive them of confidence, convince +them of nothing. + +"Intellectual egotism may be as grave a sin," said Bishop +Likeman, "as physical selfishness. + +"Assuming even that you are absolutely right," said Bishop +Likeman, "aren't you still rather in the position of a man who +insists upon Swedish exercises and a strengthening dietary on a +raft?" + +"I think you have made out a case for delay," said his hearer. + +"Three months." + +The Bishop of Princhester conceded three months. + +"Including every sort of service. Because, after all, even +supposing it is damnable to repeat prayers and creeds you do not +believe in, and administer sacraments you think superstition, +nobody can be damned but yourself. On the other hand if you +express doubts that are not yet perfectly digested--you +experiment with the souls of others...." + +(5) + + +The bishop found much to ponder in his old friend's counsels. +They were discursive and many-fronted, and whenever he seemed to +be penetrating or defeating the particular considerations under +examination the others in the background had a way of appearing +invincible. He had a strong persuasion that Likeman was wrong-- +and unanswerable. And the true God now was no more than the +memory of a very vividly realized idea. It was clear to the +bishop that he was no longer a churchman or in the generally +accepted sense of the word a Christian, and that he was bound to +come out of the church. But all sense of urgency had gone. It was +a matter demanding deliberation and very great consideration for +others. + +He took no more of Dale's stuff because he felt bodily sound +and slept well. And he was now a little shy of this potent fluid. +He went down to Princhester the next day, for his compromise of +an interval of three months made it seem possible to face his +episcopal routine again. It was only when he was back in his own +palace that the full weight of his domestic responsibilities in +the discussion of the course he had to take, became apparent. + +Lady Ella met him with affection and solicitude. + +"I was tired and mentally fagged," he said. "A day or so in +London had an effect of change." + +She agreed that he looked much better, and remained for a +moment or so scrutinizing him with the faint anxiety of one +resolved to be completely helpful. + +He regarded her with a renewed sense of her grace and dignity +and kindliness. She was wearing a grey dress of soft silky +material, touched with blue and covered with what seemed to him +very rich and beautiful lace; her hair flowed back very +graciously from her broad brow, and about her wrist and neck were +delicate lines of gold. She seemed tremendously at home and right +just where she was, in that big hospitable room, cultured but +Anglican, without pretensions or novelties, with a glow of bound +books, with the grand piano that Miriam, his third daughter, was +beginning to play so well, with the tea equipage of shining +silver and fine porcelain. + +He sat down contentedly in the low armchair beside her. + +It wasn't a setting that one would rashly destroy.... + +And that evening at dinner this sense of his home as a complex +of finely adjusted things not to be rashly disturbed was still +more in the mind of the bishop. At dinner he had all his +domesticities about him. It was the family time, from eight until +ten, at which latter hour he would usually go back from the +drawing-room to his study. He surveyed the table. Eleanor was at +home for a few days, looking a little thin and bright but very +keen and happy. She had taken a first in the first part of the +Moral Science Tripos, and she was working hard now for part two. +Clementina was to go back to Newnham with her next September. She +aspired to history. Miriam's bent was musical. She and Phoebe and +Daphne and Clementina were under the care of skilful Mademoiselle +Lafarge, most tactful of Protestant French-women, Protestant and +yet not too Protestant, one of those rare French Protestants in +whom a touch of Bergson and the Pasteur Monod + + + "scarce suspected, animates the whole." + +And also they had lessons, so high are our modern standards of +education, from Mr. Blent, a brilliant young mathematician in +orders, who sat now next to Lady Ella. Mr. Whippham, the +chaplain, was at the bishop's right hand, ready for any chance of +making arrangements to clear off the small arrears of duty the +little holiday in London had accumulated. The bishop surveyed all +these bright young people between himself and the calm beauty of +his wife. He spoke first to one and then another upon the things +that interested them. It rejoiced his heart to be able to give +them education and opportunity, it pleased him to see them in +clothes that he knew were none the less expensive because of +their complete simplicity. Miriam and Mr. Blent wrangled +pleasantly about Debussy, and old Dunk waited as though in orders +of some rare and special sort that qualified him for this +service. + +All these people, the bishop reflected, counted upon him that +this would go on.... + +Eleanor was answering some question of her mother's. They were +so oddly alike and so curiously different, and both in their +several ways so fine. Eleanor was dark like his own mother. +Perhaps she did a little lack Lady Ella's fine reserves; she +could express more, she could feel more acutely, she might easily +be very unhappy or very happy.... + +All these people counted on him. It was indeed acutely true, as +Likeman had said, that any sudden breach with his position would +be a breach of faith--so far as they were concerned. + +And just then his eye fell upon the epergne, a very old and +beautiful piece of silver, that graced the dinner-table. It had +been given him, together with an episcopal ring, by his curates +and choristers at the Church of the Holy Innocents, when he +became bishop of Pinner. When they gave it him, had any one of +them dreamt that some day he might be moved to strike an +ungracious blow at the mother church that had reared them all? + +It was his custom to join the family in the drawing-room after +dinner. To-night he was a little delayed by Whippham, with some +trivialities about next month's confirmations in Pringle and +Princhester. When he came in he found Miriam playing, and playing +very beautifully one of those later sonatas of Beethoven, he +could never remember whether it was Of. 109 or Of. 111, but he +knew that he liked it very much; it was solemn and sombre with +phases of indescribable sweetness--while Clementina, Daphne +and Mademoiselle Lafarge went on with their war knitting and +Phoebe and Mr. Blent bent their brows over chess. Eleanor was +reading the evening paper. Lady Ella sat on a high chair by the +coffee things, and he stood in the doorway surveying the peaceful +scene for a moment or so, before he went across the room and sat +down on the couch close to her. + +"You look tired," she whispered softly. + +"Worries." + +"That Chasters case?" + +"Things developing out of that. I must tell you later." It +would be, he felt, a good way of breaking the matter to her. + +"Is the Chasters case coming on again, Daddy?" asked Eleanor. + +He nodded. + +"It's a pity," she said. + +"What ? + +"That he can't be left alone." + +"It's Sir Reginald Phipps. The Church would be much more +tolerant if it wasn't for the House of Laymen. But they--they +feel they must do something." + +He seized the opportunity of the music ceasing to get away from +the subject. "Miriam dear," he asked, raising his voice; "is that +109 or 111? I can never tell." + +"That is always 111, Daddy," said Miriam. "It's the other one +is 109." And then evidently feeling that she had been pert: +"Would you like me to play you 109, Daddy?" + +"I should love it, my dear." And he leant back and prepared to +listen in such a thorough way that Eleanor would have no chance +of discussing the Chasters' heresies. But this was interrupted by +the consummation of the coffee, and Mr. Blent, breaking a long +silence with "Mate in three, if I'm not mistaken," leapt to his +feet to be of service. Eleanor, with the rough seriousness of +youth, would not leave the Chasters case alone. + +"But need you take action against Mr. Chasters?" she asked at +once. + +"It's a very complicated subject, my dear," he said. + +"His arguments?" + +"The practical considerations." + +"But what are practical considerations in such a case?" + +"That's a post-graduate subject, Norah," her father said with a +smile and a sigh. + +"But," began Eleanor, gathering fresh forces. + +"Daddy is tired," Lady Ella intervened, patting him on the +head. + +"Oh, terribly!--of that," he said, and so escaped Eleanor for +the evening. + +But he knew that before very long he would have to tell his +wife of the changes that hung over their lives; it would be +shabby to let the avalanche fall without giving the longest +possible warning; and before they parted that night he took her +hands in his and said: "There is much I have to tell you, dear. +Things change, the whole world changes. The church must not live +in a dream.... + +"No," she whispered. "I hope you will sleep to-night," and held +up her grave sweet face to be kissed. + +(6) + + +But he did not sleep perfectly that night. + +He did not sleep indeed very badly, but he lay for some time +thinking, thinking not onward but as if he pressed his mind +against very strong barriers that had closed again. His vision of +God which had filled the heavens, had become now gem-like, a +minute, hard, clear-cut conviction in his mind that he had to +disentangle himself from the enormous complications of symbolism +and statement and organization and misunderstanding in the church +and achieve again a simple and living worship of a simple and +living God. Likeman had puzzled and silenced him, only upon +reflection to convince him that amidst such intricacies of +explanation the spirit cannot live. Creeds may be symbolical, but +symbols must not prevaricate. A church that can symbolize +everything and anything means nothing. + +It followed from this that he ought to leave the church. But +there came the other side of this perplexing situation. His +feelings as he lay in his bed were exactly like those one has in +a dream when one wishes to run or leap or shout and one can +achieve no movement, no sound. He could not conceive how he could +possibly leave the church. + +His wife became as it were the representative of all that held +him helpless. She and he had never kept secret from one another +any plan of action, any motive, that affected the other. It was +clear to him that any movement towards the disavowal of doctrinal +Christianity and the renunciation of his see must be first +discussed with her. He must tell her before he told the world. + +And he could not imagine his telling her except as an +incredibly shattering act. + +So he left things from day to day, and went about his episcopal +routines. He preached and delivered addresses in such phrases as +he knew people expected, and wondered profoundly why it was that +it should be impossible for him to discuss theological points +with Lady Ella. And one afternoon he went for a walk with Eleanor +along the banks of the Prin, and found himself, in response to +certain openings of hers, talking to her in almost exactly the +same terms as Likeman had used to him. + +Then suddenly the problem of this theological eclaircissement +was complicated in an unexpected fashion. + +He had just been taking his Every Second Thursday Talk with +Diocesan Men Helpers. He had been trying to be plain and simple +upon the needless narrowness of enthusiastic laymen. He was still +in the Bishop Andrews cap and purple cassock he affected on these +occasions; the Men Helpers loved purple; and he was disentangling +himself from two or three resolute bores--for our loyal laymen +can be at times quite superlative bores--when Miriam came to +him. + +"Mummy says, 'Come to the drawing-room if you can.' There is a +Lady Sunderbund who seems particularly to want to see you." + +He hesitated for a moment, and then decided that this was a +conversation he ought to control. + +He found Lady Sunderbund looking very tall and radiantly +beautiful in a sheathlike dress of bright crimson trimmed with +snow-white fur and a white fur toque. She held out a long +white-gloved hand to him and cried in a tone of comradeship and +profound understanding: "I've come, Bishop!" + +"You've come to see me?" he said without any sincerity in his +polite pleasure. + +"I've come to P'inchesta to stay!" she cried with a bright +triumphant rising note. + +She evidently considered Lady Ella a mere conversational +stop-gap, to be dropped now that the real business could be +commenced. She turned her pretty profile to that lady, and +obliged the bishop with a compact summary of all that had +preceded his arrival. "I have been telling Lady Ella," she said, +"I've taken a house, fu'nitua and all! Hea. In P'inchesta! I've +made up my mind to sit unda you--as they say in Clapham. I've +come 'ight down he' fo' good. I've taken a little house--oh! a +sweet little house that will be all over 'oses next month. I'm +living f'om 'oom to 'oom and having the othas done up. It's in +that little quiet st'eet behind you' ga'den wall. And he' I am!" + +"Is it the old doctor's house?" asked Lady Ella. + +"Was it an old docta?" cried Lady Sunderbund. "How delightful! +And now I shall be a patient!" + +She concentrated upon the bishop. + +"Oh, I've been thinking all the time of all the things you told +me. Ova and ova. It's all so wondyful and so--so like a G'ate +Daw opening. New light. As if it was all just beginning." + +She clasped her hands. + +The bishop felt that there were a great number of points to +this situation, and that it was extremely difficult to grasp them +all at once. But one that seemed of supreme importance to his +whirling intelligence was that Lady Ella should not know that he +had gone to relieve his soul by talking to Lady Sunderbund in +London. It had never occurred to him at the time that there was +any shadow of disloyalty to Lady Ella in his going to Lady +Sunderbund, but now he realized that this was a thing that would +annoy Lady Ella extremely. The conversation had in the first +place to be kept away from that. And in the second place it had +to be kept away from the abrupt exploitation of the new +theological developments. + +He felt that something of the general tension would be relieved +if they could all three be got to sit down. + +"I've been talking for just upon two hours," he said to Lady +Ella. "It's good to see the water boiling for tea." + +He put a chair for Lady Sunderbund to the right of Lady Ella, +got her into it by infusing an ecclesiastical insistence into his +manner, and then went and sat upon the music-stool on his wife's +left, so as to establish a screen of tea-things and cakes and so +forth against her more intimate enthusiasm. Meanwhile he began to +see his way clearer and to develop his line. + +"Well, Lady Sunderbund," he said, "I can assure you that I +think you will be no small addition to the church life of +Princhester. But I warn you this is a hard-working and exacting +diocese. We shall take your money, all we can get of it, we shall +take your time, we shall work you hard." + +"Wo'k me hard!" cried Lady Sunderbund with passion. + +"We will, we will," said the bishop in a tone that ignored her +passionate note. + +"I am sure Lady Sunderbund will be a great help to us," said +Lady Ella. "We want brightening. There's a dinginess...." + +Lady Sunderbund beamed an acknowledgment. "I shall exact a +'eturn," she said. "I don't mind wo'king, but I shall wo'k like +the poo' students in the Middle Ages did, to get my teaching. +I've got my own soul to save as well as help saving othas. Since +oua last talk--" + +She found the bishop handing her bread and butter. For a time +the bishop fought a delaying action with the tea-things, while he +sought eagerly and vainly in his mind for some good practical +topic in which he could entangle and suppress Lady Sunderbund's +enthusiasms. From this she broke away by turning suddenly to Lady +Ella. + +"Youa husband's views," she said, "we'e a 'eal 'evelation to +me. It was like not being blind--all at once." + +Lady Ella was always pleased to hear her husband praised. Her +colour brightened a little. "They seem very ordinary views," she +said modestly. + +"You share them?" cried Lady Sunderbund. + +"But of course," said Lady Ella. + +"Wondyful!" cried Lady Sunderbund. + +"Tell me, Lady Sunderbund," said the bishop, "are you going to +alter the outer appearance of the old doctor's house?" And found +that at last he had discovered the saving topic. + +"Ha'dly at all," she said. "I shall just have it pointed white +and do the doa--I'm not su' how I shall do the doa. Whetha I +shall do the doa gold or a vehy, vehy 'itch blue." + +For a time she and Lady Ella, to whom these ideas were novel, +discussed the animation of grey and sombre towns by house +painting. In such matter Lady Sunderbund had a Russian mind. "I +can't bea' g'ey," she said. "Not in my su'oundings, not in my +k'eed, nowhe'e." She turned to the bishop. "If I had my way I +would paint you' cathed'al inside and out." + +"They used to be painted," said the bishop. "I don't know if +you have seen Ely. There the old painting has been largely +restored...." + +From that to the end there was no real danger, and at last the +bishop found himself alone with his wife again. + +"Remarkable person," he said tentatively. "I never met any one +whose faults were more visible. I met her at Wimbush House." + +He glanced at his watch. + +"What did she mean," asked Lady Ella abruptly, "by talking of +your new views? And about revelations?" + +"She probably misunderstood something I said at the Garstein +Fellows'," he said. "She has rather a leaping mind." + +He turned to the window, looked at his nails, and appeared to +be suddenly reminded of duties elsewhere.... + +It was chiefly manifest to him that the difficulties in +explaining the changes of his outlook to Lady Ella had now +increased enormously. + +(7) + + +A day or so after Lady Sunderbund's arrival in Princhester the +bishop had a letter from Likeman. The old man was manifestly in +doubt about the effect of their recent conversation. + +"My dear Scrope," it began. "I find myself thinking continually +about our interview and the difficulties you laid bare so frankly +to me. We touched upon many things in that talk, and I find +myself full of afterthoughts, and not perfectly sure either quite +of what I said or of what I failed to say. I feel that in many +ways I was not perhaps so clear and convincing as the justice of +my case should have made me, and you are one of my own particular +little company, you were one of the best workers in that band of +good workers, your life and your career are very much my concern. +I know you will forgive me if I still mingle something of the +paternal with my fraternal admonitions. I watched you closely. I +have still my old diaries of the St. Matthew's days, and I have +been looking at them to remind me of what you once were. It was +my custom to note my early impressions of all the men who worked +with me, because I have a firm belief in the soundness of first +impressions and the considerable risk one runs of having them +obscured by the accidents and habituations of constant +intercourse. I found that quite early in your days at St. +Matthew's I wrote against your name 'enthusiastic, but a saving +delicacy.' After all our life-long friendship I would not write +anything truer. I would say of you to-day, 'This man might have +been a revivalist, if he were not a gentleman.' There is the +enthusiast, there is the revivalist, in you. It seems to me that +the stresses and questions of this great crisis in the world's +history have brought it nearer to the surface than I had ever +expected it to come. + +"I quite understand and I sympathize with your impatience with +the church at the present time; we present a spectacle of pompous +insignificance hard to bear with. We are doing very little, and +we are giving ourselves preposterous airs. There seems to be an +opinion abroad that in some quasi-automatic way the country is +going to collapse after the war into the arms of the church and +the High Tories; a possibility I don't accept for a moment. Why +should it? These forcible-feeble reactionaries are much more +likely to explode a revolution that will disestablish us. And I +quite understand your theological difficulties--quite. The +creeds, if their entire symbolism is for a moment forgotten, if +they are taken as opaque statements of fact, are inconsistent, +incredible. So incredible that no one believes them; not even the +most devout. The utmost they do is to avert their minds-- +reverentially. Credo quia impossibile. That is offensive to a +Western mind. I can quite understand the disposition to cry out +at such things, 'This is not the Church of God!'--to run out +from it-- + +"You have some dream, I suspect, of a dramatic dissidence. + +"Now, my dear Brother and erstwhile pupil, I ask you not to do +this thing. Wait, I implore you. Give me--and some others, a +little time. I have your promise for three months, but even after +that, I ask you to wait. Let the reform come from within the +church. The church is something more than either its creeds, its +clergy, or its laymen. Look at your cathedral rising out of and +dominating Princhester. It stands not simply for Athanasius; it +stands but incidentally for Athanasius; it stands for all +religion. Within that fabric--let me be as frank here as in our +private conversation--doctrine has altered again and again. +To-day two distinct religions worship there side by side; one +that fades and one that grows brighter. There is the old +quasi-materialistic belief of the barbarians, the belief in such +things, for example, as that Christ the physical Son of God +descended into hell and stayed there, seeing the sights I suppose +like any tourist and being treated with diplomatic civilities for +three terrestrial days; and on the other hand there is the truly +spiritual belief that you and I share, which is absolutely +intolerant of such grotesque ideas. My argument to you is that +the new faith, the clearer vision, gains ground; that the only +thing that can prevent or delay the church from being altogether +possessed by what you call and I admit is, the true God, is that +such men as yourself, as the light breaks upon you, should be +hasty and leave the church. You see my point of view, do you not? +It is not one that has been assumed for our discussion; it is one +I came to long years ago, that I was already feeling my way to in +my St. Matthew's Lenton sermons. + +"A word for your private ear. I am working. I cannot tell you +fully because I am not working alone. But there are movements +afoot in which I hope very shortly to be able to ask you to +share. That much at least I may say at this stage. Obscure but +very powerful influences are at work for the liberalizing of the +church, for release from many narrow limitations, for the +establishment of a modus vivendi with the nonconformist and +dissentient bodies in Britain and America, and with the churches +of the East. But of that no more now. + +"And in conclusion, my dear Scrope, let me insist again upon +the eternal persistence of the essential Religious Fact: + + + (Greek Letters Here) + +(Rev. i. 18. "Fear not. I am the First and Last thing, the Living +thing.") + +And these promises which, even if we are not to take them as +promises in the exact sense in which, let us say, the payment of +five sovereigns is promised by a five-pound note, are yet +assertions of practically inevitable veracity: + + + (Greek Letters Here) + +(Phil. i. 6. "He who began... will perfect." + Eph. v. 14. "He will illuminate.") + + +The old man had written his Greek tags in shakily resolute +capitals. It was his custom always to quote the Greek Testament +in his letters, never the English version. It is a practice not +uncommon with the more scholarly of our bishops. It is as if some +eminent scientific man were to insist upon writing H20 instead of +"water," and "sodium chloride" instead of "table salt" in his +private correspondence. Or upon hanging up a stuffed crocodile in +his hall to give the place tone. The Bishop of Princhester +construed these brief dicta without serious exertion, he found +them very congenial texts, but there were insuperable +difficulties in the problem why Likeman should suppose they had +the slightest weight upon his side of their discussion. The more +he thought the less they seemed to be on Likeman's side, until at +last they began to take on a complexion entirely opposed to the +old man's insidious arguments, until indeed they began to bear +the extraordinary interpretation of a special message, +unwittingly delivered. + +(8) + + +The bishop was still thinking over this communication when he +was interrupted by Lady Ella. She came with a letter in her hand +to ask him whether she might send five-and-twenty pounds to a +poor cousin of his, a teacher in a girls' school, who had been +incapacitated from work by a dislocation of the cartilage of her +knee. If she could go to that unorthodox but successful +practitioner, Mr. Barker, the bone-setter, she was convinced she +could be restored to efficiency. But she had no ready money. The +bishop agreed without hesitation. His only doubt was the +certainty of the cure, but upon that point Lady Ella was +convinced; there had been a great experience in the Walshingham +family. + +"It is pleasant to be able to do things like this," said Lady +Ella, standing over him when this matter was settled. + +"Yes," the bishop agreed; "it is pleasant to be in a position +to do things like this...." + + + + +CHAPTER THE SEVENTH - THE SECOND VISION + +(1) + + +A MONTH later found the bishop's original state of perplexity +and insomnia returned and intensified. He had done none of all +the things that had seemed so manifestly needing to be done after +his vision in the Athenaeum. All the relief and benefit of his +experience in London had vanished out of his life. He was afraid +of Dr. Dale's drug; he knew certainly that it would precipitate +matters; and all his instincts in the state of moral enfeeblement +to which he had relapsed, were to temporize. + +Although he had said nothing further about his changed beliefs +to Lady Ella, yet he perceived clearly that a shadow had fallen +between them. She had a wife's extreme sensitiveness to fine +shades of expression and bearing, and manifestly she knew that +something was different. Meanwhile Lady Sunderbund had become a +frequent worshipper in the cathedral, she was a figure as +conspicuous in sombre Princhester as a bird of paradise would +have been; common people stood outside her very very rich blue +door on the chance of seeing her; she never missed an opportunity +of hearing the bishop preach or speak, she wrote him several +long and thoughtful letters with which he did not bother Lady +Ella, she communicated persistently, and manifestly intended to +become a very active worker in diocesan affairs. + +It was inevitable that she and the bishop should meet and talk +occasionally in the cathedral precincts, and it was inevitable +that he should contrast the flexibility of her rapid and very +responsive mind with a certain defensiveness, a stoniness, in the +intellectual bearing of Lady Ella. + +If it had been Lady Sunderbund he had had to explain to, +instead of Lady Ella, he could have explained a dozen times a +day. + +And since his mind was rehearsing explanations it was not +unnatural they should overflow into this eagerly receptive +channel, and that the less he told Lady Ella the fuller became +his spiritual confidences to Lady Sunderbund. + +She was clever in realizing that they were confidences and +treating them as such, more particularly when it chanced that she +and Lady Ella and the bishop found themselves in the same +conversation. + +She made great friends with Miriam, and initiated her by a +whole collection of pretty costume plates into the mysteries of +the "Ussian Ballet" and the works of Mousso'gski and "Imsky +Ko'zakof." + +The bishop liked a certain religiosity in the texture of +Moussorgski's music, but failed to see the "significance "--of +many of the costumes. + +(2) + + +It was on a Sunday night--the fourth Sunday after Easter-- +that the supreme crisis of the bishop's life began. He had had a +feeling all day of extreme dulness and stupidity; he felt his +ministrations unreal, his ceremonies absurd and undignified. In +the night he became bleakly and painfully awake. His mind +occupied itself at first chiefly with the tortuousness and +weakness of his own character. Every day he perceived that the +difficulty of telling Lady Ella of the change in his faith became +more mountainous. And every day he procrastinated. If he had told +her naturally and simply on the evening of his return from London +--before anything material intervened--everything would have +been different, everything would have been simpler.... + +He groaned and rolled over in his bed. + +There came upon him the acutest remorse and misery. For he saw +that amidst these petty immediacies he had lost touch with God. +The last month became incredible. He had seen God. He had touched +God's hand. God had been given to him, and he had neglected the +gift. He was still lost amidst the darkness and loneliness, the +chaotic ends and mean shifts, of an Erastian world. For a month +now and more, after a vision of God so vivid and real and +reassuring that surely no saint nor prophet had ever had a +better, he had made no more than vague responsive movements; he +had allowed himself to be persuaded into an unreasonable and +cowardly delay, and the fetters of association and usage and +minor interests were as unbroken as they had been before ever the +vision shone. Was it credible that there had ever been such a +vision in a life so entirely dictated by immediacy and instinct +as his? We are all creatures of the dark stream, we swim in needs +and bodily impulses and small vanities; if ever and again a +bubble of spiritual imaginativeness glows out of us, it breaks +and leaves us where we were. + +"Louse that I am!" he cried. + +He still believed in God, without a shadow of doubt; he +believed in the God that he had seen, the high courage, the +golden intention, the light that had for a moment touched him. +But what had he to do with God, he, the loiterer, the little +thing? + +He was little, he was funny. His prevarications with his wife, +for example, were comic. There was no other word for him but +"funny." + +He rolled back again and lay staring. + +"Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" What right +has a little bishop in a purple stock and doeskin breeches, who +hangs back in his palace from the very call of God, to a phrase +so fine and tragic as "the body of this death?" + +He was the most unreal thing in the universe. He was a base +insect giving himself airs. What advantage has a bishop over the +Praying Mantis, that cricket which apes the attitude of piety? +Does he matter more--to God? + +"To the God of the Universe, who can tell? To the God of man,-- +yes." + +He sat up in bed struck by his own answer, and full of an +indescribable hunger for God and an indescribable sense of his +complete want of courage to make the one simple appeal that