Part 15 (1/2)

Meynell advanced, and the Bishop came to meet him. Over both faces, as they approached each other, there dropped a sudden shadow--a tremor as of men who knew themselves on the brink of a tragical collision--decisive of many things. And yet they smiled, the presence of the child still enwrapping them.

”Excuse these domesticities,” said the Bishop, ”but there was such woe and lamentation just before you came. And childish griefs go deep.

Bogies--of all kinds--have much to answer for!”

Then the Bishop's smile disappeared. He beckoned Meynell to a chair, and sat down himself.

Francis Craye, Bishop of Markborough, was physically a person of great charm. He was small--not more than five foot seven; but so slenderly and perfectly made, so graceful and erect in bearing, that his height, or lack of it, never detracted in the smallest degree from his dignity, or from the reverence inspired by the innocence and unworldliness of his character. A broad brow, overshadowing and overweighting the face, combined, with extreme delicacy of feature, a touch of emaciation, and a pure rose in the alabaster of the cheeks, to produce the aspect of a most human ghost--a ghost which had just tasted the black blood, and recovered for an hour all the vivacity of life. The mouth, thin-lipped and mobile to excess, was as apt for laughter as for tenderness; the blue eyes were frankness and eagerness itself. And when the glance of the spectator pursued the Bishop downward, it was to find that his legs, in the episcopal gaiters, were no less ethereal than his face; while his silky white hair added the last touch of refinement to a personality of spirit and fire.

Meynell was the first to speak.

”My lord! let me begin this conversation by once more thanking you--from my heart--for all the personal kindness that you have shown me in the last few months, and in the correspondence of the last fortnight.”

His voice wavered a little. The Bishop made no sign.

”And perhaps,” Meynell resumed, ”I felt it the kindest thing of all that--after the letters I have written you this week--after the meeting of yesterday--you should have sent me that telegram last night, saying that you wished to see me to-day. That was like you--that touched me indeed!” He spoke with visible emotion.

The Bishop looked up.

”There can be no question, Meynell, of any personal enmity between yourself and me,” he said gravely. ”I shall act in the matter entirely as the responsibilities of my office dictate--that you know. But I have owed you much in the past--much help--much affection. This diocese owes you much. I felt I must make one last appeal to you--terrible as the situation has grown. You could not have foreseen that meeting of yesterday!” he added impetuously, raising his head.

Meynell hesitated.

”No, I had no idea we were so strong. But it might have been foreseen.

The forces that brought it about have been rising steadily for many years.”

There was no answer for a moment. The Bishop sat with clasped hands, his legs stretched out before him, his white head bent. At last, without moving, he said:

”There are grave times coming on this diocese, Meynell--there are grave times coming on the Church!”

”Does any living church escape them?” said Meynell, watching him--with a heavy heart.

The Bishop shook his head.

”I am a man of peace. Where you see a hope of victory for what you think, no doubt, a great cause, I see above the melee, Strife and Confusion and Fate--”red with the blood of men.” What can you--and those who were at that meeting yesterday--hope to gain by these proceedings? If you could succeed, you would break up the Church, the strongest weapon that exists in this country against sin and selfishness--and who would be the better?”

”Believe me--we sha'n't break it up.”

”Certainly you will! Do you imagine that men who are the spiritual sons and heirs of Pusey and Liddon are going to sit down quietly in the same church with you and the eighteen who started this League yesterday? They would sooner die.”

Meynell bore the onslaught quietly.

”It depends upon our strength,” he said slowly, ”and the strength we develop, as the fight goes on.”

”Not at all!--a monstrous delusion!” The Bishop raised an indignant brow. ”If you overwhelmed us--if you got the State on your side, as in France at the Revolution--you would still have done nothing toward your end--nothing whatever! We refuse--we shall always refuse--to be unequally yoked with those who deny the fundamental truths of the Faith!”

”My lord, you are so yoked at the present moment,” said Meynell firmly--the colour had flashed back into his cheeks--”it is the foundation of our case that half the educated men and women we gather into our churches to-day are--in our belief--Modernists already. Question them!--they are with us--not with you. That is to say, they have tacitly shaken off the old forms--the Creeds and formularies that bind the visible, the legal, church. They do not even think much about them.

Forgive me if I speak plainly! They are not grieving about the old. Their soul--those of them, I mean that have the gift of religion--is travailing--dumbly travailing--with the new. Slowly, irresistibly, they are evolving for themselves new forms, new creeds, whether they know it or not. You--the traditional party--you, the bishops and the orthodox majority--can help them, or hinder them. If you deny them organized expression and outlet, you prolong the dull friction between them and the current Christianity. You waste where you might gather--you quench where you might kindle. But there they are--in the same church with you--and you cannot drive them out!”

The Bishop made a sound of pain.