Soul of a Bishop Part 17

"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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sent.

"I have been haunted," he said, "by those words spoken at Athens. 'Whom therefore ye ignorantly wors.h.i.+p, Him declare I unto you.' That comes to me with an effect of--guidance is an old-fas.h.i.+oned 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 G.o.d--!"

(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; n.o.body 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 embarra.s.sed by the immediate golden presence of G.o.d; 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 friends.h.i.+p 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, G.o.d'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 p.r.o.nunciation, but she had been irritated by newspaper paragraphs--n.o.body could ever find out who wrote them and n.o.body could ever find out who showed them to the old lady--antic.i.p.ating 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 cus.h.i.+ons--for "nowadays I must save every sc.r.a.p 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 G.o.d the Father, the Power of the Heart, which is G.o.d the Son, and that Light which comes in upon us from the inaccessible G.o.dhead, which is G.o.d the Holy Spirit."

"But I know of no G.o.d the Holy Spirit, and Fate is not G.o.d at all. I saw in my vision one sole G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 att.i.tude and relations.h.i.+p to the unknown. The triune G.o.d is just the form of our need and disposition. I have always a.s.sumed that you took that for granted. Who has ever really seen or heard or felt G.o.d? G.o.d 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 G.o.d was far off among his memories now, and difficult to recall. But he said at last: "I believe there is a G.o.d and that he is as real a person as you or I. And he is not the theological G.o.d 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 relations.h.i.+p 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?"