would +satisfy that hunger. He tried to pray. "O God! "he cried, +"forgive me! Take me!" It seemed to him that he was not really +praying but only making believe to pray. It seemed to him that he +was not really existing but only seeming to exist. He seemed to +himself to be one with figures on a china plate, with figures +painted on walls, with the flimsy imagined lives of men in +stories of forgotten times. "O God!" he said, "O God," acting a +gesture, mimicking appeal. + +"Anaemic," he said, and was given an idea. + +He got out of bed, he took his keys from the night-table at the +bed head and went to his bureau. + +He stood with Dale's tonic in his hand. He remained for some +time holding it, and feeling a curious indisposition to go on +with the thing in his mind. + +He turned at last with an effort. He carried the little phial +to his bedside, and into the tumbler of his water-bottle he let +the drops fall, drop by drop, until he had counted twenty. Then +holding it to the bulb of his reading lamp he added the water and +stood watching the slow pearly eddies in the mixture mingle into +an opalescent uniformity. He replaced the water-bottle and stood +with the glass in his hand. But he did not drink. + +He was afraid. + +He knew that he had only to drink and this world of confusion +would grow transparent, would roll back and reveal the great +simplicities behind. And he was afraid. + +He was afraid of that greatness. He was afraid of the great +imperatives that he knew would at once take hold of his life. He +wanted to muddle on for just a little longer. He wanted to stay +just where he was, in his familiar prison-house, with the key of +escape in his hand. Before he took the last step into the very +presence of truth, he would--think. + +He put down the glass and lay down upon his bed.... + +(3) + + +He awoke in a mood of great depression out of a dream of +wandering interminably in an endless building of innumerable +pillars, pillars so vast and high that the ceiling was lost in +darkness. By the scale of these pillars he felt himself scarcely +larger than an ant. He was always alone in these wanderings, and +always missing something that passed along distant passages, +something desirable, something in the nature of a procession or +of a ceremony, something of which he was in futile pursuit, of +which he heard faint echoes, something luminous of which he +seemed at times to see the last fading reflection, across vast +halls and wildernesses of shining pavement and through Cyclopaean +archways. At last there was neither sound nor gleam, but the +utmost solitude, and a darkness and silence and the uttermost +profundity of sorrow.... + +It was bright day. Dunk had just come into the room with his +tea, and the tumbler of Dr. Dale's tonic stood untouched upon the +night-table. The bishop sat up in bed. He had missed his +opportunity. To-day was a busy day, he knew. + +"No," he said, as Dunk hesitated whether to remove or leave the +tumbler. "Leave that." + +Dunk found room for it upon the tea-tray, and vanished softly +with the bishop's evening clothes. + +The bishop remained motionless facing the day. There stood the +draught of decision that he had lacked the decision even to +touch. + +From his bed he could just read the larger items that figured +upon the engagement tablet which it was Whippham's business to +fill over-night and place upon his table. He had two confirmation +services, first the big one in the cathedral and then a second +one in the evening at Pringle, various committees and an +interview with Chasters. He had not yet finished his addresses +for these confirmation services.... + +The task seemed mountainous--overwhelming. + +With a gesture of desperation he seized the tumblerful of tonic +and drank it off at a gulp. + +(4) + + +For some moments nothing seemed to happen. + +Then he began to feel stronger and less wretched, and then came +a throbbing and tingling of artery and nerve. + +He had a sense of adventure, a pleasant fear in the thing that +he had done. He got out of bed, leaving his cup of tea untasted, +and began to dress. He had the sensation of relief a prisoner may +feel who suddenly tries his cell door and finds it open upon +sunshine, the outside world and freedom. + +He went on dressing although he was certain that in a few +minutes the world of delusion about him would dissolve, and that +he would find himself again in the great freedom of the place of +God. + +This time the transition came much sooner and much more +rapidly. This time the phases and quality of the experience were +different. He felt once again that luminous confusion between the +world in which a human life is imprisoned and a circumambient and +interpenetrating world, but this phase passed very rapidly; it +did not spread out over nearly half an hour as it had done +before, and almost immediately he seemed to plunge away from +everything in this life altogether into that outer freedom he +sought. And this time there was not even the elemental scenery of +the former vision. He stood on nothing; there was nothing below +and nothing above him. There was no sense of falling, no terror, +but a feeling as though he floated released. There was no light, +but as it were a clear darkness about him. Then it was manifest +to him that he was not alone, but that with him was that same +being that in his former vision had called himself the Angel of +God. He knew this without knowing why he knew this, and either he +spoke and was answered, or he thought and his thought answered +him back. His state of mind on this occasion was altogether +different from the first vision of God; before it had been +spectacular, but now his perception was altogether +super-sensuous. + +(And nevertheless and all the time it seemed that very faintly +he was still in his room.) + +It was he who was the first to speak. The great Angel whom he +felt rather than saw seemed to be waiting for him to speak. + +"I have come," he said, "because once more I desire to see +God." + +"But you have seen God." + +"I saw God. God was light, God was truth. And I went back to my +life, and God was hidden. God seemed to call me. He called. I +heard him, I sought him and I touched his hand. When I went back +to my life I was presently lost in perplexity. I could not tell +why God had called me nor what I had to do." + +"And why did you not come here before?" + +"Doubt and fear. Brother, will you not lay your hand on mine?" + +The figure in the darkness became distincter. But nothing +touched the bishop's seeking hands. + +"I want to see God and to understand him. I want reassurance. I +want conviction. I want to understand all that God asks me to do. +The world is full of conflict and confusion and the spirit of +war. It is dark and dreadful now with suffering and bloodshed. I +want to serve God who could save it, and I do not know how." + +It seemed to the bishop that now he could distinguish dimly but +surely the form and features of the great Angel to whom he +talked. For a little while there was silence, and then the Angel +spoke. + +"It was necessary first," said the Angel, "that you should +apprehend God and desire him. That was the purport of your first +vision. Now, since you require it, I will tell you and show you +certain things about him, things that it seems you need to know, +things that all men need to know. Know then first that the time +is at hand when God will come into the world and rule it, and +when men will know what is required of them. This time is close +at hand. In a little while God will be made manifest throughout +the earth. Men will know him and know that he is King. To you +this truth is to be shown--that you may tell it to others." + +"This is no vision?" said the bishop, "no dream that will pass +away?" + +"Am I not here beside you?" + +(5) + + +The bishop was anxious to be very clear. Things that had been +shapelessly present in his mind now took form and found words for +themselves. + +"The God I saw in my vision--He is not yet manifest in the +world?" + +"He comes. He is in the world, but he is not yet manifested. He +whom you saw in your vision will speedily be manifest in the +world. To you this vision is given of the things that come. The +world is already glowing with God. Mankind is like a smouldering +fire that will presently, in quite a little time, burst out into +flame. + +"In your former vision I showed you God," said the Angel. "This +time I will show you certain signs of the coming of God. And then +you will understand the place you hold in the world and the task +that is required of you." + +(6) + + +And as the Angel spoke he lifted up his hands with the palms +upward, and there appeared above them a little round cloud, that +grew denser until it had the likeness of a silver sphere. It was +a mirror in the form of a ball, but a mirror not shining +uniformly; it was discoloured with greyish patches that had a +familiar shape. It circled slowly upon the Angel's hands. It +seemed no greater than the compass of a human skull, and yet it +was as great as the earth. Indeed it showed the whole earth. It +was the earth. The hands of the Angel vanished out of sight, +dissolved and vanished, and the spinning world hung free. All +about the bishop the velvet darkness broke into glittering points +that shaped out the constellations, and nearest to them, so near +as to seem only a few million miles away in the great emptiness +into which everything had resolved itself, shone the sun, a ball +of red-tongued fires. The Angel was but a voice now; the bishop +and the Angel were somewhere aloof from and yet accessible to the +circling silver sphere. + +At the time all that happened seemed to happen quite naturally, +as things happen in a dream. It was only later, when all this was +a matter of memory, that the bishop realized how strange and +incomprehensible his vision had been. The sphere was the earth +with all its continents and seas, its ships and cities, its +country-sides and mountain ranges. It was so small that he could +see it all at once, and so great and full that he could see +everything in it. He could see great countries like little +patches upon it, and at the same time he could see the faces of +the men upon the highways, he could see the feelings in men s +hearts and the thoughts in their minds. But it did not seem in +any way wonderful to the bishop that so he should see those +things, or that it was to him that these things were shown. + +"This is the whole world," he said. + +"This is the vision of the world," the Angel answered. + +"It is very wonderful," said the bishop, and stood for a moment +marvelling at the compass of his vision. For here was India, here +was Samarkand, in the light of the late afternoon; and China and +the swarming cities upon her silvery rivers sinking through +twilight to the night and throwing a spray and tracery of lantern +spots upon the dark; here was Russia under the noontide, and so +great a battle of artillery raging on the Dunajec as no man had +ever seen before; whole lines of trenches dissolved into clouds +of dust and heaps of blood-streaked earth; here close to the +waiting streets of Constantinople were the hills of Gallipoli, +the grave of British Imperialism, streaming to heaven with the +dust and smoke of bursting shells and rifle fire and the smoke +and flame of burning brushwood. In the sea of Marmora a big ship +crowded with Turkish troops was sinking; and, purple under the +clear water, he could see the shape of the British submarine +which had torpedoed her and had submerged and was going away. +Berlin prepared its frugal meals, still far from famine. He saw +the war in Europe as if he saw it on a map, yet every human +detail showed. Over hundreds of miles of trenches east and west +of Germany he could see shells bursting and the men below +dropping, and the stretcher-bearers going back with the wounded. +The roads to every front were crowded with reserves and +munitions. For a moment a little group of men indifferent to all +this struggle, who were landing amidst the Antarctic wilderness, +held his attention; and then his eyes went westward to the dark +rolling Atlantic across which, as the edge of the night was drawn +like a curtain, more and still more ships became visible beating +upon their courses eastward or westward under the overtaking day. + +The wonder increased; the wonder of the single and infinitely +multitudinous adventure of mankind. + +"So God perhaps sees it," he whispered. + +(7) + + +"Look at this man," said the Angel, and the black shadow of a +hand seemed to point. + +It was a Chinaman sitting with two others in a little low room +separated by translucent paper windows from a noisy street of +shrill-voiced people. The three had been talking of the ultimatum +that Japan had sent that day to China, claiming a priority in +many matters over European influences they were by no means sure +whether it was a wrong or a benefit that had been done to their +country. From that topic they had passed to the discussion of the +war, and then of wars and national aggressions and the perpetual +thrusting and quarrelling of mankind. The older man had said that +so life would allways be; it was the will of Heaven. The little, +very yellow-faced, emaciated man had agreed with him. But now +this younger man, to whose thoughts the Angel had so particularly +directed the bishop's attention, was speaking. He did not agree +with his companion. + +"War is not the will of Heaven," he said; "it is the blindness +of men." + +"Man changes," he said, "from day to day and from age to age. +The science of the West has taught us that. Man changes and war +changes and all things change. China has been the land of flowery +peace, and she may yet give peace to all the world. She has put +aside that puppet Emperor at Peking, she turns her face to the +new learning of the West as a man lays aside his heavy robes, in +order that her task may be achieved." + +The older man spoke, his manner was more than a little +incredulous, and yet not altogether contemptuous. "You believe +that someday there will be no more war in the world, that a time +will come when men will no longer plot and plan against the +welfare of men?" + +"Even that last," said the younger man. "Did any of us dream +twenty-five years ago that here in China we should live to see a +republic? The age of the republics draws near, when men in every +country of the world will look straight up to the rule of Right +and the empire of Heaven." + +(" And God will be King of the World," said the Angel. "Is not +that faith exactly the faith that is coming to you? ") + +The two other Chinamen questioned their companion, but without +hostility. + +"This war," said the Chinaman, "will end in a great harvesting +of kings." + +"But Japan--" the older man began. + +The bishop would have liked to hear more of that conversation, +but the dark hand of the Angel motioned him to another part of +the world. "Listen to this," said the Angel. + +He pointed the bishop to where the armies of Britain and Turkey +lay in the heat of Mesopotamia. Along the sandy bank of a wide, +slow-flowing river rode two horsemen, an Englishman and a Turk. +They were returning from the Turkish lines, whither the +Englishman had been with a flag of truce. When Englishmen and +Turks are thrown together they soon become friends, and in this +case matters had been facilitated by the Englishman's command of +the Turkish language. He was quite an exceptional Englishman. The +Turk had just been remarking cheerfully that it wouldn't please +the Germans if they were to discover how amiably he and his +charge had got on. "It's a pity we ever ceased to be friends," he +said. + +"You Englishmen aren't like our Christians," he went on. + +The Engiishmen wanted to know why. + +"You haven't priests in robes. You don't chant and worship +crosses and pictures, and quarrel among yourselves." + +"We worship the same God as you do," said the Englishman. + +"Then why do we fight?" + +"That's what we want to know." + +"Why do you call yourselves Christians? And take part against +us? All who worship the One God are brothers." + +"They ought to be," said the Englishman, and thought. He was +struck by what seemed to him an amazingly novel idea. + +"If it weren't for religions all men would serve God together," +he said. "And then there would be no wars--only now and then +perhaps just a little honest fighting...." + +"And see here," said the Angel. "Here close behind this +frightful battle, where the German phalanx of guns pounds its way +through the Russian hosts. Here is a young German talking to two +wounded Russian prisoners, who have stopped to rest by the +roadside. He is a German of East Prussia; he knows and thinks a +little Russian. And they too are saying, all three of them, that +the war is not God's will, but the confusion of mankind. + +"Here," he said, and the shadow of his hand hovered over the +burning-ghats of Benares, where a Brahmin of the new persuasion +watched the straight spires of funereal smoke ascend into the +glow of the late afternoon, while he talked to an English +painter, his friend, of the blind intolerance of race and caste +and custom in India. + +"Or here." + +The Angel pointed to a group of people who had gathered upon a +little beach at the head of a Norwegian fiord. There were three +lads, an old man and two women, and they stood about the body of +a drowned German sailor which had been washed up that day. For a +time they had talked in whispers, but now suddenly the old man +spoke aloud. + +"This is the fourth that has come ashore," he said. "Poor +drowned souls! Because men will not serve God." + +"But folks go to church and pray enough," said one of the +women. + +"They do not serve God," said the old man. "They just pray to +him as one nods to a beggar. They do not serve God who is their +King. They set up their false kings and emperors, and so all +Europe is covered with dead, and the seas wash up these dead to +us. Why does the world suffer these things? Why did we +Norwegians, who are a free-spirited people, permit the Germans +and the Swedes and the English to set up a king over us? Because +we lack faith. Kings mean secret counsels, and secret counsels +bring war. Sooner or later war will come to us also if we give +the soul of our nation in trust to a king.... But things will not +always be thus with men. God will not suffer them for ever. A day +comes, and it is no distant day, when God himself will rule the +earth, and when men will do, not what the king wishes nor what is +expedient nor what is customary, but what is manifestly +right.".... + +"But men are saying that now in a thousand places," said the +Angel. "Here is something that goes a little beyond that." + +His pointing hand went southward until they saw the Africanders +riding down to Windhuk. Two men, Boer farmers both, rode side by +side and talked of the German officer they brought prisoner with +them. He had put sheep-dip in the wells of drinking-water; his +life was fairly forfeit, and he was not to be killed. "We want no +more hate in South Africa," they agreed. "Dutch and English and +German must live here now side by side. Men cannot always be +killing." + +"And see his thoughts," said the Angel. + +The German's mind was one amazement. He had been sure of being +shot, he had meant to make a good end, fierce and scornful, a +relentless fighter to the last; and these men who might have shot +him like a man were going to spare him like a dog. His mind was a +tumbled muddle of old and new ideas. He had been brought up in an +atmosphere of the foulest and fiercest militarism; he had been +trained to relentlessness, ruthlessness and so forth; war was war +and the bitterer the better, frightfulness was your way to +victory over every enemy. But these people had found a better +way. Here were Dutch and English side by side; sixteen years ago +they had been at war together and now they wore the same uniform +and rode together, and laughed at him for a queer fellow because +he was for spitting at them and defying them, and folding his +arms and looking level at the executioners' rifles. There were to +be no executioners' rifles.... If it was so with Dutch and +English, why shouldn't it be so presently with French and +Germans? Why someday shouldn't French, German, Dutch and English, +Russian and Pole, ride together under this new star of mankind, +the Southern Cross, to catch whatever last mischief-maker was +left to poison the wells of goodwill? + +His mind resisted and struggled against these ideas. "Austere," +he whispered. "The ennobling tests of war." A trooner rode up +alongside, and offered him a drink of water + +"Just a mouthful," he said apologetically. "We've had to go +rather short."... + +"There's another brain busy here with the same idea," the Angel +interrupted. And the bishop found himself looking into the +bedroom of a young German attache in Washington, sleepless in the +small hours. + +"Ach!" cried the young man, and sat up in bed and ran his hands +through his fair hair. + +He had been working late upon this detestable business of the +Lusitania; the news of her sinking had come to hand two days +before, and all America was aflame with it. It might mean war. +His task had been to pour out explanations and justifications to +the press; to show that it was an act of necessity, to pretend a +conviction that the great ship was loaded with munitions, to +fight down the hostility and anger that blazed across a +continent. He had worked to his limit. He had taken cup after cup +of coffee, and had come to bed worked out not two hours ago. Now +here he was awake after a nightmare of drowning women and +children, trying to comfort his soul by recalling his own +arguments. Never once since the war began had he doubted the +rightness of the German cause. It seemed only a proof of his +nervous exhaustion that he could doubt it now. Germany was the +best organized, most cultivated, scientific and liberal nation +the earth had ever seen, it was for the good of mankind that she +should be the dominant power in the world; his patriotism had had +the passion of a mission. The English were indolent, the French +decadent, the Russians barbaric, the Americans basely democratic; +the rest of the world was the "White man's Burthen"; the clear +destiny of mankind was subservience to the good Prussian eagle. +Nevertheless--those wet draggled bodies that swirled down in +the eddies of the sinking Titan--Ach! He wished it could have +been otherwise. He nursed his knees and prayed that there need +not be much more of these things before the spirit of the enemy +was broken and the great Peace of Germany came upon the world. + +And suddenly he stopped short in his prayer. + +Suddenly out of the nothingness and darkness about him came the +conviction that God did not listen to his prayers.... + +Was there any other way? + +It was the most awful doubt he had ever had, for it smote at +the training of all his life. "Could it be possible that after +all our old German God is not the proper style and title of the +true God? Is our old German God perhaps only the last of a long +succession of bloodstained tribal effigies--and not God at +all?" + +For a long time it seemed that the bishop watched the thoughts +that gathered in the young attache's mind. Until suddenly he +broke into a quotation, into that last cry of the dying Goethe, +for "Light. More Light!"... + +"Leave him at that," said the Angel. "I want you to hear these +two young women." + +The hand came back to England and pointed to where Southend at +the mouth of the Thames was all agog with the excitement of an +overnight Zeppelin raid. People had got up hours before their +usual time in order to look at the wrecked houses before they +went up to their work in town. Everybody seemed abroad. Two +nurses, not very well trained as nurses go nor very well-educated +women, were snatching a little sea air upon the front after an +eventful night. They were too excited still to sleep. They were +talking of the horror of the moment when they saw the nasty thing +"up there," and felt helpless as it dropped its bombs. They had +both hated it. + +"There didn't ought to be such things," said one. + +"They don't seem needed," said her companion. + +"Men won't always go on like this--making wars and all such +wickedness." + +"It's 'ow to stop them?" + +"Science is going to stop them." + +"Science?" + +"Yes, science. My young brother--oh, he's a clever one--he +says such things! He says that it's science that they won't +always go on like this. There's more sense coming into the world +and more--my young brother says so. Says it stands to reason; +it's Evolution. It's science that men are all brothers; you can +prove it. It's science that there oughtn't to be war. Science is +ending war now by making it horrible like this, and making it so +that no one is safe. Showing it up. Only when nobody is safe will +everybody want to set up peace, he says. He says it's proved +there could easily be peace all over the world now if it wasn't +for flags and kings and capitalists and priests. They still +manage to keep safe and out of it. He says the world ought to be +just one state. The World State, he says it ought to be." + +("Under God," said the bishop, "under God.") + +"He says science ought to be King of the whole world." + +"Call it Science if you will," said the bishop. "God is +wisdom." + +"Out of the mouths of babes and elementary science students," +said the Angel. "The very children in the board schools are +turning against this narrowness and nonsense and mischief of +nations and creeds and kings. You see it at a thousand points, at +ten thousand points, look, the world is all flashing and +flickering; it is like a spinthariscope; it is aquiver with the +light that is coming to mankind. It is on the verge of blazing +even now." + +"Into a light." + +"Into the one Kingdom of God. See here! See here! And here! +This brave little French priest in a helmet of steel who is +daring to think for the first time in his life; this +gentle-mannered emir from Morocco looking at the grave-diggers on +the battlefield; this mother who has lost her son.... + +"You see they all turn in one direction, although none of them +seem to dream yet that they are all turning in the same +direction. They turn, every one, to the rule of righteousness, +which is the rule of God. They turn to that communism of effort +in the world which alone permits men to serve God in state and +city and their economic lives.... They are all coming to the +verge of the same salvation, the salvation of one human +brotherhood under the rule of one Righteousness, one Divine +will.... Is that the salvation your church offers?" + +(8) + + +"And now that we have seen how religion grows and spreads in +men's hearts, now that the fields are white with harvest, I want +you to look also and see what the teachers of religion are +doing," said the Angel. + +He smiled. His presence became more definite, and the earthly +globe about them and the sun and the stars grew less distinct and +less immediately there. The silence invited the bishop to speak. + +"In the light of this vision, I see my church plainly for the +little thing it is," he said. + +He wanted to be perfectly clear with the Angel and himself. + +"This church of which I am a bishop is just a part of our poor +human struggle, small and pitiful as one thinks of it here in the +light of the advent of God's Kingdom, but very great, very great +indeed, ancient and high and venerable, in comparison with me. +But mostly it is human. It is most human. For my story is the +church's story, and the church's story is mine. Here I could +almost believe myself the church itself. The world saw a light, +the nations that were sitting in darkness saw a great light. Even +as I saw God. And then the church began to forget and lose itself +among secondary things. As I have done.... It tried to express +the truth and lost itself in a maze of theology. It tried to +bring order into the world and sold its faith to Constantine. +These men who had professed the Invisible King of the World, +shirked his service. It is a most terrible disaster that +Christianity has sold itself to emperors and kings. They forged a +saying of the Master's that we should render unto Ceasar the +things that are Ceasar's and unto God the things that are +God's.... + +"Who is this Ceasar to set himself up to share mankind with +God? Nothing that is Ceasar's can be any the less God's. But +Constantine Caesar sat in the midst of the council, his guards +were all about it, and the poor fanatics and trimmers and +schemers disputed nervously with their eyes on him, disputed +about homoousian and homoiousian, and grimaced and pretended to +be very very fierce and exact to hide how much they were +frightened and how little they knew, and because they did not +dare to lay violent hands upon that usurper of the empire of the +world.... + +"And from that day forth the Christian churches have been +damned and lost. Kept churches. Lackey churches. Roman, Russian, +Anglican; it matters not. My church indeed was twice sold, for it +doubled the sin of Nicaea and gave itself over to Henry and +Elizabeth while it shammed a dispute about the sacraments. No one +cared really about transubstantiation any more than the earlier +betrayers cared about consubstantiality; that dispute did but +serve to mask the betrayal." + +He turned to the listening Angel. "What can you show me of my +church that I do not know? Why! we Anglican bishops get our sees +as footmen get a job. For months Victoria, that old German Frau, +delayed me--because of some tittle-tattle.... The things we +are! Snape, who afterwards became Bishop of Burnham, used to +waylay the Prince Consort when he was riding in Hyde Park and +give him, he boasts, 'a good loud cheer,' and then he would run +very fast across the park so as to catch him as he came round, +and do it again.... It is to that sort of thing we bearers of the +light have sunken.... + +"I have always despised that poor toady," the bishop went on. +"And yet here am I, and God has called me and shown me the light +of his countenance, and for a month I have faltered. That is the +mystery of the human heart, that it can and does sin against the +light. What right have I, who have seen the light--and failed, +what right have I--to despise any other human being? I seem to +have been held back by a sort of paralysis. + +"Men are so small, so small still, that they cannot keep hold +of the vision of God. That is why I want to see God again.... But +if it were not for this strange drug that seems for a little +while to lift my mind above the confusion and personal +entanglements of every day, I doubt if even now I could be here. +I am here, passionate to hold this moment and keep the light. As +this inspiration passes, I shall go back, I know, to my home and +my place and my limitations. The littleness of men! The +forgetfulness of men! I want to know what my chief duty is, to +have it plain, in terms so plain that I can never forget. + +"See in this world," he said, turning to the globe, "while +Chinese merchants and Turkish troopers, school-board boys and +Norwegian fishermen, half-trained nurses and Boer farmers are +full of the spirit of God, see how the priests of the churches of +Nicaea spend their time." + +And now it was the bishop whose dark hands ran over the great +silver globe, and it was the Angel who stood over him and +listened, as a teacher might stand over a child who is learning a +lesson. The bishop's hand rested for a second on a cardinal who +was planning a political intrigue to produce a reaction in +France, then for a moment on a Pomeranian pastor who was going +out to his well-tilled fields with his Sunday sermon, full of +fierce hatred of England, still echoing in his head. Then he +paused at a Mollah preaching the Jehad, in doubt whether he too +wasn't a German pastor, and then at an Anglican clergyman still +lying abed and thinking out a great mission of Repentance and +Hope that should restore the authority of the established church +--by incoherent missioning--without any definite sin indicated +for repentance nor any clear hope for anything in particular +arising out of such activities. The bishop's hand went seeking to +and fro, but nowhere could he find any religious teacher, any +religious body rousing itself to meet the new dawn of faith in +the world. Some few men indeed seemed thoughtful, but within the +limitation of their vows. Everywhere it was church and creed and +nation and king and property and partisanship, and nowhere was it +the True God that the priests and teachers were upholding. It was +always the common unhampered man through whom the light of God +was breaking; it was always the creed and the organization of the +religious professionals that stood in the way to God.... + +"God is putting the priests aside," he cried, "and reaching out +to common men. The churches do not serve God. They stand between +man and God. They are like great barricades on the way to God." + +The bishop's hand brushed over Archbishop Pontifex, who was +just coming down to breakfast in his palace. This pompous old man +was dressed in a purple garment that set off his tall figure very +finely, and he was holding out his episcopal ring for his guests +to kiss, that being the customary morning greeting of Archbishop +Pontifex. The thought of that ring-kissing had made much hard +work at lower levels "worth while" to Archbishop Pontifex. And +seventy miles away from him old Likeman breakfasted in bed on +Benger's food, and searched his Greek Testament for tags to put +to his letters. And here was the familiar palace at Princhester, +and in an armchair in his bed-room sat Bishop Scrope insensible +and motionless, in a trance in which he was dreaming of the +coming of God. + +"I see my futility. I see my vanity. But what am I to do?" he +said, turning to the darkness that now wrapped about the Angel +again, fold upon fold. "The implications of yesterday bind me for +the morrow. This is my world. This is what I am and what I am in. +How can I save myself? How can I turn from these habits and +customs and obligations to the service of the one true God? When +I see myself, then I understand how it is with the others. All we +priests and teachers are men caught in nets. I would serve God. +Easily said! But how am I to serve God? How am I to help and +forward His coming, to make myself part of His coming?" + +He perceived that he was returning into himself, and that the +vision of the sphere and of the starry spaces was fading into +non-existence. + +He struggled against this return. He felt that his demand was +still unanswered. His wife's face had suddenly come very close to +him, and he realized she intervened between him and that +solution. + +What was she doing here? + +(9) + + +The great Angel seemed still to be near at hand, limitless +space was all about him, and yet the bishop perceived that he was +now sitting in the arm-chair in his bedroom in the palace of +Princhester. He was both there and not there. It seemed now as if +he had two distinct yet kindred selves, and that the former +watched the latter. The latter was now awakening to the things +about him; the former marked his gestures and listened with an +entire detachment to the words he was saying. These words he was +saying to Lady Ella: "God is coming to rule the world, I tell +you. We must leave the church." + +Close to him sat Lady Ella, watching him with an expression in +which dismay and resolution mingled. Upon the other side of him, +upon a little occasional table, was a tray with breakfast things. +He was no longer the watcher now, but the watched. + +Lady Ella bent towards him as he spoke. She seemed to struggle +with and dismiss his astonishing statement. + +"Edward," she said, "you have been taking a drug." He looked +round at his night table to see the little phial. It had gone. +Then he saw that Lady Ella held it very firmly in her hand. + +"Dunk came to me in great distress. He said you were insensible +and breathing heavily. I came. I realized. I told him to say +nothing to any one, but to fetch me a tray with your breakfast. I +have kept all the other servants away and I have waited here by +you.... Dunk I think is safe.... You have been muttering and +moving your head from side to side...." + +The bishop's mind was confused. He felt as though God must be +standing just outside the room. "I have failed in my duty," he +said. "But I am very near to God." He laid his hand on her arm. +"You know, Ella, He is very close to us...." + +She looked perplexed. + +He sat up in his chair. + +"For some months now," he said, "there have been new forces at +work in my mind. I have been invaded by strange doubts and still +stranger realizations. This old church of ours is an empty mask. +God is not specially concerned in it." + +"Edward!" she cried, "what are you saying?" + +"I have been hesitating to tell you. But I see now I must tell +you plainly. Our church is a cast hull. It is like the empty skin +of a snake. God has gone out of it." + +She rose to her feet. She was so horrified that she staggered +backward, pushing her chair behind her. "But you are mad," she +said. + +He was astonished at her distress. He stood up also. + +"My dear," he said, "I can assure you I am not mad. I should +have prepared you, I know...." + +She looked at him wild-eyed. Then she glanced at the phial, +gripped in her hand. + +"Oh!" she exclaimed, and going swiftly to the window emptied +out the contents of the little bottle. He realized what she was +doing too late to prevent her. + +"Don't waste that!" he cried, and stepping forward caught hold +of her wrist. The phial fell from her white fingers, and crashed +upon the rough paved garden path below. + +"My dear," he cried, "my dear. You do not understand." + +They stood face to face. "It was a tonic," he said. "I have +been ill. I need it." + +"It is a drug," she answered. "You have been uttering +blasphemies." + +He dropped her arm and walked half-way across the room. Then he +turned and faced her. + +"They are not blasphemies," he said. "But I ought not to have +surprised you and shocked you as I have done. I want to tell you +of changes that have happened to my mind." + +"Now!" she exclaimed, and then: "I will not hear them now. +Until you are better. Until these fumes--" + +Her manner changed. "Oh, Edward!" she cried, "why have you done +this? Why have you taken things secretly? I know you have been +sleepless, but I have been so ready to help you. I have been +willing--you know I have been willing--for any help. My life +is all to be of use to you...." + +"Is there any reason," she pleaded, "why you should have hidden +things from me?" + +He stood remorseful and distressed. "I should have talked to +you," he said lamely. + +"Edward," she said, laying her hands on his shoulders, "will +you do one thing for me? Will you try to eat a little breakfast? +And stay here? I will go down to Mr. Whippham and arrange +whatever is urgent with him. Perhaps if you rest--There is +nothing really imperative until the confirmation in the +afternoon.... I do not understand all this. For some time--I +have felt it was going on. But of that we can talk. The thing now +is that people should not know, that nothing should be seen.... +Suppose for instance that horrible White Blackbird were to hear +of it.... I implore you. If you rest here--And if I were to +send for that young doctor who attended Miriam." + +"I don't want a doctor," said the bishop. + +"But you ought to have a doctor." + +"I won't have a doctor," said the bishop. + +It was with a perplexed but powerless dissent that the +externalized perceptions of the bishop witnessed his agreement +with the rest of Lady Ella's proposals so soon as this point +about the doctor was conceded. + +(10) + + +For the rest of that day until his breakdown in the cathedral +the sense of being in two places at the same time haunted the +bishop's mind. He stood beside the Angel in the great space +amidst the stars, and at the same time he was back in his +ordinary life, he was in his palace at Princhester, first resting +in his bedroom and talking to his wife and presently taking up +the routines of his duties again in his study downstairs. + +His chief task was to finish his two addresses for the +confirmation services of the day. He read over his notes, and +threw them aside and remained for a time thinking deeply. The +Greek tags at the end of Likeman's letter came into his thoughts; +they assumed a quality of peculiar relevance to this present +occasion. He repeated the words: "Epitelesei. Epiphausei." + +He took his little Testament to verify them. After some slight +trouble he located the two texts. The first, from Philippians, +ran in the old version, "He that hath begun a good work in you +will perform it"; the second was expressed thus: "Christ shall +give thee light." He was dissatisfied with these renderings and +resorted to the revised version, which gave "perfect" instead of +"perform," and "shall shine upon you" for "give thee light." He +reflected profoundly for a time. + +Then suddenly his addresses began to take shape in his mind, +and these little points lost any significance. He began to write +rapidly, and as he wrote he felt the Angel stood by his right +hand and read and approved what he was writing. There were +moments when his mind seemed to be working entirely beyond his +control. He had a transitory questioning whether this curious +intellectual automatism was not perhaps what people meant by +"inspiration." + +(11) + + +The bishop had always been sensitive to the secret fount of +pathos that is hidden in the spectacle of youth. Long years ago +when he and Lady Ella had been in Florence he had been moved to +tears by the beauty of the fresh-faced eager Tobit who runs +beside the great angel in the picture of Botticelli. And suddenly +and almost as uncontrollably, that feeling returned at the sight +of the young congregation below him, of all these scores of +neophytes who were gathered to make a public acknowledgment of +God. The war has invested all youth now with the shadow of +tragedy; before it came many of us were a little envious of youth +and a little too assured of its certainty of happiness. All that +has changed. Fear and a certain tender solicitude mingle in our +regard for every child; not a lad we pass in the street but may +presently be called to face such pain and stress and danger as no +ancient hero ever knew. The patronage, the insolent condescension +of age, has vanished out of the world. It is dreadful to look +upon the young. + +He stood surveying the faces of the young people as the rector +read the Preface to the confirmation service. How simple they +were, how innocent! Some were a little flushed by the excitement +of the occasion; some a little pallid. But they were all such +tender faces, so soft in outline, so fresh and delicate in +texture and colour. They had soft credulous mouths. Some glanced +sideways at one another; some listened with a forced intentness. +The expression of one good-looking boy, sitting in a corner scat, +struck the bishop as being curiously defiant. He stood very +erect, he blinked his eyes as though they smarted, his lips were +compressed bitterly. And then it seemed to the bishop that the +Angel stood beside him and gave him understanding. + +"He is here," the bishop knew, "because he could not avoid +coming. He tried to excuse himself. His mother wept. What could +he do? But the church's teaching nowadays fails even to grip the +minds of boys." + +The rector came to the end of his Preface: "They will evermore +endeavour themselves faithfully to observe such things as they by +their own confession have assented unto." + +"Like a smart solicitor pinning them down," said the bishop to +himself, and then roused himself, unrolled the little paper in +his hand, leant forward, and straightway began his first address. + +Nowadays it is possible to say very unorthodox things indeed in +an Anglican pulpit unchallenged. There remains no alert doctrinal +criticism in the church congregations. It was possible, +therefore, for the bishop to say all that follows without either +hindrance or disturbance. The only opposition, indeed, came from +within, from a sense of dreamlike incongruity between the place +and the occasion and the things that he found himself delivering. + +"All ceremonies," he began, "grow old. All ceremonies are +tainted even from the first by things less worthy than their +first intention, and you, my dear sons and daughters, who have +gathered to-day in this worn and ancient building, beneath these +monuments to ancient vanities and these symbols of forgotten or +abandoned theories about the mystery of God, will do well to +distinguish in your minds between what is essential and what is +superfluous and confusing in this dedication you make of +yourselves to God our Master and King. For that is the real thing +you seek to do today, to give yourselves to God. This is your +spiritual coming of age, in which you set aside your childish +dependence upon teachers and upon taught phrases, upon rote and +direction, and stand up to look your Master in the face. You +profess a great brotherhood when you do that, a brotherhood that +goes round the earth, that numbers men of every race and nation +and country, that aims to bring God into all the affairs of this +world and make him not only the king of your individual lives but +the king--in place of all the upstarts, usurpers, accidents, +and absurdities who bear crowns and sceptres today--of an +united mankind." + +He paused, and in the pause he heard a little rustle as though +the congregation before him was sitting up in its places, a sound +that always nerves and reassures an experienced preacher. + +"This, my dear children, is the reality of this grave business +to-day, as indeed it is the real and practical end of all true +religion. This is your sacrament urn, your soldier's oath. You +salute and give your fealty to the coming Kingdom of God. And +upon that I would have you fix your minds to the exclusion of +much that, I know only too well, has been narrow and evil and +sectarian in your preparation for this solemn rite. God is like a +precious jewel found among much rubble; you must cast the rubble +from you. The crowning triumph of the human mind is simplicity; +the supreme significance of God lies in his unity and +universality. The God you salute to-day is the God of the Jews +and Gentiles alike, the God of Islam, the God of the Brahmo +Somaj, the unknown God of many a righteous unbeliever. He is not +the God of those felted theologies and inexplicable doctrines +with which your teachers may have confused your minds. I would +have it very clear in your minds that having drunken the draught +you should not reverence unduly the cracked old vessel that has +brought it to your lips. I should be falling short of my duty if +I did not make that and everything I mean by that altogether +plain to you." + +He saw the lad whose face of dull defiance he had marked +before, sitting now with a startled interest in his eyes. The +bishop leant over the desk before him, and continued in the +persuasive tone of a man who speaks of things too manifest for +laboured argument. + +"In all ages religion has come from God through broad-minded +creative men, and in all ages it has fallen very quickly into the +hands of intense and conservative men. These last--narrow, +fearful, and suspicious--have sought in every age to save the +precious gift of religion by putting it into a prison of formulae +and asseverations. Bear that in mind when you are pressed to +definition. It is as if you made a box hermetically sealed to +save the treasure of a fresh breeze from the sea. But they have +sought out exact statements and tortuous explanations of the +plain truth of God, they have tried to take down God in writing, +to commit him to documents, to embalm his living faith as though +it would otherwise corrupt. So they have lost God and fallen into +endless differences, disputes, violence, and darkness about +insignificant things. They have divided religion between this +creed and teacher and that. The corruption of the best is the +worst, said Aristotle; and the great religions of the world, and +especially this Christianity of ours, are the ones most darkened +and divided and wasted by the fussings and false exactitudes of +the creed-monger and the sectary. There is no lie so bad as a +stale disfigured truth. There is no heresy so damnable as a +narrow orthodoxy. All religious associations carry this danger of +the over-statement that misstates and the over-emphasis that +divides and betrays. Beware of that danger. Do not imagine, +because you are gathered in this queerly beautiful old building +today, because I preside here in this odd raiment of an odder +compromise, because you see about you in coloured glass and +carven stone the emblems of much vain disputation, that thereby +you cut yourselves off and come apart from the great world of +faith, Catholic, Islamic, Brahministic, Buddhistic, that grows +now to a common consciousness of the near Advent of God our King. +You enter that waiting world fraternity now, you do not leave it. +This place, this church of ours, should be to you not a seclusion +and a fastness but a door. + +"I could quote you a score of instances to establish that this +simple universalism was also the teaching of Christ. But now I +will only remind you that it was Mary who went to her lord +simply, who was commended, and not Martha who troubled about many +things. Learn from the Mary of Faith and not from these Marthas +of the Creeds. Let us abandon the presumptions of an ignorant +past. The perfection of doctrine is not for finite men. Give +yourselves to God. Give yourselves to God. Not to churches and +uses, but to God. To God simply. He is the first word of religion +and the last. He is Alpha; he is Omega. Epitelesei; it is He who +will finish the good work begun." + +The bishop ended his address in a vivid silence. Then he began +his interrogation. + +"Do you here, in the presence of God, and of this congregation, +renew the solemn promise and vow that was made in your name at +your Baptism; ratifying and confirming the same in your own +persons, and acknowledging yourselves--" + +He stopped short. The next words were: "bound to believe and do +all those things, which your Godfathers and Godmothers then +undertook for you." + +He could not stand those words. He hesitated, and then +substituted: "acknowledge yourselves to be the true servants of +the one God, who is the Lord of Mankind?" + +For a moment silence hung in the cathedral. Then one voice, a +boy's voice, led a ragged response. "I do." + +Then the bishop: "Our help is in the Name of the Lord." + +The congregation answered doubtfully, with a glance at its +prayer books: "Who hath made heaven and earth." + +The bishop: "Blessed be the name of the Lord." + +The congregation said with returning confidence: "Henceforth, +world without end." + +(12) + + +Before his second address the bishop had to listen to Veni +Creator Spiritus, in its English form, and it seemed to him the +worst of all possible hymns. Its defects became monstrously +exaggerated to his hypersensitive mind. It impressed him in its +Englished travesty as a grotesque, as a veritable Charlie Chaplin +among hymns, and in truth it does stick out most awkward feet, it +misses its accusatives, it catches absurdly upon points of +abstruse doctrine. The great Angel stood motionless and ironical +at the bishop's elbow while it was being sung. "Your church," he +seemed to say. + +"We must end this sort of thing," whispered the bishop. "We +must end this sort of thing--absolutely." He glanced at the +faces of the singers, and it became beyond all other things +urgent, that he should lift them once for all above the sectarian +dogmatism of that hymn to a simple vision of God's light.... + +He roused himself to the touching business of the laying on of +hands. While he did so the prepared substance of his second +address was running through his mind. The following prayer and +collects he read without difficulty, and so came to his second +address. His disposition at first was explanatory. + +"When I spoke to you just now," he began, "I fell +unintentionally into the use of a Greek word, epitelesei. It was +written to me in a letter from a friend with another word that +also I am now going to quote to you. This letter touched very +closely upon the things I want to say to you now, and so these +two words are very much in my mind. The former one was taken from +the Epistle to the Philippians; it signifies, 'He will complete +the work begun'; the one I have now in mind comes from the +Epistle to the Ephesians; it is Epiphausei--or, to be fuller, +epiphausei soi ho Christos, which signifies that He will shine +upon us. And this is very much in my thoughts now because I do +believe that this world, which seemed so very far from God a +little while ago, draws near now to an unexampled dawn. God is at +hand. + +"It is your privilege, it is your grave and terrible position, +that you have been born at the very end and collapse of a +negligent age, of an age of sham kingship, sham freedom, +relaxation, evasion, greed, waste, falsehood, and sinister +preparation. Your lives open out in the midst of the breakdown +for which that age prepared. To you negligence is no longer +possible. There is cold and darkness, there is the heat of the +furnace before you; you will live amidst extremes such as our +youth never knew; whatever betide, you of your generation will +have small chance of living untempered lives. Our country is at +war and half mankind is at war; death and destruction trample +through the world; men rot and die by the million, food +diminishes and fails, there is a wasting away of all the hoarded +resources, of all the accumulated well-being of mankind; and +there is no clear prospect yet of any end to this enormous and +frightful conflict. Why did it ever arise? What made it possible? +It arose because men had forgotten God. It was possible because +they worshipped simulacra, were loyal to phantoms of race and +empire, permitted themselves to be ruled and misled by idiot +princes and usurper kings. Their minds were turned from God, who +alone can rule and unite mankind, and so they have passed from +the glare and follies of those former years into the darkness and +anguish of the present day. And in darkness and anguish they will +remain until they turn to that King who comes to rule them, until +the sword and indignation of God have overthrown their misleaders +and oppressors, and the Justice of God, the Kingdom of God set +high over the republics of mankind, has brought peace for ever to +the world. It is to this militant and imminent God, to this +immortal Captain, this undying Law-giver, that you devote +yourselves to-day. + +"For he is imminent now. He comes. I have seen in the east and +in the west, the hearts and the minds and the wills of men +turning to him as surely as when a needle is magnetized it turns +towards the north. Even now as I preach to you here, God stands +over us all, ready to receive us...." + +And as he said these words, the long nave of the cathedral, the +shadows of its fretted roof, the brown choir with its golden +screen, the rows of seated figures, became like some picture cast +upon a flimsy and translucent curtain. Once more it seemed to the +bishop that he saw God plain. Once more the glorious effulgence +poured about him, and the beautiful and wonderful conquest of +men's hearts and lives was manifest to him. + +He lifted up his hands and cried to God, and with an emotion so +profound, an earnestness so commanding, that very many of those +who were present turned their faces to see the figure to which he +looked and spoke. And some of the children had a strange +persuasion of a presence there, as of a divine figure militant, +armed, and serene.... + +"Oh God our Leader and our Master and our Friend," the bishop +prayed, "forgive our imperfection and our little motives, take us +and make us one with thy great purpose, use us and do not reject +us, make us all here servants of thy kingdom, weave our lives +into thy struggle to conquer and to bring peace and union to the +world. We are small and feeble creatures, we are feeble in +speech, feebler still in action, nevertheless let but thy light +shine upon us and there is not one of us who cannot be lit by thy +fire, and who cannot lose himself in thy salvation. Take us into +thy purpose, O God. Let thy kingdom come into our hearts and into +this world." + +His voice ceased, and he stood for a measurable time with his +arms extended and his face upturned.... + +The golden clouds that whirled and eddied so splendidly in his +brain thinned out, his sense of God's immediacy faded and passed, +and he was left aware of the cathedral pulpit in which he stood +so strangely posed, and of the astonished congregation below him. +His arms sank to his side. His eyes fell upon the book in front +of him and he felt for and gripped the two upper corners of it +and, regardless of the common order and practice, read out the +Benediction, changing the words involuntarily as he read: + +"The Blessing of God who is the Father, the Son, the Spirit and +the King of all Mankind, be upon you and remain with you for +ever. Amen." + +Then he looked again, as if to look once more upon that radiant +vision of God, but now he saw only the clear cool space of the +cathedral vault and the coloured glass and tracery of the great +rose window. And then, as the first notes of the organ came +pealing above the departing stir of the congregation, he turned +about and descended slowly, like one who is still half dreaming, +from the pulpit. + +(13) + + +In the vestry he found Canon Bliss. "Help me to take off these +garments," the bishop said. "I shall never wear them again." + +"You are ill," said the canon, scrutinizing his face. + +"Not ill. But the word was taken out of my mouth. I perceive +now that I have been in a trance, a trance in which the truth is +real. It is a fearful thing to find oneself among realities. It +is a dreadful thing when God begins to haunt a priest.... I can +never minister in the church again." + +Whippham thrust forward a chair for the bishop to sit down. The +bishop felt now extraordinarily fatigued. He sat down heavily, +and +rested his wrists on the arms of the chair. "Already," he resumed +presently, "I begin to forget what it was I said." + +"You became excited," said Bliss, "and spoke very loudly and +clearly." + +"What did I say?" + +"I don't know what you said; I have forgotten. I never want to +remember. Things about the Second Advent. Dreadful things. You +said God was close at hand. Happily you spoke partly in Greek. I +doubt if any of those children understood. And you had a kind of +lapse--an aphasia. You mutilated the interrogation and you did +not pronounce the benediction properly. You changed words and you +put in words. One sat frozen--waiting for what would happen +next." + +"We must postpone the Pringle confirmation," said Whippham. "I +wonder to whom I could telephone." + +Lady Ella appeared, and came and knelt down by the bishop's +chair. "I never ought to have let this happen," she said, taking +his wrists in her hands. "You are in a fever, dear." + +"It seemed entirely natural to say what I did," the bishop +declared. + +Lady Ella looked up at Bliss. + +"A doctor has been sent for," said the canon to Lady Ella. + +"I must speak to the doctor," said Lady Ella as if her husband +could not hear her. "There is something that will make things +clearer to the doctor. I must speak to the doctor for a moment +before he sees him." + +Came a gust of pretty sounds and a flash of bright colour that +shamed the rich vestments at hand. Over the shoulder of the +rector and quite at the back, appeared Lady Sunderbund resolutely +invading the vestry. The rector intercepted her, stood broad with +extended arms. + +"I must come in and speak to him. If it is only fo' a moment." + +The bishop looked up and saw Lady Ella's expression. Lady Ella +was sitting up very stiffly, listening but not looking round. + +A vague horror and a passionate desire to prevent the entry of +Lady Sunderbund at any cost, seized upon the bishop. She would, +he felt, be the last overwhelming complication. He descended to a +base subterfuge. He lay back in his chair slowly as though he +unfolded himself, he covered his eyes with his hand and then +groaned aloud. + +"Leave me alone!" he cried in a voice of agony. "Leave me +alone! I can see no one.... I can--no more." + +There was a momentous silence, and then the tumult of Lady +Sunderbund receded. + + + + +CHAPTER THE EIGHTH - THE NEW WORLD + +(1) + + +THAT night the bishop had a temperature of a hundred and a +half. The doctor pronounced him to be in a state of intense +mental excitement, aggravated by some drug. He was a doctor +modern and clear-minded enough to admit that he could not +identify the drug. He overruled, every one overruled, the +bishop's declaration that he had done with the church, that he +could never mock God with his episcopal ministrations again, that +he must proceed at once with his resignation. "Don't think of +these things," said the doctor. "Banish them from your mind until +your temperature is down to ninety-eight. Then after a rest you +may go into them." + +Lady Ella insisted upon his keeping his room. It was with +difficulty that he got her to admit Whippham, and Whippham was +exasperatingly in order. "You need not trouble about anything +now, my lord," he said. "Everything will keep until you are ready +to attend to it. It's well we're through with Easter. Bishop +Buncombe of Eastern Blowdesia was coming here anyhow. And there +is Canon Bliss. There's only two ordination candidates because of +the war. We'll get on swimmingly." + +The bishop thought he would like to talk to those two +ordination candidates, but they prevailed upon him not to do so. +He lay for the best part of one night confiding remarkable things +to two imaginary ordination candidates. + +He developed a marked liking for Eleanor's company. She was +home again now after a visit to some friends. It was decided that +the best thing to do with him would be to send him away in her +charge. A journey abroad was impossible. France would remind him +too dreadfully of the war. His own mind turned suddenly to the +sweet air of Hunstanton. He had gone there at times to read, in +the old Cambridge days. "It is a terribly ugly place," he said, +"but it is wine in the veins." + +Lady Ella was doubtful about Zeppelins. Thrice they had been +right over Hunstanton already. They came in by the easy landmark +of the Wash. + +"It will interest him," said Eleanor, who knew her father +better. + +(2) + + +One warm and still and sunny afternoon the bishop found himself +looking out upon the waters of the Wash. He sat where the highest +pebble layers of the beach reached up to a little cliff of sandy +earth perhaps a foot high, and he looked upon sands and sea and +sky and saw that they were beautiful. + +He was a little black-gaitered object in a scene of the most +exquisite and delicate colour. Right and left of him stretched +the low grey salted shore, pale banks of marly earth surmounted +by green-grey wiry grass that held and was half buried in fine +blown sand. Above, the heavens made a complete hemisphere of blue +in which a series of remote cumulus clouds floated and dissolved. +Before him spread the long levels of the sands, and far away at +its utmost ebb was the sea. Eleanor had gone to explore the black +ribs of a wrecked fishing-boat that lay at the edge of a shallow +lagoon. She was a little pink-footed figure, very bright and +apparently transparent. She had reverted for a time to shameless +childishness; she had hidden her stockings among the reeds of the +bank, and she was running to and fro, from star-fish to razor +shell and from cockle to weed. The shingle was pale drab and +purple close at hand, but to the westward, towards Hunstanton, +the sands became brown and purple, and were presently broken up +into endless skerries of low flat weed-covered boulders and +little intensely blue pools. The sea was a band of sapphire that +became silver to the west; it met the silver shining sands in one +delicate breathing edge of intensely white foam. Remote to the +west, very small and black and clear against the afternoon sky, +was a cart, and about it was a score or so of mussel-gatherers. A +little nearer, on an apparently empty stretch of shining wet +sand, a multitude of gulls was mysteriously busy. These two +groups of activities and Eleanor's flitting translucent movements +did but set off and emphasize the immense and soothing +tranquillity. + +For a long time the bishop sat passively receptive to this +healing beauty. Then a little flow of thought began and gathered +in his mind. He had come out to think over two letters that he +had brought with him. He drew these now rather reluctantly from +his pocket, and after a long pause over the envelopes began to +read them. + +He reread Likeman's letter first. + +Likeman could not forgive him. + +"My dear Scrope," he wrote, "your explanation explains nothing. +This sensational declaration of infidelity to our mother church, +made under the most damning and distressing circumstances in the +presence of young and tender minds entrusted to your +ministrations, and in defiance of the honourable engagements +implied in the confirmation service, confirms my worst +apprehensions of the weaknesses of your character. I have always +felt the touch of theatricality in your temperament, the peculiar +craving to be pseudo-deeper, pseudo-simpler than us all, the need +of personal excitement. I know that you were never quite +contented to believe in God at second-hand. You wanted to be +taken notice of--personally. Except for some few hints to you, +I have never breathed a word of these doubts to any human being; +I have always hoped that the ripening that comes with years and +experience would give you an increasing strength against the +dangers of emotionalism and against your strong, deep, quiet +sense of your exceptional personal importance...." + +The bishop read thus far, and then sat reflecting. + +Was it just? + +He had many weaknesses, but had he this egotism? No; that +wasn't the justice of the case. The old man, bitterly +disappointed, was endeavouring to wound. Scrope asked himself +whether he was to blame for that disappointment. That was a more +difficult question.... + +He dismissed the charge at last, crumpled up the letter in his +hand, and after a moment's hesitation flung it away.... But he +remained acutely sorry, not so much for himself as for the +revelation of Likeman this letter made. He had had a great +affection for Likeman and suddenly it was turned into a wound. + +(3) + + +The second letter was from Lady Sunderbund, and it was an +altogether more remarkable document. Lady Sunderbund wrote on a +notepaper that was evidently the result of a perverse research, +but she wrote a letter far more coherent than her speech, and +without that curious falling away of the r's that flavoured even +her gravest observations with an unjust faint aroma of absurdity. +She wrote with a thin pen in a rounded boyish handwriting. She +italicized with slashes of the pen. + +He held this letter in both hands between his knees, and +considered it now with an expression that brought his eyebrows +forward until they almost met, and that tucked in the corners of +his mouth. + +"My dear Bishop," it began. + +"I keep thinking and thinking and thinking of that wonderful +service, of the wonderful, wonderful things you said, and the +wonderful choice you made of the moment to say them--when all +those young lives were coming to the great serious thing in life. +It was most beautifully done. At any rate, dear Bishop and +Teacher, it was most beautifully begun. And now we all stand to +you like creditors because you have given us so much that you owe +us ever so much more. You have started us and you have to go on +with us. You have broken the shell of the old church, and here we +are running about with nowhere to go. You have to make the +shelter of a new church now for us, purged of errors, looking +straight to God. The King of Mankind!--what a wonderful, +wonderful phrase that is. It says everything. Tell us more of him +and more. Count me first--not foremost, but just the little one +that runs in first--among your disciples. They say you are +resigning your position in the church. Of course that must be +true. You are coming out of it--what did you call it?--coming +out of the cracked old vessel from which you have poured the +living waters. I called on Lady Ella yesterday. She did not tell +me very much; I think she is a very reserved as well as a very +dignified woman, but she said that you intended to go to London. +In London then I suppose you will set up the first altar to the +Divine King. I want to help. + +"Dear Bishop and Teacher, I want to help tremendously--with +all my heart and all my soul. I want to be let do things for +you." (The "you" was erased by three or four rapid slashes, and +"our King" substituted.) "I want to be privileged to help build +that First Church of the World Unified under God. It is a +dreadful thing to says but, you see, I am very rich; this +dreadful war has made me ever so much richer--steel and +shipping and things--it is my trustees have done it. I am +ashamed to be so rich. I want to give. I want to give and help +this great beginning of yours. I want you to let me help on the +temporal side, to make it easy for you to stand forth and deliver +your message, amidst suitable surroundings and without any horrid +worries on account of the sacrifices you have made. Please do not +turn my offering aside. I have never wanted anything so much in +all my life as I want to make this gift. Unless I can make it I +feel that for me there is no salvation! I shall stick with my +loads and loads of stocks and shares and horrid possessions +outside the Needle's Eye. But if I could build a temple for God, +and just live somewhere near it so as to be the poor woman who +sweeps out the chapels, and die perhaps and be buried under its +floor! Don't smile at me. I mean every word of it. Years ago I +thought of such a thing. After I had visited the Certosa di Pavia +--do you know it? So beautiful, and those two still alabaster +figures--recumbent. But until now I could never see my way to +any such service. Now I do. I am all afire to do it. Help me! +Tell me! Let me stand behind you and make your mission possible. +I feel I have come to the most wonderful phase in my life. I feel +my call has come.... + + +"I have written this letter over three times, and torn each of +them up. I do so want to say all this, and it is so desperately +hard to say. I am full of fears that you despise me. I know there +is a sort of high colour about me. My passion for brightness. I +am absurd. But inside of me is a soul, a real, living, breathing +soul. Crying out to you: 'Oh, let me help! Let me help!' I will +do anything, I will endure anything if only I can keep hold of +the vision splendid you gave me in the cathedral. I see it now +day and night, the dream of the place I can make for you--and +you preaching! My fingers itch to begin. The day before yesterday +I said to myself, 'I am quite unworthy, I am a worldly woman, a +rich, smart, decorated woman. He will never accept me as I am.' I +took off all my jewels, every one, I looked through all my +clothes, and at last I decided I would have made for me a very +simple straight grey dress, just simple and straight and grey. +Perhaps you will think that too is absurd of me, too +self-conscious. I would not tell of it to you if I did not want +you to understand how alive I am to my utter impossibilities, how +resolved I am to do anything so that I may be able to serve. But +never mind about silly me; let me tell you how I see the new +church. + + +"I think you ought to have some place near the centre of +London; not too west, for you might easily become fashionable, +not too east because you might easily be swallowed up in merely +philanthropic work, but somewhere between the two. There must be +vacant sites still to be got round about Kingsway. And there we +must set up your tabernacle, a very plain, very simple, very +beautifully proportioned building in which you can give your +message. I know a young man, just the very young man to do +something of the sort, something quite new, quite modern, and yet +solemn and serious. Lady Ella seemed to think you wanted to live +somewhere in the north-west of London--but she would tell me +very little. I seem to see you not there at all, not in anything +between west-end and suburb, but yourself as central as your +mind, in a kind of clergy house that will be part of the +building. That is how it is in my dream anyhow. All that though +can be settled afterwards. My imagination and my desire is +running away with me. It is no time yet for premature plans. Not +that I am not planning day and night. This letter is simply to +offer. I just want to offer. Here I am and all my worldly goods. +Take me, I pray you. And not only pray you. Take me, I demand of +you, in the name of God our king. I have a right to be used. And +you have no right to refuse me. You have to go on with your +message, and it is your duty to take me--just as you are +obliged to step on any steppingstone that lies on your way to do +God service.... And so I am waiting. I shall be waiting--on +thorns. I know you will take your time and think. But do not take +too much time. Think of me waiting. + +"Your servant, your most humble helper in God (your God), + + "AGATHA SUNDERBUND." + + +And then scrawled along the margin of the last sheet: + + +"If, when you know--a telegram. Even if you cannot say so +much as 'Agreed,' still such a word as 'Favourable.' I just hang +over the Void until I hear. + + "AGATHA S." + + + +A letter demanding enormous deliberation. She argued closely in +spite of her italics. It had never dawned upon the bishop before +how light is the servitude of the disciple in comparison with the +servitude of the master. In many ways this proposal repelled and +troubled him, in many ways it attracted him. And the argument of +his clear obligation to accept her co-operation gripped him; it +was a good argument. + +And besides it worked in very conveniently with certain other +difficulties that perplexed him. + +(4) + + +The bishop became aware that Eleanor was returning to him +across the sands. She had made an end to her paddling, she had +put on her shoes and stockings and become once more the grave and +responsible young woman who had been taking care of him since his +flight from Princhester. He replaced the two letters in his +pocket, and sat ready to smile as she drew near; he admired her +open brow, the toss of her hair, and the poise of her head upon +her neck. It was good to note that her hard reading at Cambridge +hadn't bent her shoulders in the least.... + +"Well, old Dad! " she said as she drew near. "You've got back a +colour." + +"I've got back everything. It's time I returned to +Princhester." + +"Not in this weather. Not for a day or so." She flung herself +at his feet. "Consider your overworked little daughter. Oh,how +good this is!" + +"No," said the bishop in a grave tone that made her look up +into his face. "I must go hack." + +He met her clear gaze. "What do you think of all this business, +Eleanor?" he asked abruptly. "Do you think I had a sort of fit in +the cathedral?" + +He winced as he asked the question. + +"Daddy," she said, after a little pause; "the things you said +and did that afternoon were the noblest you ever did in your +life. I wish I had been there. It must have been splendid to be +there. I've not told you before--I've been dying to.... I'd +promised not to say a word--not to remind you. I promised the +doctor. But now you ask me, now you are well again, I can tell +you. Kitty Kingdom has told me all about it, how it felt. It was +like light and order coming into a hopeless dark muddle. What you +said was like what we have all been trying to think--I mean all +of us young people. Suddenly it was all clear." + +She stopped short. She was breathless with the excitement of +her confession. + +Her father too remained silent for a little while. He was +reminded of his weakness; he was, he perceived, still a little +hysterical. He felt that he might weep at her youthful enthusiasm +if he did not restrain himself. + +I'm glad," he said, and patted her shoulder. "I'm glad, Norah." + +She looked away from him out across the lank brown sands and +water pools to the sea. "It was what we have all been feeling our +way towards, the absolute simplification of religion, the +absolute simplification of politics and social duty; just God, +just God the King." + +"But should I have said that--in the cathedral?" + +She felt no scruples. "You had to," she said. + +"But now think what it means," he said. "I must leave the +church." + +"As a man strips off his coat for a fight." + +"That doesn't dismay you?" + +She shook her head, and smiled confidently to sea and sky. + +"I'm glad if you're with me," he said. "Sometimes--I think-- +I'm not a very self-reliant man." + +"You'll have all the world with you," she was convinced, "in a +little time." + +"Perhaps rather a longer time than you think, Norah. In the +meantime--" + +She turned to him once more. + +"In the meantime there are a great many things to consider. +Young people, they say, never think of the transport that is +needed to win a battle. I have it in my mind that I should leave +the church. But I can't just walk out into the marketplace and +begin preaching there. I see the family furniture being carried +out of the palace and put into vans. It has to go somewhere...." + +"I suppose you will go to London." + +"Possibly. In fact certainly. I have a plan. Or at least an +opportunity.... But that isn't what I have most in mind. These +things are not done without emotion and a considerable strain +upon one's personal relationships. I do not think this--I do +not think your mother sees things as we do." + +"She will," said young enthusiasm, "when she understands." + +"I wish she did. But I have been unlucky in the circumstances +of my explanations to her. And of course you understand all this +means risks--poverty perhaps--going without things--travel, +opportunity, nice possessions--for all of us. A loss of +position too. All this sort of thing," he stuck out a gaitered +calf and smiled, "will have to go. People, some of them, may be +disasagreeable to us...." + +"After all, Daddy," she said, smiling, "it isn't so bad as the +cross and the lions and burning pitch. And you have the Truth." + +"You do believe--?" He left his sentence unfinished. + +She nodded, her face aglow. "We know you have the Truth." + +"Of course in my own mind now it is very clear. I had a kind of +illumination...." He would have tried to tell her of his vision, +and he was too shy. "It came to me suddenly that the whole world +was in confusion because men followed after a thousand different +immediate aims, when really it was quite easy, if only one could +be simple it was quite easy, to show that nearly all men could +only be fully satisfied and made happy in themselves by one +single aim, which was also the aim that would make the whole +world one great order, and that aim was to make God King of one's +heart and the whole world. I saw that all this world, except for +a few base monstrous spirits, was suffering hideous things +because of this war, and before the war it was full of folly, +waste, social injustice and suspicion for the same reason, +because it had not realized the kingship of God. And that is so +simple; the essence of God is simplicity. The sin of this war +lies with men like myself, men who set up to tell people about +God, more than it lies with any other class--" + +"Kings?" she interjected. "Diplomatists? Finance?" + +"Yes. Those men could only work mischief in the world because +the priests and teachers let them. All things human lie at last +at the door of the priest and teacher. Who differentiate, who +qualify and complicate, who make mean unnecessary elaborations, +and so divide mankind. If it were not for the weakness and +wickedness of the priests, every one would know and understand +God. Every one who was modest enough not to set up for particular +knowledge. Men disputed whether God is Finite or Infinite, +whether he has a triple or a single aspect. How should they know? +All we need to know is the face he turns to us. They impose their +horrible creeds and distinctions. None of those things matter. +Call him Christ the God or call him simply God, Allah, Heaven; it +does not matter. He comes to us, we know, like a Helper and +Friend; that is all we want to know. You may speculate further if +you like, but it is not religion. They dispute whether he can set +aside nature. But that is superstition. He is either master of +nature and he knows that it is good, or he is part of nature and +must obey. That is an argument for hair-splitting metaphysicians. +Either answer means the same for us. It does not matter which way +we come to believe that he does not idly set the course of things +aside. Obviously he does not set the course of things aside. What +he does do for certain is to give us courage and save us from our +selfishness and the bitter hell it makes for us. And every one +knows too what sort of things we want, and for what end we want +to escape from ourselves. We want to do right. And right, if you +think clearly, is just truth within and service without, the +service of God's kingdom, which is mankind, the service of human +needs and the increase of human power and experience. It is all +perfectly plain, it is all quite easy for any one to understand, +who isn't misled and chattered at and threatened and poisoned by +evil priests and teachers." + +"And you are going to preach that, Daddy?" + +"If I can. When I am free--you know I have still to resign +and give up--I shall make that my message." + +"And so God comes." + +"God comes as men perceive him in his simplicity.... Let men +but see God simply, and forthwith God and his kingdom possess the +world." + +She looked out to sea in silence for awhile. + +Then she turned to her father. "And you think that His Kingdom +will come--perhaps in quite a little time--perhaps in our +lifetimes? And that all these ridiculous or wicked little kings +and emperors, and these political parties, and these policies and +conspiracies, and this nationalist nonsense and all the +patriotism and rowdyism, all the private profit-seeking and every +baseness in life, all the things that it is so horrible and +disgusting to be young among and powerless among, you think they +will fade before him?" + +The bishop pulled his faith together. + +"They will fade before him--but whether it will take a +lifetime or a hundred lifetimes or a thousand lifetimes, my Norah +--" + +He smiled and left his sentence unfinished, and she smiled back +at him to show she understood. + +And then he confessed further, because he did not want to seem +merely sentimentally hopeful. + +"When I was in the cathedral, Norah--and just before that +service, it seemed to me--it was very real.... It seemed that +perhaps the Kingdom of God is nearer than we suppose, that it +needs but the faith and courage of a few, and it may be that we +may even live to see the dawning of his kingdom, even--who +knows?--the sunrise. I am so full of faith and hope that I fear +to be hopeful with you. But whether it is near or far--" + +"We work for it," said Eleanor. + +Eleanor thought, eyes downcast for a little while, and then +looked up. + +"It is so wonderful to talk to you like this, Daddy. In the old +days, I didn't dream--Before I went to Newnham. I misjudged +you. I thought Never mind what I thought. It was silly. But now I +am so proud of you. And so happy to be back with you, Daddy, and +find that your religion is after all just the same religion that +I have been wanting." + + + + +CHAPTER THE NINTH - THE THIRD VISION + +(1) + + +ONE afternoon in October, four months and more after that +previous conversation, the card of Mr. Edward Scrope was brought +up to Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey. The name awakened no memories. The +doctor descended to discover a man so obviously in unaccustomed +plain clothes that he had a momentary disagreeable idea that he +was facing a detective. Then he saw that this secular disguise +draped the familiar form of his old friend, the former Bishop of +Princhester. Scrope was pale and a little untidy; he had already +acquired something of the peculiar, slightly faded quality one +finds in a don who has gone to Hampstead and fallen amongst +advanced thinkers and got mixed up with the Fabian Society. His +anxious eyes and faintly propitiatory manner suggested an +impending appeal. + +Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey had the savoir-faire of a successful +consultant; he prided himself on being all things to all men; but +just for an instant he was at a loss what sort of thing he had to +be here. Then he adopted the genial, kindly, but by no means +lavishly generous tone advisable in the case of a man who has +suffered considerable social deterioration without being very +seriously to blame. + +Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey was a little round-faced man with +defective eyesight and an unsuitable nose for the glasses he +wore, and he flaunted--God knows why--enormous side-whiskers. + +"Well," he said, balancing the glasses skilfully by throwing +back his head, "and how are you? And what can I do for you? +There's no external evidence of trouble. You're looking lean and +a little pale, but thoroughly fit." + +"Yes," said the late bishop, "I'm fairly fit--" + +"Only--?" said the doctor, smiling his teeth, with something of +the manner of an old bathing woman who tells a child to jump. + +"Well, I'm run down and--worried." + +"We'd better sit down," said the great doctor professionally, +and looked hard at him. Then he pulled at the arm of a chair. + +The ex-bishop sat down, and the doctor placed himself between +his patient and the light. + +"This business of resigning my bishopric and so forth has +involved very considerable strains," Scrope began. "That I think +is the essence of the trouble. One cuts so many associations.... +I did not realize how much feeling there would be.... +Difficulties too of readjusting one's position." + +"Zactly. Zactly. Zactly," said the doctor, snapping his face +and making his glasses vibrate. "Run down. Want a tonic or a +change?" + +"Yes. In fact--I want a particular tonic." + +Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey made his eyes and mouth round and +interrogative. + +"While you were away last spring--" + +"Had to go," said the doctor, "unavoidable. Gas gangrene. +Certain enquiries. These young investigators all very well in +their way. But we older reputations--Experience. Maturity of +judgment. Can't do without us. Yes?" + +"Well, I came here last spring and saw, an assistant I suppose +he was, or a supply,--do you call them supplies in your +profession?--named, I think--Let me see--D--?" + +"Dale!" + +The doctor as he uttered this word set his face to the +unaccustomed exercise of expressing malignity. His round blue +eyes sought to blaze, small cherubic muscles exerted themselves +to pucker his brows. His colour became a violent pink. "Lunatic!" +he said. "Dangerous Lunatic! He didn't do anything--anything +bad in your case, did he?" + +He was evidently highly charged with grievance in this matter. +"That man was sent to me from Cambridge with the highest +testimonials. The very highest. I had to go at twenty-four hours' +notice. Enquiry--gas gangrene. There was nothing for it but to +leave things in his hands." + +Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey disavowed responsibility with an open, +stumpy-fingered hand. + +"He did me no particular harm," said Scrope. + +"You are the first he spared," said Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey. + +"Did he--? Was he unskilful?" + +"Unskilful is hardly the word." + +"Were his methods peculiar?" + +The little doctor sprang to his feet and began to pace about +the room. "Peculiar!" he said. "It was abominable that they +should send him to me. Abominable!" + +He turned, with all the round knobs that constituted his face, +aglow. His side-whiskers waved apart like wings about to flap. He +protruded his face towards his seated patient. "I am glad that he +has been killed," he said. "Glad! There!" + +His glasses fell off--shocked beyond measure. He did not heed +them. They swnng about in front of him as if they sought to +escape while he poured out his feelings. + +"Fool!" he spluttered with demonstrative gestures. "Dangerous +fool! His one idea--to upset everybody. Drugs, Sir! The most +terrible drugs! I come back. Find ladies. High social position. +Morphine-maniacs. Others. Reckless use of the most dangerous +expedients.... Cocaine not in it. Stimulants--violent +stimulants. In the highest quarters. Terrible. Exalted persons. +Royalty! Anxious to be given war work and become anonymous.... +Horrible! He's been a terrible influence. One idea--to disturb +soul and body. Minds unhinged. Personal relations deranged. +Shattered the practice of years. The harm he has done! The harm!" + +He looked as though he was trying to burst--as a final +expression of wrath. He failed. His hands felt trembling to +recover his pince-nez. Then from his tail pocket he produced a +large silk handkerchief and wiped the glasses. Replaced them. +Wriggled his head in his collar, running his fingers round his +neck. Patted his tie. + +"Excuse this outbreak!" he said. "But Dr. Dale has inflicted +injuries " + +Scrope got up, walked slowly to the window, clasping his hands +behind his back, and turned. His manner still retained much of +his episcopal dignity. "I am sorry. But still you can no doubt +tell from your books what it was he gave me. It was a tonic that +had a very great effect on me. And I need it badly now." + +Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey was quietly malignant. "He kept no diary +at all," he said. "No diary at all." + +"But + +"If he did," said Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey, holding up a flat hand +and wagging it from side to side, "I wouldn't follow his +treatment." He intensified with the hand going faster. "I +wouldn't follow his treatment. Not under any circumstances." + +"Naturally," said Scrope, "if the results are what you say. But +in my case it wasn't a treatment. I was sleepless, confused in my +mind, wretched and demoralized; I came here, and he just produced +the stuff--It clears the head, it clears the mind. One seems to +get away from the cloud of things, to get through to essentials +and fundamentals. It straightened me out.... You must know such a +stuff. Just now, confronted with all sorts of problems arising +out of my resignation, I want that tonic effect again. I must +have it. I have matters to decide--and I can't decide. I find +myself uncertain, changeable from hour to hour. I don't ask you +to take up anything of this man Dale's. This is a new occasion. +But I want that drug." + +At the beginning of this speech Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey's hands +had fallen to his hips. As Scrope went on the doctor's pose had +stiffened. His head had gone a little on one side; he had begun +to play with his glasses. At the end he gave vent to one or two +short coughs, and then pointed his words with his glasses held +out. + +"Tell me," he said, "tell me." (Cough.) "Had this drug that +cleared your head--anything to do with your resignation?" + +And he put on his glasses disconcertingly, and threw his head +back to watch the reply. + +"It did help to clear up the situation." + +"Exactly," said Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey in a tone that defined his +own position with remorseless clearness. "Exactly." And he held +up a flat, arresting hand. . + +"My dear Sir," he said. "How can you expect me to help you to a +drug so disastrous?--even if I could tell you what it is." + +"But it was not disastrous to me," said Scrope. + +"Your extraordinary resignation--your still more +extraordinary way of proclaiming it!" + +"I don't think those were disasters." + +"But my dear Sir!" + +"You don't want to discuss theology with me, I know. So let me +tell you simply that from my point of view the illumination that +came to me--this drug of Dr. Dale's helping--has been the +great release of my life. It crystallized my mind. It swept aside +the confusing commonplace things about me. Just for a time I saw +truth clearly.... I want to do so again." + +"Why?" + +"There is a crisis in my affairs--never mind what. But I +cannot see my way clear." + +Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey was meditating now with his eyes on his +carpet and the corners of his mouth tucked in. He was swinging +his glasses pendulum-wise. "Tell me," he said, looking sideways +at Scrope, "what were the effects of this drug? It may have been +anything. How did it give you this--this vision of the truth-- +that led to your resignation?" + +Scrope felt a sudden shyness. But he wanted Dale's drug again +so badly that he obliged himself to describe his previous +experiences to the best of his ability. + +"It was," he said in a matter-of-fact tone, "a golden, +transparent liquid. Very golden, like a warm-tinted Chablis. When +water was added it became streaked and opalescent, with a kind of +living quiver in it. I held it up to the light." + +"Yes? And when you took it?" + +"I felt suddenly clearer. My mind--I had a kind of exaltation +and assurance." + +"Your mind," Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey assisted, "began to go +twenty-nine to the dozen." + +"It felt stronger and clearer," said Scrope, sticking to his +quest. + +"And did things look as usual?" asked the doctor, protruding +his knobby little face like a clenched fist. + +"No," said Scrope and regarded him. How much was it possible to +tell a man of this type? + +"They differed?" said the doctor, relaxing. + +"Yes.... Well, to be plain.... I had an immediate sense of God. +I saw the world--as if it were a transparent curtain, and then +God became--evident.... Is it possible for that to determine +the drug?" + +"God became--evident," the doctor said with some distaste, +and shook his head slowly. Then in a sudden sharp cross-examining +tone: "You mean you had a vision? Actually saw 'um?" + +"It was in the form of a vision." Scrope was now mentally very +uncomfortable indeed. + +The doctor's lips repeated these words noiselessly, with an +effect of contempt. "He must have given you something--It's a +little like morphia. But golden--opalescent? And it was this +vision made you astonish us all with your resignation?" + +"That was part of a larger process," said Scrope patiently. "I +had been drifting into a complete repudiation of the Anglican +positions long before that. All that this drug did was to make +clear what was already in my mind. And give it value. Act as a +developer." + +The doctor suddenly gave way to a botryoidal hilarity. "To +think that one should be consulted about visions of God--in +Mount Street!" he said. "And you know, you know you half want to +believe that vision was real. You know you do." + +So far Scrope had been resisting his realization of failure. +Now he gave way to an exasperation that made him reckless of +Brighton-Pomfrey's opinion. "I do think," he said, "that that +drug did in some way make God real to me. I think I saw God." + +Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey shook his head in a way that made Scrope +want to hit him. + +"I think I saw God," he repeated more firmly. "I had a sudden +realization of how great he was and how great life was, and how +timid and mean and sordid were all our genteel, professional +lives. I was seized upon, for a time I was altogether possessed +by a passion to serve him fitly and recklessly, to make an end to +compromises with comfort and self-love and secondary things. And +I want to hold to that. I want to get back to that. I am given to +lassitudes. I relax. I am by temperament an easy-going man. I +want to buck myself up, I want to get on with my larger purposes, +and I find myself tired, muddled, entangled.... The drug was a +good thing. For me it was a good thing. I want its help again." + +"I know no more than you do what it was." + +"Are there no other drugs that you do know, that have a kindred +effect? If for example I tried morphia in some form?" + +"You'd get visions. They wouldn't be divine visions. If you +took small quantities very discreetly you might get a temporary +quickening. But the swift result of all repeated drug-taking is, +I can assure you, moral decay--rapid moral decay. To touch drugs +habitually is to become hopelessly unpunctual, untruthful, +callously selfish and insincere. I am talking mere textbook, mere +everyday common-places, to you when I tell you that." + +"I had an idea. I had a hope...." + +"You've a stiff enough fight before you," said the doctor, +"without such a handicap as that." + +"You won't help me?" + +The doctor walked up and down his hearthrug, and then delivered +himself with an extended hand and waggling fingers. + +"I wouldn't if I could. For your good I wouldn't. And even if I +would I couldn't, for I don't know the drug. One of his infernal +brews, no doubt. Something--accidental. It's lost--for good-- +for your good, anyhow...." + +(2) + + +Scrope halted outside the stucco portals of the doctor's house. +He hesitated whether he should turn to the east or the west. + +"That door closes," he said. "There's no getting back that +way."... + +He stood for a time on the kerb. He turned at last towards Park +Lane and Hyde Park. He walked along thoughtfully, inattentively +steering a course for his new home in Pembury Road, Notting Hill. + +(3) + + +At the outset of this new phase in Scrope's life that had +followed the crisis of the confirmation service, everything had +seemed very clear before him. He believed firmly that he had been +shown God, that he had himself stood in the presence of God, and +that there had been a plain call to him to proclaim God to the +world. He had realized God, and it was the task of every one who +had realized God to help all mankind to the same realization. The +proposal of Lady Sunderbund had fallen in with that idea. He had +been steeling himself to a prospect of struggle and dire poverty, +but her prompt loyalty had come as an immense relief to his +anxiety for his wife and family. When he had talked to Eleanor +upon the beach at Hunstanton it had seemed to him that his course +was manifest, perhaps a little severe but by no means impossible. +They had sat together in the sunshine, exalted by a sense of fine +adventure and confident of success, they had looked out upon the +future, upon the great near future in which the idea of God was +to inspire and reconstruct the world. + +It was only very slowly that this pristine clearness became +clouded and confused. It had not been so easy as Eleanor had +supposed to win over the sympathy of Lady Ella with his +resignation. Indeed it had not been won over. She had become a +stern and chilling companion, mute now upon the issue of his +resignation, but manifestly resentful. He was secretly +disappointed and disconcerted by her tone. And the same +hesitation of the mind, instinctive rather than reasoned, that +had prevented a frank explanation of his earlier doubts to her, +now restrained him from telling her naturally and at once of the +part that Lady Sunderbund was to play in his future ministry. In +his own mind he felt assured about that part, but in order to +excuse his delay in being frank with his wife, he told himself +that he was not as yet definitely committed to Lady Sunderbund's +project. And in accordance with that idea he set up housekeeping +in London upon a scale that implied a very complete cessation of +income. "As yet," he told Lady Ella, "we do not know where we +stand. For a time we must not so much house ourselves as camp. We +must take some quite small and modest house in some less +expensive district. If possible I would like to take it for a +year, until we know better how things are with us." + +He reviewed a choice of London districts. + +Lady Ella said her bitterest thing. "Does it matter where we +hide our heads?" + +That wrung him to: "We are not hiding our heads." + +She repented at once. "I am sorry, Ted," she said. "It slipped +from me."... + +He called it camping, but the house they had found in Pembury +Road, Notting Hill, was more darkened and less airy than any +camp. Neither he nor his wife had ever had any experience of +middle-class house-hunting or middle-class housekeeping before, +and they spent three of the most desolating days of their lives +in looking for this cheap and modest shelter for their household +possessions. Hitherto life had moved them from one established +and comfortable home to another; their worst affliction had been +the modern decorations of the Palace at Princhester, and it was +altogether a revelation to them to visit house after house, +ill-lit, ill-planned, with dingy paint and peeling wallpaper, +kitchens for the most part underground, and either without +bathrooms or with built-out bathrooms that were manifestly +grudging afterthoughts, such as harbour the respectable middle +classes of London. The house agents perceived intimations of +helplessness in their manner, adopted a "rushing" method with +them strange to people who had hitherto lived in a glowing halo +of episcopal dignity. "Take it or leave it," was the note of +those gentlemen; "there are always people ready for houses." The +line that property in land and houses takes in England, the +ex-bishop realized, is always to hold up and look scornful. The +position of the land-owning, house-owning class in a crowded +country like England is ultra-regal. It is under no obligation to +be of use, and people are obliged to get down to the land +somewhere. They cannot conduct business and rear families in the +air. England's necessity is the landlord's opportunity.... + +Scrope began to generalize about this, and develop a new and +sincerer streak of socialism in his ideas. "The church has been +very remiss," he said, as he and Lady Ella stared at the basement +"breakfast room" of their twenty-seventh dismal possibility. "It +should have insisted far more than it has done upon the +landlord's responsibility. No one should tolerate the offer of +such a house as this--at such a rent--to decent people. It is +unrighteous." + +At the house agent's he asked in a cold, intelligent ruling- +class voice, the name of the offending landlord. + +"It's all the property of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners that +side of the railway," said the agent, picking his teeth with a +pin. "Lazy lot. Dreadfully hard to get 'em to do anything. Own +some of the worst properties in London." + +Lady Ella saw things differently again. "If you had stayed in +the church," she said afterwards, "you might have helped to alter +such things as that." + +At the time he had no answer. + +"But," he said presently as they went back in the tube to their +modest Bloomsbury hotel, "if I had stayed in the church I should +never have realized things like that." + +(4) + + +But it does no justice to Lady Ella to record these two +unavoidable expressions of regret without telling also of the +rallying courage with which she presently took over the task of +resettling herself and her stricken family. Her husband's change +of opinion had fallen upon her out of a clear sky, without any +premonition, in one tremendous day. In one day there had come +clamouring upon her, with an effect of revelation after +revelation, the ideas of drugs, of heresy and blasphemy, of an +alien feminine influence, of the entire moral and material +breakdown of the man who had been the centre of her life. Never +was the whole world of a woman so swiftly and comprehensively +smashed. All the previous troubles of her life seemed +infinitesimal in comparison with any single item in this +dismaying debacle. She tried to consolidate it in the idea that +he was ill, "disordered." She assured herself that he would +return from Hunstanton restored to health and orthodoxy, with all +his threatenings of a resignation recalled; the man she had loved +and trusted to succeed in the world and to do right always +according to her ideas. It was only with extreme reluctance that +she faced the fact that with the fumes of the drug dispelled and +all signs of nervous exhaustion gone, he still pressed quietly +but resolutely toward a severance from the church. She tried to +argue with him and she found she could not argue. The church was +a crystal sphere in which her life was wholly contained, her mind +could not go outside it even to consider a dissentient +proposition. + +While he was at Hunstanton, every day she had prayed for an +hour, some days she had prayed for several hours, in the +cathedral, kneeling upon a harsh hassock that hurt her knees. +Even in her prayers she could not argue nor vary. She prayed over +and over again many hundreds of times: "Bring him back, dear +Lord. Bring him back again." + +In the past he had always been a very kind and friendly mate to +her, but sometimes he had been irritable about small things, +especially during his seasons of insomnia; now he came back +changed, a much graver man, rather older in his manner, carefully +attentive to her, kinder and more watchful, at times +astonishingly apologetic, but rigidly set upon his purpose of +leaving the church. "I know you do not think with me in this," he +said. "I have to pray you to be patient with me. I have struggled +with my conscience.... For a time it means hardship, I know. +Poverty. But if you will trust me I think I shall be able to pull +through. There are ways of doing my work. Perhaps we shall not +have to undergo this cramping in this house for very long...." + +"It is not the poverty I fear," said Lady Ella. + +And she did face the worldly situation, if a little sadly, at +any rate with the courage of practical energy. It was she who +stood in one ungainly house after another and schemed how to make +discomforts tolerable, while Scrope raged unhelpfully at +landlordism and the responsibility of the church for economic +disorder. It was she who at last took decisions into her hands +when he was too jaded to do anything but generalize weakly, and +settled upon the house in Pembury Road which became their London +home. She got him to visit Hunstanton again for half a week while +she and Miriam, who was the practical genius of the family, moved +in and made the new home presentable. At the best it was barely +presentable. There were many plain hardships. The girls had to +share one of the chief bedrooms in common instead of their jolly +little individual dens at Princhester.... One little room was all +that could be squeezed out as a study for "father"; it was not +really a separate room, it was merely cut off by closed folding +doors from the dining-room, folding doors that slowly transmitted +the dinner flavours to a sensitive worker, and its window looked +out upon a blackened and uneventful yard and the skylights of a +populous, conversational, and high-spirited millinery +establishment that had been built over the corresponding garden +of the house in Restharrow Street. Lady Ella had this room lined +with open shelves, and Clementina (in the absence of Eleanor at +Newuham) arranged the pick of her father's books. It is to be +noted as a fact of psychological interest that this cramped, ill- +lit little room distressed Lady Ella more than any other of the +discomforts of their new quarters. The bishop's writing-desk +filled a whole side of it. Parsimony ruled her mind, but she +could not resist the impulse to get him at least a seemly +reading-lamp. + +He came back from Hunstanton full of ideas for work in London. +He was, he thought, going to "write something" about his views. +He was very grateful and much surprised at what she had done to +that forbidding house, and full of hints and intimations that it +would not be long before they moved to something roomier. She was +disposed to seek some sort of salaried employment for Clementina +and Miriam at least, but he would not hear of that. "They must go +on and get educated," he said, "if I have to give up smoking to +do it. Perhaps I may manage even without that." Eleanor, it +seemed, had a good prospect of a scholarship at the London School +of Economics that would practically keep her. There would be no +Cambridge for Clementina, but London University might still be +possible with a little pinching, and the move to London had +really improved the prospects of a good musical training for +Miriam. Phoebe and Daphne, Lady Ella believed, might get in on +special terms at the Notting Hill High School. + +Scrope found it difficult to guess at what was going on in the +heads of his younger daughters. None displayed such sympathy as +Eleanor had confessed. He had a feeling that his wife had +schooled them to say nothing about the change in their fortunes +to him. But they quarrelled a good deal, he could hear, about the +use of the one bathroom--there was never enough hot water after +the second bath. And Miriam did not seem to enjoy playing the new +upright piano in the drawing-room as much as she had done the +Princhester grand it replaced. Though she was always willing to +play that thing he liked; he knew now that it was the Adagio of +Of. 111; whenever he asked for it. + +London servants, Lady Ella found, were now much more difficult +to get than they had been in the Holy Innocents' days in St. +John's Wood. And more difficult to manage when they were got. The +households of the more prosperous clergy are much sought after by +domestics of a serious and excellent type; an unfrocked +clergyman's household is by no means so attractive. The first +comers were young women of unfortunate dispositions; the first +cook was reluctant and insolent, she went before her month was +up; the second careless; she made burnt potatoes and cindered +chops, underboiled and overboiled eggs; a "dropped" look about +everything, harsh coffee and bitter tea seemed to be a natural +aspect of the state of being no longer a bishop. He would often +after a struggle with his nerves in the bedroom come humming +cheerfully to breakfast, to find that Phoebe, who was a delicate +eater, had pushed her plate away scarcely touched, while Lady +Ella sat at the end of the table in a state of dangerous calm, +framing comments for delivering downstairs that would be sure to +sting and yet leave no opening for repartee, and trying at the +same time to believe that a third cook, if the chances were +risked again, would certainly be "all right." + +The drawing-room was papered with a morose wallpaper that the +landlord, in view of the fact that Scrope in his optimism would +only take the house on a yearly agreement, had refused to +replace; it was a design of very dark green leaves and grey +gothic arches; and the apartment was lit by a chandelier, which +spilt a pool of light in the centre of the room and splashed +useless weak patches elsewhere. Lady Ella had to interfere to +prevent the monopolization of this centre by Phoebe and Daphne +for their home work. This light trouble was difficult to arrange; +the plain truth was that there was not enough illumination to go +round. In the Princhester drawing-room there had been a number of +obliging little electric pushes. The size of the dining-room, now +that the study was cut off from it, forbade hospitality. As it +was, with only the family at home, the housemaid made it a +grievance that she could scarcely squeeze by on the sideboard +side to wait. + +The house vibrated to the trains in the adjacent underground +railway. There was a lady next door but one who was very pluckily +training a contralto voice that most people would have gladly +thrown away. At the end of Restharrow Street was a garage, and a +yard where chauffeurs were accustomed to "tune up" their engines. +All these facts were persistently audible to any one sitting down +in the little back study to think out this project of "writing +something," about a change in the government of the whole world. +Petty inconveniences no doubt all these inconveniences were, but +they distressed a rather oversensitive mind which was also +acutely aware that even upon this scale living would cost +certainly two hundred and fifty pounds if not more in excess of +the little private income available. + + +(5) + + +These domestic details, irrelevant as they may seem in a +spiritual history, need to be given because they added an +intimate keenness to Scrope's readiness for this private chapel +enterprise that he was discussing with Lady Sunderbund. Along +that line and along that line alone, he saw the way of escape +from the great sea of London dinginess that threatened to +submerge his family. And it was also, he felt, the line of his +duty; it was his "call." + +At least that was how he felt at first. And then matters began +to grow complicated again. + +Things had gone far between himself and Lady Sunderbund since +that letter he had read upon the beach at Old Hunstanton. The +blinds of the house with the very very blue door in Princhester +had been drawn from the day when the first vanload of the +renegade bishop's private possessions had departed from the +palace. The lady had returned to the brightly decorated flat +overlooking Hyde Park. He had seen her repeatedly since then, +and always with a fairly clear understanding that she was to +provide the chapel and pulpit in which he was to proclaim to +London the gospel of the Simplicity and Universality of God. He +was to be the prophet of a reconsidered faith, calling the whole +world from creeds and sects, from egotisms and vain loyalties, +from prejudices of race and custom, to the worship and service of +the Divine King of all mankind. That in fact had been the ruling +resolve in his mind, the resolve determining his relations not +only with Lady Sunderbund but with Lady Ella and his family, his +friends, enemies and associates. He had set out upon this course +unchecked by any doubt, and overriding the manifest disapproval +of his wife and his younger daughters. Lady Sunderbund's +enthusiasm had been enormous and sustaining.... + +Almost imperceptibly that resolve had weakened. Imperceptibly +at first. Then the decline had been perceived as one sometimes +perceives a thing in the background out of the corner of one's +eye. + +In all his early anticipations of the chapel enterprise, he had +imagined himself in the likeness of a small but eloquent figure +standing in a large exposed place and calling this lost misled +world back to God. Lady Sunderbund, he assumed, was to provide +the large exposed place (which was dimly paved with pews) and +guarantee that little matter which was to relieve him of sordid +anxieties for his family, the stipend. He had agreed in an +inattentive way that this was to be eight hundred a year, with a +certain proportion of the subscriptions. "At fl'st, I shall be +the chief subsc'iber," she said. "Before the 'ush comes." He had +been so content to take all this for granted and think no more +about it--more particularly to think no more about it--that +for a time he entirely disregarded the intense decorative +activities into which Lady Sunderbund incontinently plunged. Had +he been inclined to remark them he certainly might have done so, +even though a considerable proportion was being thoughtfully +veiled for a time from his eyes. + +For example, there was the young architect with the wonderful +tie whom he met once or twice at lunch in the Hyde Park flat. +This young man pulled the conversation again and again, Lady +Sunderbund aiding and abetting, in the direction of the "ideal +church." It was his ambition, he said, someday, to build an ideal +church, "divorced from tradition." + +Scrope had been drawn at last into a dissertation. He said that +hitherto all temples and places of worship had been conditioned +by orientation due to the seasonal aspects of religion, they +pointed to the west or--as in the case of the Egyptian temples +--to some particular star, and by sacramentalism, which centred +everything on a highly lit sacrificial altar. It was almost +impossible to think of a church built upon other lines than that. +The architect would be so free that--" + +"Absolutely free," interrupted the young architect. "He might, +for example, build a temple like a star." + +"Or like some wondyful casket," said Lady Sunderbund.... + +And also there was a musician with fuzzy hair and an impulsive +way of taking the salted almonds, who wanted to know about +religious music. + +Scrope hazarded the idea that a chanting people was a religious +people. He said, moreover, that there was a fine religiosity +about Moussorgski, but that the most beautiful single piece of +music in the world was Beethoven's sonata, Opus 111,--he was +thinking, he said, more particularly of the Adagio at the end, +molto semplice e cantabile. It had a real quality of divinity. + +The musician betrayed impatience at the name of Beethoven, and +thought, with his mouth appreciatively full of salted almonds, +that nowadays we had got a little beyond that anyhow. + +"We shall be superhuman before we get beyond either Purcell or +Beethoven," said Scrope. + +Nor did he attach sufficient importance to Lady Sunderbund's +disposition to invite Positivists, members of the Brotherhood +Church, leaders among the Christian Scientists, old followers of +the Rev. Charles Voysey, Swedenborgians, Moslem converts, Indian +Theosophists, psychic phenomena and so forth, to meet him. +Nevertheless it began to drift into his mind that he was by no +means so completely in control of the new departure as he had +supposed at first. Both he and Lady Sunderbund professed +universalism; but while his was the universalism of one who would +simplify to the bare fundamentals of a common faith, hers was the +universalism of the collector. Religion to him was something that +illuminated the soul, to her it was something that illuminated +prayer-books. For a considerable time they followed their +divergent inclinations without any realization of their +divergence. None the less a vague doubt and dissatisfaction with +the prospect before him arose to cloud his confidence. + +At first there was little or no doubt of his own faith. He was +still altogether convinced that he had to confess and proclaim +God in his life. He was as sure that God was the necessary king +and saviour of mankind and of a man's life, as he was of the +truth of the Binomial Theorem. But what began first to fade was +the idea that he had been specially called to proclaim the True +God to all the world. He would have the most amiable conference +with Lady Sunderbund, and then as he walked back to Notting Hill +he would suddenly find stuck into his mind like a challenge, +Heaven knows how: "Another prophet?" Even if he succeeded in this +mission enterprise, he found himself asking, what would he be but +just a little West-end Mahomet? He would have founded another +sect, and we have to make an end to all sects. How is there to be +an end to sects, if there are still to be chapels--richly +decorated chapels--and congregations, and salaried specialists +in God? + +That was a very disconcerting idea. It was particularly active +at night. He did his best to consider it with a cool detachment, +regardless of the facts that his private income was just under +three hundred pounds a year, and that his experiments in cultured +journalism made it extremely improbable that the most sedulous +literary work would do more than double this scanty sum. Yet for +all that these nasty, ugly, sordid facts were entirely +disregarded, they did somehow persist in coming in and squatting +down, shapeless in a black corner of his mind--from which their +eyes shone out, so to speak--whenever his doubt whether he +ought to set up as a prophet at all was under consideration. + +(6) + + +Then very suddenly on this October afternoon the situation had +come to a crisis. + +He had gone to Lady Sunderbund's flat to see the plans and +drawings for the new church in which he was to give his message +to the world. They had brought home to him the complete +realization of Lady Sunderbund's impossibility. He had attempted +upon the spur of the moment an explanation of just how much they +differed, and he had precipitated a storm of extravagantly +perplexing emotions.... + +She kept him waiting for perhaps ten minutes before she brought +the plans to him. He waited in the little room with the Wyndham +Lewis picture that opened upon the balcony painted with crazy +squares of livid pink. On a golden table by the window a number +of recently bought books were lying, and he went and stood over +these, taking them up one after another. The first was "The +Countess of Huntingdon and Her Circle," that bearder of +lightminded archbishops, that formidable harbourer of Wesleyan +chaplains. For some minutes he studied the grim portrait of this +inspired lady standing with one foot ostentatiously on her +coronet and then turned to the next volume. This was a life of +Saint Teresa, that energetic organizer of Spanish nunneries. The +third dealt with Madame Guyon. It was difficult not to feel that +Lady Sunderbund was reading for a part. + +She entered. + +She was wearing a long simple dress of spangled white with a +very high waist; she had a bracelet of green jade, a waistband of +green silk, and her hair was held by a wreath of artificial +laurel, very stiff and green. Her arms were full of big rolls of +cartridge paper and tracing paper. "I'm so pleased," she said. +"It's 'eady at last and I can show you." + +She banged the whole armful down upon a vivid little table of +inlaid black and white wood. He rescued one or two rolls and a +sheet of tracing paper from the floor. + +"It's the Temple," she panted in a significant whisper. "It's +the Temple of the One T'ue God!" + +She scrabbled among the papers, and held up the elevation of a +strange square building to his startled eyes. "Iszi't it just +pe'fect?" she demanded. + +He took the drawing from her. It represented a building, +manifestly an enormous building, consisting largely of two great, +deeply fluted towers flanking a vast archway approached by a long +flight of steps. Between the towers appeared a dome. It was as if +the Mosque of Saint Sophia had produced this offspring in a +mesalliance with the cathedral of Wells. Its enormity was made +manifest by the minuteness of the large automobiles that were +driving away in the foreground after "setting down." "Here is the +plan," she said, thrusting another sheet upon him before he could +fully take in the quality of the design. "The g'eat Hall is to be +pe'fectly 'ound, no aisle, no altar, and in lettas of sapphiah, +'God is ev'ywhe'.'" + +She added with a note of solemnity, "It will hold th'ee +thousand people sitting down." + +"But--!" said Scrope. + +"The'e's a sort of g'andeur," she said. "It's young Venable's +wo'k. It's his fl'st g'ate oppo'tunity." + +"But--is this to go on that little site in Aldwych?" + +"He says the' isn't 'oom the'!" she explained. "He wants to put +it out at Golda's G'een." + +"But--if it is to be this little simple chapel we proposed, +then wasn't our idea to be central?" + +"But if the' isn't 'oem! "she said--conclusively. "And isn't +this--isn't it rather a costly undertaking, rather more costly--" + +"That docsn't matta. I'm making heaps and heaps of money. Half +my p'ope'ty is in shipping and a lot of the 'eat in munitions. +I'm 'icher than eva. Isn't the' a sort of g'andeur?" she pressed. + +He put the elevation down. He took the plan from her hands and +seemed to study it. But he was really staring blankly at the +whole situation. + +"Lady Sunderbund," he said at last, with an effort, "I am +afraid all this won't do." + +"Won't do!" + +"No. It isn't in the spirit of my intention. It isn't in a +great building of this sort--so--so ornate and imposing, that +the simple gospel of God's Universal Kingdom can be preached." + +"But oughtn't so gate a message to have as g'ate a pulpit?" + +And then as if she would seize him before he could go on to +further repudiations, she sought hastily among the drawings +again. + +"But look," she said. "It has ev'ything! It's not only a +p'eaching place; it's a headquarters for ev'ything." + +With the rapid movements of an excited child she began to +thrust the remarkable features and merits of the great project +upon him. The preaching dome was only the heart of it. There were +to be a library, "'efecto'ies," consultation rooms, classrooms, a +publication department, a big underground printing establishment. +"Nowadays," she said, "ev'y gate movement must p'int." There was +to be music, she said, "a gate invisible o'gan," hidden amidst +the architectural details, and pouring out its sounds into the +dome, and then she glanced in passing at possible "p'ocessions" +round the preaching dome. This preaching dome was not a mere +shut-in drum for spiritual reverberations, around it ran great +open corridors, and in these corridors there were to be +"chapels." + +"But what for?" he asked, stemming the torrent. "What need is +there for chapels? There are to be no altars, no masses, no +sacraments?" + +"No," she said, "but they are to be chapels for special +int'ests; a chapel for science, a chapel for healing, a chapel +for gov'ment. Places for peoples to sit and think about those +things--with paintings and symbols." + +"I see your intention," he admitted. "I see your intention." + +"The' is to be a gate da'k blue 'ound chapel for sta's and +atoms and the myst'ry of matta." Her voice grew solemn. "All +still and deep and high. Like a k'ystal in a da'k place. You will +go down steps to it. Th'ough a da'k 'ounded a'ch ma'ked with +mathematical symbols and balances and scientific app'atus.... And +the ve'y next to it, the ve'y next, is to be a little b'ight +chapel for bi'ds and flowas!" + +"Yes," he said, "it is all very fine and expressive. It is, I +see, a symbolical building, a great artistic possibility. But is +it the place for me? What I have to say is something very simple, +that God is the king of the whole world, king of the ha'penny +newspaper and the omnibus and the vulgar everyday things, and +that they have to worship him and serve him as their leader in +every moment of their lives. This isn't that. This is the old +religions over again. This is taking God apart. This is putting +him into a fresh casket instead of the old one. And.... I don't +like it." + +"Don't like it," she cried, and stood apart from him with her +chin in the air, a tall astonishment and dismay. + +"I can't do the work I want to do with this." + +"But--Isn't it you' idea?" + +"No. It is not in the least my idea. I want to tell the whole +world of the one God that can alone unite it and save it--and +you make this extravagant toy." + +He felt as if he had struck her directly he uttered that last +word. + +"Toy!" she echoed, taking it in, "you call it a Toy!" + +A note in her voice reminded him that there were two people who +might feel strongly in this affair. + +"My dear Lady Sunderbund," he said with a sudden change of +manner, "I must needs follow the light of my own mind. I have had +a vision of God, I have seen him as a great leader towering over +the little lives of men, demanding the little lives of men, +prepared to take them and guide them to the salvation of mankind +and the conquest of pain and death. I have seen him as the God of +the human affair, a God of politics, a God of such muddy and +bloody wars as this war, a God of economics, a God of railway +junctions and clinics and factories and evening schools, a God in +fact of men. This God--this God here, that you want to worship, +is a God of artists and poets--of elegant poets, a God of +bric-a-brac, a God of choice allusions. Oh, it has its grandeur! +I don't want you to think that what you are doing may not be +altogether fine and right for you to do. But it is not what I +have to do.... I cannot--indeed I cannot--go on with this +project--upon these lines." + +He paused, flushed and breathless. Lady Sunderbund had heard +him to the end. Her bright face was brightly flushed, and there +were tears in her eyes. It was like her that they should seem +tears of the largest, most expensive sort, tears of the first +water. + +"But," she cried, and her red delicate mouth went awry with +dismay and disappointment, and her expression was the half +incredulous expression of a child suddenly and cruelly +disappointed: "You won't go on with all this?" + +"No," he said. "My dear Lady Sunderbund--" + +"Oh! don't Lady Sunderbund me!" she cried with a novel +rudeness. "Don't you see I've done it all for you?" + +He winced and felt boorish. He had never liked and disapproved +of Lady Sunderbund so much as he did at that moment. And he had +no words for her. + +"How can I stop it all at once like this?" + +And still he had no answer. + +She pursued her advantage. "What am I to do?" she cried. + +She turned upon him passionately. "Look what you've done!" She +marked her points with finger upheld, and gave odd suggestions in +her face of an angry coster girl. "Eva' since I met you, I've +wo'shipped you. I've been 'eady to follow you anywhe'--to do +anything. Eva' since that night when you sat so calm and +dignified, and they baited you and wo'id you. When they we' all +vain and cleva, and you--you thought only of God and 'iligion +and didn't mind fo' you'self.... Up to then--I'd been living-- +oh! the emptiest life..." + +The tears ran. "Pe'haps I shall live it again...." She dashed +her grief away with a hand beringed with stones as big as +beetles. + +"I said to myself, this man knows something I don't know. He's +got the seeds of ete'nal life su'ely. I made up my mind then and +the' I'd follow you and back you and do all I could fo' you. I've +lived fo' you. Eve' since. Lived fo' you. And now when all my +little plans are 'ipe, you--! Oh!" + +She made a quaint little gesture with pink fists upraised, and +then stood with her hand held up, staring at the plans and +drawings that were littered over the inlaid table. "I've planned +and planned. I said, I will build him a temple. I will be his +temple se'vant.... Just a me' se'vant...." + +She could not go on. + +"But it is just these temples that have confused mankind," he +said. + +"Not my temple," she said presently, now openly weeping over +the gay rejected drawings. "You could have explained...." + +"Oh!" she said petulantly, and thrust them away from her so +that they went sliding one after the other on to the floor. For +some long-drawn moments there was no sound in the room but the +slowly accelerated slide and flop of one sheet of cartridge paper +after another. + +"We could have been so happy," she wailed, "se'ving oua God." + +And then this disconcerting lady did a still more disconcerting +thing. She staggered a step towards Scrape, seized the lapels of +his coat, bowed her head upon his shoulder, put her black hair +against his cheek, and began sobbing and weeping. + +"My dear lady! " he expostulated, trying weakly to disengage +her. + +"Let me k'y," she insisted, gripping more resolutely, and +following his backward pace. "You must let me k'y. You must let +me k'y." + +His resistance ceased. One hand supported her, the other patted +her shining hair. "My dear child!" he said. "My dear child! I had +no idea. That you would take it like this...." + +(7) + + +That was but the opening of an enormous interview. Presently he +had contrived in a helpful and sympathetic manner to seat the +unhappy lady on a sofa, and when after some cramped discourse she +stood up before him, wiping her eyes with a wet wonder of lace, +to deliver herself the better, a newborn appreciation of the +tactics of the situation made him walk to the other side of the +table under colour of picking up a drawing. + +In the retrospect he tried to disentangle the threads of a +discussion that went to and fro and contradicted itself and began +again far back among things that had seemed forgotten and +disposed of. Lady Sunderbund's mind was extravagantly untrained, +a wild-grown mental thicket. At times she reproached him as if he +were a heartless God; at times she talked as if he were a +recalcitrant servant. Her mingling of utter devotion and the +completest disregard for his thoughts and wishes dazzled and +distressed his mind. It was clear that for half a year her clear, +bold, absurd will had been crystallized upon the idea of giving +him exactly what she wanted him to want. The crystal sphere of +those ambitions lay now shattered between them. + +She was trying to reconstruct it before his eyes. + +She was, she declared, prepared to alter her plans in any way +that would meet his wishes. She had not understood. "If it is a +Toy," she cried, "show me how to make it not a Toy! Make it +'eal!" + +He said it was the bare idea of a temple that made it +impossible. And there was this drawing here; what did it mean? He +held it out to her. It represented a figure, distressingly like +himself, robed as a priest in vestments. + +She snatched the offending drawing from him and tore it to +shreds. + +"If you don't want a Temple, have a meeting-house. You wanted a +meeting-house anyhow." + +"Just any old meeting-house," he said. "Not that special one. A +place without choirs and clergy." + +"If you won't have music," she responded, "don't have music. If +God doesn't want music it can go. I can't think God does not +app'ove of music, but--that is for you to settle. If you don't +like the' being o'naments, we'll make it all plain. Some g'ate +g'ey Dome--all g'ey and black. If it isn't to be beautiful, it +can be ugly. Yes, ugly. It can be as ugly "--she sobbed--" as +the City Temple. We will get some otha a'chitect--some City +a'chitect. Some man who has built B'anch Banks or 'ailway +stations. That's if you think it pleases God.... B'eak young +Venable's hea't.... Only why should you not let me make a place +fo' you' message? Why shouldn't it be me? You must have a place. +You've got 'to p'each somewhe'." + +"As a man, not as a priest." + +"Then p'each as a man. You must still wea' something." + +"Just ordinary clothes." + +"O'dina'y clothes a' clothes in the fashion," she said. "You +would have to go to you' taila for a new p'eaching coat with +b'aid put on dif'ently, or two buttons instead of th'ee...." + +"One needn't be fashionable." + +"Ev'ybody is fash'nable. How can you help it? Some people wea' +old fashions; that's all.... A cassock's an old fashion. There's +nothing so plain as a cassock." + +"Except that it's a clerical fashion. I want to be just as I am +now." + +"If you think that--that owoble suit is o'dina'y clothes!" +she said, and stared at him and gave way to tears of real +tenderness. + +"A cassock," she cried with passion. "Just a pe'fectly plain +cassock. Fo' deecency!... Oh, if you won't--not even that!" + +(8) + + +As he walked now after his unsuccessful quest of Dr. +Brighton-Pomfrey towards the Serpentine he acted that stormy +interview with Lady Sunderbund over again. At the end, as a +condition indeed of his departure, he had left things open. He +had assented to certain promises. He was to make her understand +better what it was he needed. He was not to let anything that +had happened affect that "spi'tual f'enship." She was to abandon +all her plans, she was to begin again "at the ve'y beginning." +But he knew that indeed there should be no more beginning again +with her. He knew that quite beyond these questions of the +organization of a purified religion, it was time their +association ended. She had wept upon him; she had clasped both +his hands at parting and prayed to be forgiven. She was drawing +him closer to her by their very dissension. She had infected him +with the softness of remorse; from being a bright and spirited +person, she had converted herself into a warm and touching +person. Her fine, bright black hair against his cheek and the +clasp of her hand on his shoulder was now inextricably in the +business. The perplexing, the astonishing thing in his situation +was that there was still a reluctance to make a conclusive +breach. + +He was not the first of men who have tried to find in vain how +and when a relationship becomes an entanglement. He ought to +break off now, and the riddle was just why he should feel this +compunction in breaking off now. He had disappointed her, and he +ought not to have disappointed her; that was the essential +feeling. He had never realized before as he realized now this +peculiar quality of his own mind and the gulf into which it was +leading him. It came as an illuminating discovery. + +He was a social animal. He had an instinctive disposition to +act according to the expectations of the people about him, +whether they were reasonable or congenial expectations or whether +they were not. That, he saw for the first time, had been the +ruling motive of his life; it was the clue to him. Man is not a +reasonable creature; he is a socially responsive creature trying +to be reasonable in spite of that fact. From the days in the +rectory nursery when Scrope had tried to be a good boy on the +whole and just a little naughty sometimes until they stopped +smiling, through all his life of school, university, curacy, +vicarage and episcopacy up to this present moment, he perceived +now that he had acted upon no authentic and independent impulse. +His impulse had always been to fall in with people and satisfy +them. And all the painful conflicts of those last few years had +been due to a growing realization of jarring criticisms, of +antagonized forces that required from him incompatible things. +From which he had now taken refuge--or at any rate sought +refuge--in God. It was paradoxical, but manifestly in God he +not only sank his individuality but discovered it. + +It was wonderful how much he had thought and still thought of +the feelings and desires of Lady Sunderbund, and how little he +thought of God. Her he had been assiduously propitiating, +managing, accepting, for three months now. Why? Partly because +she demanded it, and there was a quality in her demand that had +touched some hidden spring--of vanity perhaps it was--in him, +that made him respond. But partly also it was because after the +evacuation of the palace at Princhester he had felt more and +more, felt but never dared to look squarely in the face, the +catastrophic change in the worldly circumstances of his family. +Only this chapel adventure seemed likely to restore those fallen +and bedraggled fortunes. He had not anticipated a tithe of the +dire quality of that change. They were not simply uncomfortable +in the Notting Hill home. They were miserable. He fancied they +looked to him with something between reproach and urgency. Why +had he brought them here? What next did he propose to do? He +wished at times they would say it out instead of merely looking +it. Phoebe's failing appetite chilled his heart. + +That concern for his family, he believed, had been his chief +motive in clinging to Lady Sunderbund's projects long after he +had realized how little they would forward the true service of +God. No doubt there had been moments of flattery, moments of +something, something rather in the nature of an excited +affection; some touch of the magnificent in her, some touch of +the infantile,--both appealed magnetically to his imagination; +but the real effective cause was his habitual solicitude for his +wife and children and his consequent desire to prosper +materially. As his first dream of being something between +Mohammed and Peter the Hermit in a new proclamation of God to the +world lost colour and life in his mind, he realized more and more +clearly that there was no way of living in a state of material +prosperity and at the same time in a state of active service to +God. The Church of the One True God (by favour of Lady +Sunderbund) was a gaily-coloured lure. + +And yet he wanted to go on with it. All his imagination and +intelligence was busy now with the possibility of in some way +subjugating Lady Sunderbund, and modifying her and qualifying her +to an endurable proposition. Why? + +Why? + +There could be but one answer, he thought. Brought to the test +of action, he did not really believe in God! He did not believe +in God as he believed in his family. He did not believe in the +reality of either his first or his second vision; they had been +dreams, autogenous revelations, exaltations of his own +imaginations. These beliefs were upon different grades of +reality. Put to the test, his faith in God gave way; a sword of +plaster against a reality of steel. + +And yet he did believe in God. He was as persuaded that there +was a God as he was that there was another side to the moon. His +intellectual conviction was complete. Only, beside the living, +breathing--occasionally coughing--reality of Phoebe, God was +something as unsubstantial as the Binomial Theorem.... + +Very like the Binomial Theorem as one thought over that +comparison. + +By this time he had reached the banks of the Serpentine and was +approaching the grey stone bridge that crosses just where Hyde +Park ends and Kensington Gardens begins. Following upon his +doubts of his religious faith had come another still more +extraordinary question: "Although there is a God, does he indeed +matter more in our ordinary lives than that same demonstrable +Binomial Theorem? Isn't one's duty to Phoebe plain and clear?" +Old Likeman's argument came back to him with novel and enhanced +powers. Wasn't he after all selfishly putting his own salvation +in front of his plain duty to those about him? What did it matter +if he told lies, taught a false faith, perjured and damned +himself, if after all those others were thereby saved and +comforted? + +"But that is just where the whole of this state of mind is +false and wrong," he told himself. "God is something more than a +priggish devotion, an intellectual formula. He has a hold and a +claim--he should have a hold and a claim--exceeding all the +claims of Phoebe, Miriam, Daphne, Clementina--all of them.... + +But he hasn't'!... + +It was to that he had got after he had left Lady Sunderbund, +and to that he now returned. It was the thinness and unreality of +his thought of God that had driven him post-haste to +Brighton-Pomfrey in search for that drug that had touched his +soul to belief. + +Was God so insignificant in comparison with his family that +after all with a good conscience he might preach him every Sunday +in Lady Sunderbund's church, wearing Lady Sunderbund's vestments? + +Before him he saw an empty seat. The question was so immense +and conclusive, it was so clearly a choice for all the rest of +his life between God and the dear things of this world, that he +felt he could not decide it upon his legs. He sat down, threw an +arm along the back of the seat and drummed with his fingers. + +If the answer was "yes" then it was decidedly a pity that he +had not stayed in the church. It was ridiculous to strain at the +cathedral gnat and then swallow Lady Sunderbund's decorative +Pantechnicon. + +For the first time, Scrope definitely regretted his apostasy. + +A trivial matter, as it may seem to the reader, intensified +that regret. Three weeks ago Borrowdale, the bishop of Howeaster, +had died, and Scrope would have been the next in rotation to +succeed him on the bench of bishops. He had always looked forward +to the House of Lords, intending to take rather a new line, to +speak more, and to speak more plainly and fully upon social +questions than had hitherto been the practice of his brethren. +Well, that had gone.... + +(9) + + +Regrets were plain now. The question before his mind was +growing clear; whether he was to persist in this self-imposed +martyrdom of himself and his family or whether he was to go back +upon his outbreak of visionary fanaticism and close with this +last opportunity that Lady Sunderbund offered of saving at least +the substance of the comfort and social status of his wife and +daughters. In which case it was clear to him he would have to go +to great lengths and exercise very considerable subtlety--and +magnetism--in the management of Lady Sunderbund.... + +He found himself composing a peculiar speech to her, very frank +and revealing, and one that he felt would dominate her +thoughts.... She attracted him oddly.... At least this afternoon +she had attracted him.... + +And repelled him.... + +A wholesome gust of moral impatience stirred him. He smacked +the back of the seat hard, as though he smacked himself. + +No. He did not like it.... + +A torn sunset of purple and crimson streamed raggedly up above +and through the half stripped trecs of Kensington Gardens, and he +found himself wishing that Heaven would give us fewer sublimities +in sky and mountain and more in our hearts. Against the +background of darkling trees and stormily flaming sky a girl was +approaching him. There was little to be seen of her but her +outline. Something in her movement caught his eye and carried his +memory back to a sundown at Hunstanton. Then as she came nearer +he saw that it was Eleanor. + +It was odd to see her here. He had thought she was at Newnham. + +But anyhow it was very pleasant to see her. And there was +something in Eleanor that promised an answer to his necessity. +The girl had a kind of instinctive wisdom. She would understand +the quality of his situation better perhaps than any one. He +would put the essentials of that situation as fully and plainly +as he could to her. Perhaps she, with that clear young idealism +of hers, would give him just the lift and the light of which he +stood in need. She would comprehend both sides of it, the points +about Phoebe as well as the points about God. + +When first he saw her she seemed to be hurrying, but now she +had fallen to a loitering pace. She looked once or twice behind +her and then ahead, almost as though she expected some one and +was not sure whether this person would approach from east or +west. She did not observe her father until she was close upon +him. + +Then she was so astonished that for a moment she stood +motionless, regarding him. She made an odd movement, almost as if +she would have walked on, that she checked in its inception. Then +she came up to him and stood before him. "It's Dad," she said. + +"I didn't know you were in London, Norah," he began. + +"I came up suddenly." + +"Have you been home?" + +"No. I wasn't going home. At least--not until afterwards." + +Then she looked away from him, east and then west, and then met +his eye again. + +"Won't you sit down, Norah?" + +"I don't know whether I can." + +She consulted the view again and seemed to come to a decision. +"At least, I will for a minute." + +She sat down. For a moment neither of them spoke.... + +"What are you doing here, little Norah?" + +She gathered her wits. Then she spoke rather volubly. "I know +it looks bad, Daddy. I came up to meet a boy I know, who is going +to France to-morrow. I had to make excuses--up there. I hardly +remember what excuses I made." + +"A boy you know?" + +"Yes." + +"Do we know him? " + +"Not yet." + +For a time Scrope forgot the Church of the One True God +altogether. "Who is this boy?" he asked. + +With a perceptible effort Eleanor assumed a tone of commonsense +conventionality. "He's a boy I met first when we were skating +last year. His sister has the study next to mine." + +Father looked at daughter, and she met his eyes. "Well? " + +"It's all happened so quickly, Daddy," she said, answering all +that was implicit in that "Well?" She went on, "I would have told +you about him if he had seemed to matter. But it was just a +friendship. It didn't seem to matter in any serious way. Of +course we'd been good friends--and talked about all sorts of +things. And then suddenly you see,"--her tone was offhand and +matter-of-fact--" he has to go to France." + +She stared at her father with the expression of a hostess who +talks about the weather. And then the tears gathered and ran down +her cheek. + +She turned her face to the Serpentine and clenched her fist. + +But she was now fairly weeping. "I didn't know he cared. I +didn't know I cared." + +His next question took a little time in coming. + +"And it's love, little Norah?" he asked. + +She was comfortably crying now, the defensive altogether +abandoned. "It's love, Daddy.... Oh! love!.... He's going +tomorrow." For a minute or so neither spoke. Scrope's mind was +entirely made up in the matter. He approved altogether of his +daughter. But the traditions of parentage, his habit of +restrained decision, made him act a judicial part. "I'd like just +to see this boy," he said, and added: "If it isn't rather +interfering...." + +"Dear Daddy!" she said. "Dear Daddy!" and touched his hand. +"He'll be coming here...." + +"If you could tell me a few things about him," said Scrope. "Is +he an undergraduate?" + +"You see," began Eleanor and paused to marshal her facts. "He +graduated this year. Then he's been in training at Cambridge. +Properly he'd have a fellowship. He took the Natural Science +tripos, zoology chiefly. He's good at philosophy, but of course +our Cambridge philosophy is so silly--McTaggart blowing +bubbles.... His father's a doctor, Sir Hedley Riverton." + +As she spoke her eyes had been roving up the path and down. +"He's coming," she interrupted. She hesitated. "Would you mind if +I went and spoke to him first, Daddy?" + +"Of course go to him. Go and warn him I'm here," said Scrope. + +Eleanor got up, and was immediately greeted with joyful +gestures by an approaching figure in khaki. The two young people +quickened their paces as they drew nearer one another. There was +a rapid greeting; they stood close together and spoke eagerly. +Scrope could tell by their movements when he became the subject +of their talk. He saw the young man start and look over Eleanor's +shoulder, and he assumed an attitude of philosophical +contemplation of the water, so as to give the young man the +liberty of his profile. + +He did not look up until they were quite close to him, and when +he did he saw a pleasant, slightly freckled fair face a little +agitated, and very honest blue eyes. "I hope you don't think, +Sir, that it's bad form of me to ask Eleanor to come up and see +me as I've done. I telegraphed to her on an impulse, and it's +been very kind of her to come up to me." + +"Sit down," said Scrope, "sit down. You're Mr. Riverton?" + +"Yes, Sir," said the young man. He had the frequent "Sir" of +the subaltern. Scrope was in the centre of the seat, and the +young officer sat down on one side of him while Eleanor took up a +watching position on her father's other hand. "You see, Sir, +we've hardly known each other--I mean we've been associated +over a philosophical society and all that sort of thing, but in a +more familiar way, I mean...." + +He hung for a moment, just a little short of breath. Scrope +helped him with a grave but sympathetic movement of the head. +"It's a little difficult to explain," the young man apologized. + +"We hadn't understood, I think, either of us very much. We'd +just been friendly--and liked each other. And so it went on +even when I was training. And then when I found I had to go out +--I'm going out a little earlier than I expected--I thought +suddenly I wouldn't ever go to Cambridge again at all perhaps-- +and there was something in one of her letters.... I thought of it +a lot, Sir, I thought it all over, and I thought it wasn't right +for me to do anything and I didn't do anything until this +morning. And then I sort of had to telegraph. I know it was +frightful cheek and bad form and all that, Sir. It is. It would +be worse if she wasn't different--I mean, Sir, if she was just +an ordinary girl.... But I had a sort of feeling--just wanting +to see her. I don't suppose you've ever felt anything, Sir, as I +felt I wanted to see her--and just hear her speak to me...." + +He glanced across Scrope at Eleanor. It was as if he justified +himself to them both. + +Scrope glanced furtively at his daughter who was leaning +forward with tender eyes on her lover, and his heart went out to +her. But his manner remained judicial. + +"All this is very sudden," he said. + +"Or you would have heard all about it, Sir," said young +Riverton. "It's just the hurry that has made this seem furtive. +All that there is between us, Sir, is just the two telegrams +we've sent, hers and mine. I hope you won't mind our having a +little time together. We won't do anything very committal. It's +as much friendship as anything. I go by the evening train +to-morrow." + +"Mm," said Serope with his eye on Eleanor. + +"In these uncertain times," he began. + +"Why shouldn't I take a risk too, Daddy?" said Eleanor sharply. + +"I know there's that side of it," said the young man. "I +oughtn't to have telegraphed," he said. + +"Can't I take a risk?" exclaimed Eleanor. "I'm not a doll. I +don't want to live in wadding until all the world is safe for +me." + +Scrope looked at the glowing face of the young man. + +"Is this taking care of her?" he asked. + +"If you hadn't telegraphed--!" she cried with a threat in her +voice, and left it at that. + +"Perhaps I feel about her--rather as if she was as strong as +I am--in those ways. Perhaps I shouldn't. I could hardly endure +myself, Sir--cut off from her. And a sort of blank. Nothing +said." + +"You want to work out your own salvation," said Scrope to his +daughter. + +"No one else can," she answered. "I'm--I'm grown up." + +"Even if it hurts?" + +"To live is to be hurt somehow," she said. "This--This--" She +flashed her love. She intimated by a gesture that it is better to +be stabbed with a clean knife than to be suffocated or poisoned +or to decay.... + +Scrope turned his eyes to the young man again. He liked him. He +liked the modelling of his mouth and chin and the line of his +brows. He liked him altogether. He pronounced his verdict slowly. +"I suppose, after all," he said, "that this is better than the +tender solicitude of a safe and prosperous middleaged man. +Eleanor, my dear, I've been thinking to-day that a father who +stands between his children and hardship, by doing wrong, may +really be doing them a wrong. You are a dear girl to me. + +I won't stand between you two. Find your own salvation." He got +up. "I go west," he said, "presently. You, I think, go east." + +"I can assure you, Sir," the young man began. + +Scrope held his hand out. "Take your life in your own way," he +said. + +He turned to Eleanor. "Talk as you will," he said. + +She clasped his hand with emotion. Then she turned to the +waiting young man, who saluted. + +"You'll come back to supper?" Scrope said, without thinking out +the implications of that invitation. + +She assented as carelessly. The fact that she and her lover +were to go, with their meeting legalized and blessed, excluded +all other considerations. The two young people turned to each +other. + +Scrope stood for a moment or so and then sat down again. + +For a time he could think only of Eleanor.... He watched the +two young people as they went eastward. As they walked their +shoulders and elbows bumped amicably together. + +(10) + + +Presently he sought to resume the interrupted thread of his +thoughts. He knew that he had been dealing with some very +tremendous and urgent problem when Eleanor had appeared. Then he +remembered that Eleanor at the time of her approach had seemed to +be a solution rather than an interruption. Well, she had her own +life. She was making her own life. Instead of solving his +problems she was solving her own. God bless those dear grave +children! They were nearer the elemental things than he was. That +eastward path led to Victoria--and thence to a very probable +death. The lad was in the infantry and going straight into the +trenches. + +Love, death, God; this war was bringing the whole world back to +elemental things, to heroic things. The years of comedy and +comfort were at an end in Europe; the age of steel and want was +here. And he had been thinking--What had he been thinking? + +He mused, and the scheme of his perplexities reshaped itself in +his mind. But at that time he did not realize that a powerful new +light was falling upon it now, cast by the tragic illumination of +these young lovers whose love began with a parting. He did not +see how reality had come to all things through that one intense +reality. He reverted to the question as he had put it to himself, +before first he recoguized Eleanor. Did he believe in God? Should +he go on with this Sunderbund adventure in which he no longer +believed? Should he play for safety and comfort, trusting to +God's toleration? Or go back to his family and warn them of the +years of struggle and poverty his renunciation cast upon them? + +Somehow Lady Sunderbund's chapel was very remote and flimsy +now, and the hardships of poverty seemed less black than the +hardship of a youthful death. + +Did he believe in God? Again he put that fundamental question +to himself. + +He sat very still in the sunset peace, with his eyes upon the +steel mirror of the waters. The question seemed to fill the whole +scene, to wait, even as the water and sky and the windless trees +were waiting.... + +And then by imperceptible degrees there grew in Scrope's mind +the persuasion that he was in the presence of the living God. +This time there was no vision of angels nor stars, no snapping of +bow-strings, no throbbing of the heart nor change of scene, no +magic and melodramatic drawing back of the curtain from the +mysteries; the water and the bridge, the ragged black trees, and +a distant boat that broke the silvery calm with an arrow of black +ripples, all these things were still before him. But God was +there too. God was everywhere about him. This persuasion was over +him and about him; a dome of protection, a power in his nerves, a +peace in his heart. It was an exalting beauty; it was a perfected +conviction.... This indeed was the coming of God, the real coming +of God. For the first time Scrope was absolutely sure that for +the rest of his life he would possess God. Everything that had so +perplexed him seemed to be clear now, and his troubles lay at the +foot of this last complete realization like a litter of dust and +leaves in the foreground of a sunlit, snowy mountain range. + +It was a little incredible that he could ever have doubted. + +(11) + + +It was a phase of extreme intellectual clairvoyance. A +multitude of things that hitherto had been higgledy-piggledy, +contradictory and incongruous in his mind became lucid, serene, +full and assured. He seemed to see all things plainly as one sees +things plainly through perfectly clear still water in the shadows +of a summer noon. His doubts about God, his periods of complete +forgetfulness and disregard of God, this conflict of his +instincts and the habits and affections of his daily life with +the service of God, ceased to be perplexing incompatibilities and +were manifest as necessary, understandable aspects of the +business of living. + +It was no longer a riddle that little immediate things should +seem of more importance than great and final things. For man is a +creature thrusting his way up from the beast to divinity, from +the blindness of individuality to the knowledge of a common end. +We stand deep in the engagements of our individual lives looking +up to God, and only realizing in our moments of exaltation that +through God we can escape from and rule and alter the whole +world-wide scheme of individual lives. Only in phases of +illumination do we realize the creative powers that lie ready to +man's hand. Personal affections, immediate obligations, +ambitions, self-seeking, these are among the natural and +essential things of our individual lives, as intimate almost as +our primordial lusts and needs; God, the true God, is a later +revelation, a newer, less natural thing in us; a knowledge still +remote, uncertain, and confused with superstition; an +apprehension as yet entangled with barbaric traditions of fear +and with ceremonial surgeries, blood sacrifices, and the maddest +barbarities of thought. We are only beginning to realize that God +is here; so far as our minds go he is still not here continually; +we perceive him and then again we are blind to him. God is the +last thing added to the completeness of human life. To most His +presence is imperceptible throughout their lives; they know as +little of him as a savage knows of the electric waves that beat +through us for ever from the sun. All this appeared now so clear +and necessary to Scrope that he was astonished he had ever found +the quality of contradiction in these manifest facts. + +In this unprecedented lucidity that had now come to him, Scrope +saw as a clear and simple necessity that there can be no such +thing as a continuous living presence of God in our lives. That +is an unreasonable desire. There is no permanent exaltation of +belief. It is contrary to the nature of life. One cannot keep +actively believing in and realizing God round all the twenty-four +hours any more than one can keep awake through the whole cycle of +night and day, day after day. If it were possible so to apprehend +God without cessation, life would dissolve in religious ecstasy. +But nothing human has ever had the power to hold the curtain of +sense continually aside and retain the light of God always. We +must get along by remembering our moments of assurance. Even +Jesus himself, leader of all those who have hailed the coming +kingdom of God, had cried upon the cross, "My God, my God, why +hast thou forsaken me?" The business of life on earth, life +itself, is a thing curtained off, as it were, from such immediate +convictions. That is in the constitution of life. Our ordinary +state of belief, even when we are free from doubt, is necessarily +far removed from the intuitive certainty of sight and hearing. It +is a persuasion, it falls far short of perception.... + +"We don't know directly," Scrope said to himself with a +checking gesture of the hand, "we don't see. We can't. We hold on +to the remembered glimpse, we go over our reasons."... + +And it was clear too just because God is thus manifest like the +momentary drawing of a curtain, sometimes to this man for a time +and sometimes to that, but never continuously to any, and because +the perception of him depends upon the ability and quality of the +perceiver, because to the intellectual man God is necessarily a +formula, to the active man a will and a commandment, and to the +emotional man love, there can be no creed defining him for all +men, and no ritual and special forms of service to justify a +priesthood. "God is God," he whispered to himself, and the phrase +seemed to him the discovery of a sufficient creed. God is his own +definition; there is no other definition of God. Scrope had +troubled himself with endless arguments whether God was a person, +whether he was concerned with personal troubles, whether he +loved, whether he was finite. It were as reasonable to argue +whether God was a frog or a rock or a tree. He had imagined God +as a figure of youth and courage, had perceived him as an +effulgence of leadership, a captain like the sun. The vision of +his drug-quickened mind had but symbolized what was otherwise +inexpressible. Of that he was now sure. He had not seen the +invisible but only its sign and visible likeness. He knew now +that all such presentations were true and that all such +presentations were false. Just as much and just as little was God +the darkness and the brightness of the ripples under the bows of +the distant boat, the black beauty of the leaves and twigs of +those trees now acid-clear against the flushed and deepening sky. +These riddles of the profundities were beyond the compass of +common living. They were beyond the needs of common living. He +was but a little earth parasite, sitting idle in the darkling +day, trying to understand his infinitesimal functions on a minor +planet. Within the compass of terrestrial living God showed +himself in its own terms. The life of man on earth was a struggle +for unity of spirit and for unity with his kind, and the aspect +of God that alone mattered to man was a unifying kingship without +and within. So long as men were men, so would they see God. Only +when they reached the crest could they begin to look beyond. So +we knew God, so God was to us; since we struggled, he led our +struggle, since we were finite and mortal he defined an aim, his +personality was the answer to our personality; but God, except in +so far as he was to us, remained inaccessible, inexplicable, +wonderful, shining through beauty, shining beyond research, +greater than time or space, above good and evil and pain and +pleasure. + +(12) + + +Serope's mind was saturated as it had never been before by his +sense of the immediate presence of God. He floated in that +realization. He was not so much thinking now as conversing +starkly with the divine interlocutor, who penetrated all things +and saw into and illuminated every recess of his mind. He spread +out his ideas to the test of this presence; he brought out his +hazards and interpretations that this light might judge them. + +There came back to his mind the substance of his two former +visions; they assumed now a reciprocal quality, they explained +one another and the riddle before him. The first had shown him +the personal human aspect of God, he had seen God as the unifying +captain calling for his personal service, the second had set the +stage for that service in the spectacle of mankind's adventure. +He had been shown a great multitude of human spirits reaching up +at countless points towards the conception of the racial unity +under a divine leadership, he had seen mankind on the verge of +awakening to the kingdom of God. "That solves no mystery," he +whispered, gripping the seat and frowning at the water; +"mysteries remain mysteries; but that is the reality of religion. +And now, now, what is my place? What have I to do? That is the +question I have been asking always; the question that this moment +now will answer; what have I to do?... + +God was coming into the life of all mankind in the likeness of +a captain and a king; all the governments of men, all the leagues +of men, their debts and claims and possessions, must give way to +the world republic under God the king. For five troubled years he +had been staring religion in the face, and now he saw that it +must mean this--or be no more than fetishism, Obi, Orphic +mysteries or ceremonies of Demeter, a legacy of mental dirtiness, +a residue of self-mutilation and superstitious sacrifices from +the cunning, fear-haunted, ape-dog phase of human development. +But +it did mean this. And every one who apprehended as much was +called by that very apprehension to the service of God's kingdom. +To live and serve God's kingdom on earth, to help to bring it +about, to propagate the idea of it, to establish the method of +it, to incorporate all that one made and all that one did into +its growing reality, was the only possible life that could be +lived, once that God was known. + +He sat with his hands gripping his knees, as if he were holding +on to his idea. "And now for my part," he whispered, brows knit, +"now for my part." + +Ever since he had given his confirmation addresses he had been +clear that his task, or at least a considerable portion of his +task, was to tell of this faith in God and of this conception of +service in his kingdom as the form and rule of human life and +human society. But up to now he had been floundering hopelessly +in his search for a method and means of telling. That, he saw, +still needed to be thought out. For example, one cannot run +through the world crying, "The Kingdom of God is at hand." Men's +minds were still so filled with old theological ideas that for +the most part they would understand by that only a fantasy of +some great coming of angels and fiery chariots and judgments, and +hardly a soul but would doubt one's sanity and turn scornfully +away. But one must proclaim God not to confuse but to convince +men's minds. It was that and the habit of his priestly calling +that had disposed him towards a pulpit. There he could reason and +explain. The decorative genius of Lady Sunderbund had turned that +intention into a vast iridescent absurdity. + +This sense he had of thinking openly in the sight of God, +enabled him to see the adventure of Lady Sunderbund without +illusion and without shame. He saw himself at once honest and +disingenuous, divided between two aims. He had no doubt now of +the path he had to pursue. A stronger man of permanently clear +aims might possibly turn Lady Sunderbund into a useful +opportunity, oblige her to provide the rostrum he needed; but for +himself, he knew he had neither the needed strength nor +clearness; she would smother him in decoration, overcome him by +her picturesque persistence. It might be ridiculous to run away +from her, but it was necessary. And he was equally clear now that +for him there must be no idea of any pulpit, of any sustained +mission. He was a man of intellectual moods; only at times, he +realized, had he the inspiration of truth; upon such uncertain +snatches and glimpses he must live; to make his life a ministry +would be to face phases when he would simply be "carrying on," +with his mind blank and his faith asleep. + +His thought spread out from this perennial decision to more +general things again. Had God any need of organized priests at +all? Wasn't that just what had been the matter with religion for +the last three thousand years? + +His vision and his sense of access to God had given a new +courage to his mind; in these moods of enlightenment he could see +the world as a comprehensible ball, he could see history as an +understandable drama. He had always been on the verge of +realizing before, he realized now, the two entirely different and +antagonistic strands that interweave in the twisted rope of +contemporary religion; the old strand of the priest, the +fetishistic element of the blood sacrifice and the obscene rite, +the element of ritual and tradition, of the cult, the caste, the +consecrated tribe; and interwoven with this so closely as to be +scarcely separable in any existing religion was the new strand, +the religion of the prophets, the unidolatrous universal worship +of the one true God. Priest religion is the antithesis to prophet +religion. He saw that the founders of all the great existing +religions of the world had been like himself--only that he was +a weak and commonplace man with no creative force, and they had +been great men of enormous initiative--men reaching out, and +never with a complete definition, from the old kind of religion +to the new. The Hebrew prophets, Jesus, whom the priests killed +when Pilate would have spared him, Mohammed, Buddha, had this +much in common that they had sought to lead men from temple +worship, idol worship, from rites and ceremonies and the rule of +priests, from anniversaryism and sacramentalism, into a direct +and simple relation to the simplicity of God. Religious progress +had always been liberation and simplification. But none of these +efforts had got altogether clear. The organizing temper in men, +the disposition to dogmatic theorizing, the distrust of the +discretion of the young by the wisdom of age, the fear of +indiscipline which is so just in warfare and so foolish in +education, the tremendous power of the propitiatory tradition, +had always caught and crippled every new gospel before it had run +a score of years. Jesus for example gave man neither a theology +nor a church organization; His sacrament was an innocent feast of +memorial; but the fearful, limited, imitative men he left to +carry on his work speedily restored all these three abominations +of the antiquated religion, theology, priest, and sacrifice. +Jesus indeed, caught into identification with the ancient victim +of the harvest sacrifice and turned from a plain teacher into a +horrible blood bath and a mock cannibal meal, was surely the +supreme feat of the ironies of chance.... + +"It is curious how I drift back to Jesus," said Scrope. "I have +never seen how much truth and good there was in his teaching +until I broke away from Christianity and began to see him plain. +If I go on as I am going, I shall end a Nazarene...." + +He thought on. He had a feeling of temerity, but then it seemed +as if God within him bade him be of good courage. + +Already in a glow of inspiration he had said practically as +much as he was now thinking in his confirmation address, but now +he realized completely what it was he had then said. There could +be no priests, no specialized ministers of the one true God, +because every man to the utmost measure of his capacity was bound +to be God's priest and minister. Many things one may leave to +specialists: surgery, detailed administration, chemistry, for +example; but it is for every man to think his own philosophy and +think out his own religion. One man may tell another, but no man +may take charge of another. A man may avail himself of +electrician or gardener or what not, but he must stand directly +before God; he may suffer neither priest nor king. These other +things are incidental, but God, the kingdom of God, is what he is +for. + +"Good," he said, checking his reasoning. "So I must bear +witness to God--but neither as priest nor pastor. I must write +and talk about him as I can. No reason why I should not live by +such writing and talking if it does not hamper my message to do +so. But there must be no high place, no ordered congregation. I +begin to see my way.... + +The evening was growing dark and chill about him now, the sky +was barred with deep bluish purple bands drawn across a chilly +brightness that had already forgotten the sun, the trees were +black and dim, but his understanding of his place and duty was +growing very definite. + +"And this duty to bear witness to God's kingdom and serve it is +so plain that I must not deflect my witness even by a little, +though to do so means comfort and security for my wife and +children. God comes first...." + +"They must not come between God and me...." + +"But there is more in it than that." + +He had come round at last through the long clearing-up of his +mind, to his fundamental problem again. He sat darkly reluctant. + +"I must not play priest or providence to them," he admitted at +last. "I must not even stand between God and them." + +He saw now what he had been doing; it had been the flaw in his +faith that he would not trust his family to God. And he saw too +that this distrust has been the flaw in the faith of all +religious systems hitherto.... + +(13) + + +In this strange voyage of the spirit which was now drawing to +its end, in which Scrope had travelled from the confused, +unanalyzed formulas and assumptions and implications of his +rectory upbringing to his present stark and simple realization of +God, he had at times made some remarkable self-identifications. +He was naturally much given to analogy; every train of thought in +his mind set up induced parallel currents. He had likened himself +to the Anglican church, to the whole Christian body, as, for +example, in his imagined second conversation with the angel of +God. But now he found himself associating himself with a still +more far-reaching section of mankind. This excess of solicitude +was traceable perhaps in nearly every one in all the past of +mankind who had ever had the vision of God. An excessive +solicitude to shield those others from one's own trials and +hardships, to preserve the exact quality of the revelation, for +example, had been the fruitful cause of crippling errors, +spiritual tyrannies, dogmatisms, dissensions, and futilities. +"Suffer little children to come unto me"; the text came into his +head with an effect of contribution. The parent in us all flares +out at the thought of the younger and weaker minds; we hide +difficulties, seek to spare them from the fires that temper the +spirit, the sharp edge of the truth that shapes the soul. +Christian is always trying to have a carriage sent back from the +Celestial City for his family. Why, we ask, should they flounder +dangerously in the morasses that we escaped, or wander in the +forest in which we lost ourselves? Catch these souls young, +therefore, save them before they know they exist, kidnap them to +heaven; vaccinate them with a catechism they may never +understand, lull them into comfort and routine. Instinct plays us +false here as it plays the savage mother false when she snatches +her fevered child from the doctor's hands. The last act of faith +is to trust those we love to God.... + +Hitherto he had seen the great nets of theological +overstatement and dogma that kept mankind from God as if they +were the work of purely evil things in man, of pride, of +self-assertion, of a desire to possess and dominate the minds and +souls of others. It was only now that he saw how large a share in +the obstruction of God's Kingdom had been played by the love of +the elder and the parent, by the carefulness, the fussy care, of +good men and women. He had wandered in wildernesses of unbelief, +in dangerous places of doubt and questioning, but he had left his +wife and children safe and secure in the self-satisfaction of +orthodoxy. To none of them except to Eleanor had he ever talked +with any freedom of his new apprehensions of religious reality. +And that had been at Eleanor's initiative. There was, he saw now, +something of insolence and something of treachery in this +concealment. His ruling disposition throughout the crisis had +been to force comfort and worldly well-being upon all those +dependants even at the price of his own spiritual integrity. In +no way had he consulted them upon the bargain.... While we have +pottered, each for the little good of his own family, each for +the lessons and clothes and leisure of his own children, +assenting to this injustice, conforming to that dishonest custom, +being myopically benevolent and fundamentally treacherous, our +accumulated folly has achieved this catastrophe. It is not so +much human wickedness as human weakness that has permitted the +youth of the world to go through this hell of blood and mud and +fire. The way to the kingdom of God is the only way to the true +safety, the true wellbeing of the children of men.... + +It wasn't fair to them. But now he saw how unfair it was to +them in a light that has only shone plainly upon European life +since the great interlude of the armed peace came to an end in +August, 1914. Until that time it had been the fashion to ignore +death and evade poverty and necessity for the young. We can +shield our young no longer, death has broken through our +precautions and tender evasions--and his eyes went eastward +into the twilight that had swallowed up his daughter and her +lover. + +The tumbled darkling sky, monstrous masses of frowning blue, +with icy gaps of cold light, was like the great confusions of the +war. All our youth has had to go into that terrible and +destructive chaos--because of the kings and churches and +nationalities sturdier-souled men would have set aside. + +Everything was sharp and clear in his mind now. Eleanor after +all had brought him his solution. + +He sat quite still for a little while, and then stood up and +turned northward towards Notting Hill. + +The keepers were closing Kensington Gardens, and he would have +to skirt the Park to Victoria Gate and go home by the Bayswater +Road.... + +(14) + + +As he walked he rearranged in his mind this long-overdue +apology for his faith that he was presently to make to his +family. There was no one to interrupt him and nothing to +embarrass him, and so he was able to set out everything very +clearly and convincingly. There was perhaps a disposition to +digress into rather voluminous subordinate explanations, on such +themes, for instance, as sacramentalism, whereon he found himself +summarizing Frazer's Golden Bough, which the Chasters' +controversy had first obliged him to read, and upon the +irrelevance of the question of immortality to the process of +salvation. But the reality of his eclaircissement was very +different from anything he prepared in these anticipations. + +Tea had been finished and put away, and the family was disposed +about the dining-room engaged in various evening occupations; +Phoebe sat at the table working at some mathematical problem, +Clementina was reading with her chin on her fist and a frown on +her brow; Lady Ella, Miriam and Daphne were busy making soft +washing cloths for the wounded; Lady Ella had brought home the +demand for them from the Red Cross centre in Burlington House. +The family was all downstairs in the dining-room because the +evening was chilly, and there were no fires upstairs yet in the +drawing-room. He came into the room and exchanged greetings with +Lady Ella. Then he stood for a time surveying his children. +Phoebe, he noted, was a little flushed; she put passion into her +work; on the whole she was more like Eleanor than any other of +them. Miriam knitted with a steady skill. Clementina's face too +expressed a tussle. He took up one of the rough-knit +washing-cloths upon the side-table, and asked how many could be +made in an hour. Then he asked some idle obvious question about +the fire upstairs. Clementina made an involuntary movement; he +was disturbing her. He hovered for a moment longer. He wanted to +catch his wife's eye and speak to her first. She looked up, but +before he could convey his wish for a private conference with +her, she smiled at him and then bent over her work again. + +He went into the back study and lit his gas fire. Hitherto he +had always made a considerable explosion when he did so, but this +time by taking thought and lighting his match before he turned on +the gas he did it with only a gentle thud. Then he lit his +reading-lamp and pulled down the blind--pausing for a time to +look at the lit dressmaker's opposite. Then he sat down +thoughtfully before the fire. Presently Ella would come in and he +would talk to her. He waited a long time, thinking only weakly +and inconsecutively, and then he became restless. Should he call +her? + +But he wanted their talk to begin in a natural-seeming way. He +did not want the portentousness of "wanting to speak" to her and +calling her out to him. He got up at last and went back into the +other room. Clementina had gone upstairs, and the book she had +been reading was lying closed on the sideboard. He saw it was one +of Chasters' books, he took it up, it was "The Core of Truth in +Christianity," and he felt an irrational shock at the idea of +Clementina reading it. In spite of his own immense changes of +opinion he had still to revise his conception of the polemical +Chasters as an evil influence in religion. He fidgeted past his +wife to the mantel in search of an imaginary mislaid pencil. +Clementina came down with some bandage linen she was cutting out. +He hung over his wife in a way that he felt must convey his +desire for a conversation. Then he picked up Chasters' book +again. "Does any one want this?" he asked. + +"Not if I may have it again," consented Clementina. + +He took it back with him and began to read again those familiar +controversial pages. He read for the best part of an hour with +his knees drying until they smoked over the gas. What curious +stuff it was! How it wrangled! Was Chasters a religious man? Why +did he write these books? Had he really a passion for truth or +only a Swift-like hatred of weakly-thinking people? None of this +stuff in his books was really wrong, provided it was religious- +spirited. Much of it had been indeed destructively illuminating +to its reader. It let daylight through all sorts of walls. +Indeed, the more one read the more vividly true its acid-bit +lines became.... And yet, and yet, there was something hateful in +the man's tone. Scrope held the book and thought. He had seen +Chasters once or twice. Chasters had the sort of face, the sort +of voice, the sort of bearing that made one think of his possibly +saying upon occasion, rudely and rejoicing, "More fool you!" +Nevertheless Scrope perceived now with an effort of discovery +that it was from Chasters that he had taken all the leading ideas +of the new faith that was in him. Here was the stuff of it. He +had forgotten how much of it was here. During those months of +worried study while the threat of a Chasters prosecution hung +over him his mind had assimilated almost unknowingly every +assimilable element of the Chasters doctrine; he had either +assimilated and transmuted it by the alchemy of his own +temperament, or he had reacted obviously and filled in Chasters' +gaps and pauses. Chasters could beat a road to the Holy of +Holies, and shy at entering it. But in spite of all the man's +roughness, in spite of a curious flavour of baseness and malice +about him, the spirit of truth had spoken through him. God has a +use for harsh ministers. In one man God lights the heart, in +another the reason becomes a consuming fire. God takes his own +where he finds it. He does not limit himself to nice people. In +these matters of evidence and argument, in his contempt for +amiable, demoralizing compromise, Chasters served God as Scrope +could never hope to serve him. Scrope's new faith had perhaps +been altogether impossible if the Chasters controversy had not +ploughed his mind. + +For a time Scrope dwelt upon this remarkable realization. Then +as he turned over the pages his eyes rested on a passage of +uncivil and ungenerous sarcasm. Against old Likeman of all +people!... + +What did a girl like Clementina make of all this? How had she +got the book? From Eleanor? The stuff had not hurt Eleanor. +Eleanor had been able to take the good that Chasters taught, and +reject the evil of his spirit.... + +He thought of Eleanor, gallantly working out her own salvation. +The world was moving fast to a phase of great freedom--for the +young and the bold.... He liked that boy.... + +His thoughts came back with a start to his wife. The evening +was slipping by and he had momentous things to say to her. He +went and just opened the door. + +"Ella!" he said. + +"Did you want me?" + +"Presently." + +She put a liberal interpretation upon that "presently," so that +after what seemed to him a long interval he had to call again, +"Ella!" + +"Just a minute," she answered. + +(15) + + +Lady Ella was still, so to speak, a little in the other room +when she came to him. + +"Shut that door, please," he said, and felt the request had +just that flavour of portentousness he wished to avoid. + +"What is it? " she asked. + +"I wanted to talk to you--about some things. I've done +something rather serious to-day. I've made an important +decision." + +Her face became anxious. "What do you mean?" she asked. + +"You see," he said, leaning upon the mantelshelf and looking +down at the gas flames, "I've never thought that we should all +have to live in this crowded house for long." + +"All!" she interrupted in a voice that made him look up +sharply. "You're not going away, Ted?" + +"Oh, no. But I hoped we should all be going away in a little +time. It isn't so." + +"I never quite understood why you hoped that." + +"It was plain enough." + +"How? " + +"I thought I should have found something to do that would have +enabled us to live in better style. I'd had a plan." + +"What plan? + +"It's fallen through." + +"But what plan was it?" + +"I thought I should be able to set up a sort of broad church +chapel. I had a promise." + +Her voice was rich with indignation. "And she has betrayed +you?" + +"No," he said, "I have betrayed her." + +Lady Ella's face showed them still at cross purposes. He looked +down again and frowned. "I can't do that chapel business," he +said. "I've had to let her down. I've got to let you all down. +There's no help for it. It isn't the way. I can't have anything +to do with Lady Sunderbund and her chapel." + +"But," Lady Ella was still perplexed. + +"It's too great a sacrifice." + +"Of us?" + +"No, of myself. I can't get into her pulpit and do as she wants +and keep my conscience. It's been a horrible riddle for me. It +means plunging into all this poverty for good. But I can't work +with her, Ella. She's impossible." + +"You mean--you're going to break with Lady Sunderbund?" + +"I must." + +"Then, Teddy!"--she was a woman groping for flight amidst +intolerable perplexities--"why did you ever leave the church?" + +"Because I have ceased to believe--" + +"But had it nothing to do with Lady Sunderbund?" + +He stared at her in astonishment. + +"If it means breaking with that woman," she said. + +"You mean," he said, beginning for the first time to comprehend +her, "that you don't mind the poverty?" + +"Poverty!" she cried. "I cared for nothing but the disgrace." + +"Disgrace?" + +"Oh, never mind, Ted! If it isn't true, if I've been +dreaming...." + +Instead of a woman stunned by a life sentence of poverty, he +saw his wife rejoicing as if she had heard good news. + +Their minds were held for a minute by the sound of some one +knocking at the house door; one of the girls opened the door, +there was a brief hubbub in the passage and then they heard a cry +of "Eleanor!" through the folding doors. + +"There's Eleanor," he said, realizing he had told his wife +nothing of the encounter in Hyde Park. + +They heard Eleanor's clear voice: "Where's Mummy? Or Daddy?" +and then: "Can't stay now, dears. Where's Mummy or Daddy?" + +"I ought to have told you," said Scrope quickly. "I met Eleanor +in the Park. By accident. She's come up unexpectedly. To meet a +boy going to the front. Quite a nice boy. Son of Riverton the +doctor. The parting had made them understand one another. It's +all right, Ella. It's a little irregular, but I'd stake my life +on the boy. She's very lucky." + +Eleanor appeared through the folding doors. She came to +business at once. + +"I promised you I'd come back to supper here, Daddy," she said. +"But I don't want to have supper here. I want to stay out late." + +She saw her mother look perplexed. "Hasn't Daddy told you?" + +"But where is young Riverton?" + +"He's outside." + +Eleanor became aware of a broad chink in the folding doors that +was making the dining-room an auditorium for their dialogue. She +shut them deftly. + +"I have told Mummy," Scrope explained. "Bring him in to supper. +We ought to see him." + +Eleanor hesitated. She indicated her sisters beyond the folding +doors. "They'll all be watching us, Mummy," she said. "We'd be +uncomfortable. And besides + +"But you can't go out and dine with him alone!" + +"Oh, Mummy! It's our only chance." + +"Customs are changing," said Scrope. + +"But can they?" asked Lady Ella. + +"I don't see why not." + +The mother was still doubtful, but she was in no mood to cross +her husband that night. "It's an exceptional occasion," said +Scrope, and Eleanor knew her point was won. She became radiant. +"I can be late?" + +Scrope handed her his latch-key without a word. + +"You dear kind things," she said, and went to the door. Then +turned and came back and kissed her father. Then she kissed her +mother. "It is so kind of you," she said, and was gone. They +listened to her passage through a storm of questions in the +dining-room. + +"Three months ago that would have shocked me," said Lady Ella. + +"You haven't seen the boy," said Scrope. + +"But the appearances!" + +"Aren't we rather breaking with appearances?" he said. + +"And he goes to-morrow--perhaps to get killed," he added. "A +lad like a schoolboy. A young thing. Because of the political +foolery that we priests and teachers have suffered in the place +of the Kingdom of God, because we have allowed the religion of +Europe to become a lie; because no man spoke the word of God. You +see--when I see that--see those two, those children of one-and- +twenty, wrenched by tragedy, beginning with a parting.... It's +like a knife slashing at all our appearances and discretions.... +Think of our lovemaking...." + +The front door banged. + +He had some idea of resuming their talk. But his was a +scattered mind now. + +"It's a quarter to eight," he said as if in explanation. + +"I must see to the supper," said Lady Ella. + +(16) + + +There was an air of tension at supper as though the whole +family felt that momentous words impended. But Phoebe had emerged +victorious from her mathematical struggle, and she seemed to eat +with better appetite than she had shown for some time. It was a +cold meat supper; Lady Ella had found it impossible to keep up +the regular practice of a cooked dinner in the evening, and now +it was only on Thursdays that the Scropes, to preserve their +social tradition, dressed and dined; the rest of the week they +supped. Lady Ella never talked very much at supper; this evening +was no exception. Clementina talked of London University and +Bedford College; she had been making enquiries; Daphne described +some of the mistresses at her new school. The feeling that +something was expected had got upon Scrope's nerves. He talked a +little in a flat and obvious way, and lapsed into thoughtful +silences. While supper was being cleared away he went back into +his study. + +Thence he returned to the dining-room hearthrug as his family +resumed their various occupations. + +He tried to speak in a casual conversational tone. + +"I want to tell you all," he said, "of something that has +happened to-day." + +He waited. Phoebe had begun to figure at a fresh sheet of +computations. Miriam bent her head closer over her work, as +though she winced at what was coming. Daphne and Clementina +looked at one another. Their eyes said "Eleanor!" But he was too +full of his own intention to read that glance. Only his wife +regarded him attentively. + +"It concerns you all," he said. + +He looked at Phoebe. He saw Lady Ella's hand go out and touch +the girl's hand gently to make her desist. Phoebe obeyed, with a +little sigh. + +"I want to tell you that to-day I refused an income that would +certainly have exceeded fifteen hundred pounds a year." + +Clementina looked up now. This was not what she expected. Her +expression conveyed protesting enquiry. + +"I want you all to understand why I did that and why we are in +the position we are in, and what lies before us. I want you to +know what has been going on in my mind." + +He looked down at the hearthrug, and tried to throw off a +memory of his Princhester classes for young women, that oppressed +him. His manner he forced to a more familiar note. He stuck his +hands into his trouser pockets. + +"You know, my dears, I had to give up the church. I just simply +didn't believe any more in orthodox Church teaching. And I feel +I've never explained that properly to you. Not at all clearly. I +want to explain that now. It's a queer thing, I know, for me to +say to you, but I want you to understand that I am a religious +man. I believe that God matters more than wealth or comfort or +position or the respect of men, that he also matters more than +your comfort and prosperity. God knows I have cared for your +comfort and prosperity. I don't want you to think that in all +these changes we have been through lately, I haven't been aware +of all the discomfort into which you have come--the relative +discomfort. Compared with Princhester this is dark and crowded +and poverty-stricken. I have never felt crowded before, but in +this house I know you are horribly crowded. It is a house that +seems almost contrived for small discomforts. This narrow passage +outside; the incessant going up and down stairs. And there are +other things. There is the blankness of our London Sundays. What +is the good of pretending? They are desolating. There's the +impossibility too of getting good servants to come into our +dug-out kitchen. I'm not blind to all these sordid consequences. +But all the same, God has to be served first. I had to come to +this. I felt I could not serve God any longer as a bishop in the +established church, because I did not believe that the +established church was serving God. I struggled against that +conviction--and I struggled against it largely for your sakes. +But I had to obey my conviction.... I haven't talked to you about +these things as much as I should have done, but partly at least +that is due to the fact that my own mind has been changing and +reconsidering, going forward and going back, and in that fluid +state it didn't seem fair to tell you things that I might +presently find mistaken. But now I begin to feel that I have +really thought out things, and that they are definite enough to +tell you.... + +He paused and resumed. "A number of things have helped to +change the opinions in which I grew up and in which you have +grown up. There were worries at Princhester; I didn't let you +know much about them, but there were. There was something harsh +and cruel in that atmosphere. I saw for the first time--it's a +lesson I'm still only learning--how harsh and greedy rich +people and employing people are to poor people and working +people, and how ineffective our church was to make things better. +That struck me. There were religious disputes in the diocese too, +and they shook me. I thought my faith was built on a rock, and I +found it was built on sand. It was slipping and sliding long +before the war. But the war brought it down. Before the war such +a lot of things in England and Europe seemed like a comedy or a +farce, a bad joke that one tolerated. One tried half consciously, +half avoiding the knowledge of what one was doing, to keep one's +own little circle and life civilized. The war shook all those +ideas of isolation, all that sort of evasion, down. The world is +the rightful kingdom of God; we had left its affairs to kings and +emperors and suchlike impostors, to priests and profit-seekers +and greedy men. We were genteel condoners. The war has ended +that. It thrusts into all our lives. It brings death so close-- +A fortnight ago twenty-seven people were killed and injured +within a mile of this by Zeppelin bombs.... Every one loses some +one.... Because through all that time men like myself were going +through our priestly mummeries, abasing ourselves to kings and +politicians, when we ought to have been crying out: 'No! No! +There is no righteousness in the world, there is no right +government, except it be the kingdom of God.'" + +He paused and looked at them. They were all listening to him +now. But he was still haunted by a dread of preaching in his own +family. He dropped to the conversational note again. + +"You see what I had in mind. I saw I must come out of this, and +preach the kingdom of God. That was my idea. I don't want to +force it upon you, but I want you to understand why I acted as I +did. But let me come to the particular thing that has happened +to-day. I did not think when I made my final decision to leave +the church that it meant such poverty as this we are living in-- +permanently. That is what I want to make clear to you. I thought +there would be a temporary dip into dinginess, but that was all. +There was a plan; at the time it seemed a right and reasonable +plan; for setting up a chapel in London, a very plain and simple +undenominational chapel, for the simple preaching of the world +kingdom of God. There was some one who seemed prepared to meet +all the immediate demands for such a chapel." + +"Was it Lady Sunderbund?" asked Clementina. + +Scrope was pulled up abruptly. "Yes," he said. "It seemed at +first a quite hopeful project." + +"We'd have hated that," said Clementina, with a glance as if +for assent, at her mother. "We should all have hated that." + +"Anyhow it has fallen through." + +"We don't mind that," said Clementina, and Daphne echoed her +words. + +"I don't see that there is any necessity to import this note of +--hostility to Lady Sunderbund into this matter." He addressed +himself rather more definitely to Lady Ella. "She's a woman of a +very extraordinary character, highly emotional, energetic, +generous to an extraordinary extent...." + +Daphne made a little noise like a comment. + +A faint acerbity in her father's voice responded. + +"Anyhow you make a mistake if you think that the personality of +Lady Sunderbund has very much to do with this thing now. Her +quality may have brought out certain aspects of the situation +rather more sharply than they might have been brought out under +other circumstances, but if this chapel enterprise had been +suggested by quite a different sort of person, by a man, or by a +committee, in the end I think I should have come to the same +conclusion. Leave Lady Sunderbund out. Any chapel was impossible. +It is just this specialization that has been the trouble with +religion. It is just this tendency to make it the business of a +special sort of man, in a special sort of building, on a special +day--Every man, every building, every day belongs equally to God. +That is my conviction. I think that the only possible existing +sort of religions meeting is something after the fashion of the +Quaker meeting. In that there is no professional religious man at +all; not a trace of the sacrifices to the ancient gods.... And no +room for a professional religions man...." He felt his argument +did a little escape him. He snatched, "That is what I want to +make clear to you. God is not a speciality; he is a universal +interest." + +He stopped. Both Daphne and Clementina seemed disposed to say +something and did not say anything. + +Miriam was the first to speak. "Daddy," she said, "I know I'm +stupid. But are we still Christians?" + +"I want you to think for yourselves." + +"But I mean," said Miriam, "are we--something like Quakers-- +a sort of very broad Christians?" + +"You are what you choose to be. If you want to keep in the +church, then you must keep in the church. If you feel that the +Christian doctrine is alive, then it is alive so far as you are +concerned." + +"But the creeds?" asked Clementina. + +He shook his head. "So far as Christianity is defined by its +creeds, I am not a Christian. If we are going to call any sort of +religious feeling that has a respect for Jesus, Christianity, +then no doubt I am a Christian. But so was Mohammed at that rate. +Let me tell you what I believe. I believe in God, I believe in +the immediate presence of God in every human life, I believe that +our lives have to serve the Kingdom of God...." + +"That practically is what Mr. Chasters calls 'The Core of Truth +in Chrlstianity.'" + +"You have been reading him?" + +"Eleanor lent me the book. But Mr. Chasters keeps his living." + +"I am not Chasters," said Scrope stiffly, and then relenting: +"What he does may be right for him. But I could not do as he +does." + +Lady Ella had said no word for some time. + +"I would be ashamed," she said quietly, "if you had not done as +you have done. I don't mind--The girls don't mind--all this.... +Not when we understand--as we do now. + +That was the limit of her eloquence. + +"Not now that we understand, Daddy," said Clementina, and a +faint flavour of Lady Sunderbund seemed to pass and vanish. + +There was a queer little pause. He stood rather distressed and +perplexed, because the talk had not gone quite as he had intended +it to go. It had deteriorated towards personal issues. Phoebe +broke the awkwardness by jumping up and coming to her father. +"Dear Daddy," she said, and kissed him. + +"We didn't understand properly," said Clementina, in the tone +of one who explains away much--that had never been spoken.... + +"Daddy," said Miriam with an inspiration, "may I play something +to you presently?" + +"But the fire!" interjected Lady Ella, disposing of that idea. + +"I want you to know, all of you, the faith I have," he said. + +Daphne had remained seated at the table. + +"Are we never to go to church again?" she asked, as if at a +loss. + +(17) + + +Scrope went back into his little study. He felt shy and awkward +with his daughters now. He felt it would be difficult to get back +to usualness with them. To-night it would be impossible. +To-morrow he must come down to breakfast as though their talk had +never occurred.... In his rehearsal of this deliverance during +his walk home he had spoken much more plainly of his sense of the +coming of God to rule the world and end the long age of the +warring nations and competing traders, and he had intended to +speak with equal plainness of the passionate subordination of the +individual life to this great common purpose of God and man, an +aspect he had scarcely mentioned at all. But in that little room, +in the presence of those dear familiar people, those great +horizons of life had vanished. The room with its folding doors +had fixed the scale. The wallpaper had smothered the Kingdom of +God; he had been, he felt, domestic; it had been an after-supper +talk. He had been put out, too, by the mention of Lady Sunderbund +and the case of Chasters.... + +In his study he consoled himself for this diminution of his +intention. It had taken him five years, he reflected, to get to +his present real sense of God's presence and to his personal +subordination to God's purpose. It had been a little absurd, he +perceived, to expect these girls to leap at once to a complete +understanding of the halting hints, the allusive indications of +the thoughts that now possessed his soul. He tried like some +maiden speaker to recall exactly what it was he had said and what +it was he had forgotten to say.... This was merely a beginning, +merely a beginning. + +After the girls had gone to bed, Lady Ella came to him and she +was glowing and tender; she was in love again as she had not been +since the shadow had first fallen between them. "I was so glad +you spoke to them," she said. "They had been puzzled. But they +are dear loyal girls." + +He tried to tell her rather more plainly what he felt about the +whole question of religion in their lives, but eloquence had +departed from him. + +"You see, Ella, life cannot get out of tragedy--and sordid +tragedy--until we bring about the Kingdom of God. It's no +unreality that has made me come out of the church." + +"No, dear. No," she said soothingly and reassuringly. "With all +these mere boys going to the most dreadful deaths in the +trenches, with death, hardship and separation running amok in the +world--" + +"One has to do something," she agreed. + +"I know, dear," he said, "that all this year of doubt and +change has been a dreadful year for you." + +"It was stupid of me," she said, "but I have been so unhappy. +It's over now--but I was wretched. And there was nothing I could +say.... I prayed.... It isn't the poverty I feared ever, but the +disgrace. Now--I'm happy. I'm happy again. + +"But how far do you come with me?" + +"I'm with you." + +"But," he said, "you are still a churchwoman?" + +"I don't know," she said. "I don't mind." + +He stared at her. + +"But I thought always that was what hurt you most, my breach +with the church." + +"Things are so different now," she said. + +Her heart dissolved within her into tender possessiveness. +There came flooding into her mind the old phrases of an ancient +story: "Whither thou goest I will go... thy people shall be my +people and thy God my God.... The Lord do so to me and more also +if aught but death part thee and me." + +Just those words would Lady Ella have said to her husband now, +but she was capable of no such rhetoric. + +"Whither thou goest," she whispered almost inaudibly, and she +could get no further. "My dear," she said. + +(18) + + +At two o'clock the next morning Scrope was still up. He was +sitting over the snoring gas fire in his study. He did not want +to go to bed. His mind was too excited, he knew, for any hope of +sleep. In the last twelve hours, since he had gone out across the +park to his momentous talk with Lady Sunderbund, it seemed to him +that his life had passed through its cardinal crisis and come to +its crown and decision. The spiritual voyage that had begun five +years ago amidst a stormy succession of theological nightmares +had reached harbour at last. He was established now in the sure +conviction of God's reality, and of his advent to unify the lives +of men and to save mankind. Some unobserved process in his mind +had perfected that conviction, behind the cloudy veil of his +vacillations and moods. Surely that work was finished now, and +the day's experience had drawn the veil and discovered God +established for ever. + +He contrasted this simple and overruling knowledge of God as +the supreme fact in a practical world with that vague and +ineffective subject for sentiment who had been the "God" of his +Anglican days. Some theologian once spoke of God as "the friend +behind phenomena"; that Anglican deity had been rather a vague +flummery behind court and society, wealth, "respectability," and +the comfortable life. And even while he had lived in lipservice +to that complaisant compromise, this true God had been here, this +God he now certainly professed, waiting for his allegiance, +waiting to take up the kingship of this distraught and +bloodstained earth. The finding of God is but the stripping of +bandages from the eyes. Seek and ye shall find.... + +He whispered four words very softly: "The Kingdom of God!" + +He was quite sure he had that now, quite sure. + +The Kingdom of God! + +That now was the form into which all his life must fall. He +recalled his vision of the silver sphere and of ten thousand +diverse minds about the world all making their ways to the same +one conclusion. Here at last was a king and emperor for mankind +for whom one need have neither contempt nor resentment; here was +an aim for which man might forge the steel and wield the scalpel, +write and paint and till and teach. Upon this conception he must +model all his life. Upon this basis he must found friendships and +co-operations. All the great religions, Christianity, Islam, in +the days of their power and honesty, had proclaimed the advent of +this kingdom of God. It had been their common inspiration. A +religion surrenders when it abandons the promise of its +Millennium. He had recovered that ancient and immortal hope. All +men must achieve it, and with their achievement the rule of God +begins. He muttered his faith. It made it more definite to put it +into words and utter it. "It comes. It surely comes. To-morrow I +begin. I will do no work that goes not Godward. Always now it +shall be the truth as near as I can put it. Always now it shall +be the service of the commonweal as well as I can do it. I will +live for the ending of all false kingship and priestcraft, for +the eternal growth of the spirit of man...." + +He was, he knew clearly, only one common soldier in a great +army that was finding its way to enlistment round and about the +earth. He was not alone. While the kings of this world fought for +dominion these others gathered and found themselves and one +another, these others of the faith that grows plain, these men +who have resolved to end the bloodstained chronicles of the +Dynasts and the miseries of a world that trades in life, for +ever. They were many men, speaking divers tongues. He was but one +who obeyed the worldwide impulse. He could smile at the artless +vanity that had blinded him to the import of his earlier visions, +that had made him imagine himself a sole discoverer, a new +Prophet, that had brought him so near to founding a new sect. +Every soldier in the new host was a recruiting sergeant according +to his opportunity.... And none was leader. Only God was +leader.... + +"The achievement of the Kingdom of God;" this was his calling. +Henceforth this was his business in life.... + +For a time he indulged in vague dreams of that kingdom of God +on earth of which he would be one of the makers; it was a dream +of a shadowy splendour of cities, of great scientific +achievements, of a universal beauty, of beautiful people living +in the light of God, of a splendid adventure, thrusting out at +last among the stars. But neither his natural bent nor his mental +training inclined him to mechanical or administrative +explicitness. Much more was his dream a vision of men inwardly +ennobled and united in spirit. He saw history growing reasonable +and life visibly noble as mankind realized the divine aim. All +the outward peace and order, the joy of physical existence finely +conceived, the mounting power and widening aim were but the +expression and verification of the growth of God within. Then we +would bear children for finer ends than the blood and mud of +battlefields. Life would tower up like a great flame. By faith we +reached forward to that. The vision grew more splendid as it grew +more metaphorical. And the price one paid for that; one gave sham +dignities, false honour, a Levitical righteousness, immediate +peace, one bartered kings and churches for God.... He looked at +the mean, poverty-struck room, he marked the dinginess and +tawdriness of its detail and all the sordid evidences of +ungracious bargaining and grudging service in its appointments. +For all his life now he would have to live in such rooms. He who +had been one of the lucky ones.... Well, men were living in +dug-outs and dying gaily in muddy trenches, they had given limbs +and lives, eyes and the joy of movement, prosperity and pride, +for a smaller cause and a feebler assurance than this that he had +found.... + +(19) + + +Presently his thoughts were brought back to his family by the +sounds of Eleanor's return. He heard her key in the outer door; +he heard her move about in the hall and then slip lightly up to +bed. He did not go out to speak to her, and she did not note the +light under his door. + +He would talk to her later when this discovery of her own +emotions no longer dominated her mind. He recalled her departing +figure and how she had walked, touching and looking up to her +young mate, and he a little leaning to her.... + +"God bless them and save them," he said.... + +He thought of her sisters. They had said but little to his +clumsy explanations. He thought of the years and experience that +they must needs pass through before they could think the fulness +of his present thoughts, and so he tempered his disappointment. +They were a gallant group, he felt. He had to thank Ella and good +fortune that so they were. There was Clementina with her odd +quick combatant sharpness, a harder being than Eleanor, but +nevertheless a finespirited and even more independent. There was +Miriam, indefatigably kind. Phoebe too had a real passion of the +intellect and Daphne an innate disposition to service. But it was +strange how they had taken his proclamation of a conclusive +breach with the church as though it was a command they must, at +least outwardly, obey. He had expected them to be more deeply +shocked; he had thought he would have to argue against objections +and convert them to his views. Their acquiescence was strange. +They were content he should think all this great issue out and +give his results to them. And his wife, well as he knew her, had +surprised him. He thought of her words: "Whither thou goest--" + +He was dissatisfied with this unconditional agreement. Why +could not his wife meet God as he had met God? Why must Miriam +put the fantastic question--as though it was not for her to +decide: "Are we still Christians?" And pursuing this thought, why +couldn't Lady Sunderbund set up in religion for herself without +going about the world seeking for a priest and prophet. Were +women Undines who must get their souls from mortal men? And who +was it tempted men to set themselves up as priests? It was the +wife, the disciple, the lover, who was the last, the most fatal +pitfall on the way to God. + +He began to pray, still sitting as he prayed. + +"Oh God!" he prayed. "Thou who has shown thyself to me, let me +never forget thee again. Save me from forgetfulness. And show +thyself to those I love; show thyself to all mankind. Use me, O +God, use me; but keep my soul alive. Save me from the presumption +of the trusted servant; save me from the vanity of authority.... + +"And let thy light shine upon all those who are so dear to +me.... Save them from me. Take their dear loyalty...." + +He paused. A flushed, childishly miserable face that stared +indignantly through glittering tears, rose before his eyes. He +forgot that he had been addressing God. + +"How can I help you, you silly thing?" he said. "I would give +my own soul to know that God had given his peace to you. I could +not do as you wished. And I have hurt you!... You hurt +yourself.... But all the time you would have hampered me and +tempted me--and wasted yourself. It was impossible.... And yet +you are so fine!" + +He was struck by another aspect. + +"Ella was happy--partly because Lady Sunderbund was hurt and +left desolated...." + +"Both of them are still living upon nothings. Living for +nothings. A phantom way of living...." + +He stared blankly at the humming blue gas jets amidst the +incandescent asbestos for a space. + +"Make them understand," he pleaded, as though he spoke +confidentially of some desirable and reasonable thing to a friend +who sat beside him. "You see it is so hard for them until they +understand. It is easy enough when one understands. Easy--" He +reflected for some moments--" It is as if they could not exist - +- except in relationship to other definite people. I want them +to exist--as now I exist--in relationship to God. Knowing +God...." + +But now he was talking to himself again. + +"So far as one can know God," he said presently. + +For a while he remained frowning at the fire. Then he bent +forward, turned out the gas, arose with the air of a man who +relinquishes a difficult task. "One is limited," he said. "All +one's ideas must fall within one's limitations. Faith is a sort +of tour de force. A feat of the imagination. For such things as +we are. Naturally--naturally.... One perceives it clearly only +in rare moments.... That alters nothing...." + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Soul of a Bishop, by H. G. Wells + + + + + +Mr. WELLS has also written the following novels: +LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM +KIPPS +MR. POLLY +THE WHEELS OF CHANCE +THE NEW MACHIAVELLI +ANN VERONICA +TONO BUNGAY +MARRIAGE +BEALBY +THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS +THE WIFE OF SIR ISAAC HARMAN +THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT +MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH + +The following fantastic and imaginative romances: +THE WAR OF THE WORLDS +THE TIME MACHINE +THE WONDERFUL VISIT +THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU +THE SEA LADY +THE SLEEPER AWAKES +THE FOOD OF THE GODS +THE WAR IN THE AIR +THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON +IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET +THE WORLD SET FREE + +And numerous Short Stories now collected in +One Volume under the title of +THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND + +A Series of books upon Social, Religious and +Political questions: +ANTICIPATIONS (1900) +MANKIND IN THE MAKING +FIRST AND LAST THINGS (RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY) +NEW WORLDS FOR OLD +A MODERN UTOPIA +THE FUTURE IN AMERICA +AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD +WHAT IS COMING? +WAR AND THE FUTURE +GOD THE INVISIBLE KING + +And two little books about children's play, called: +FLOOR GAMES and LITTLE WARS + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Soul of a Bishop, by H. G. Wells + |