Meanwhile Walden himself, ignorant of all the 'local' excitement so suddenly stirred up in his tiny kingdom, had arrived on a three days' visit at the house, or to put it more correctly, at the palace, of his friend Bishop Brent. It was, in strict reality a palace, having been in the old days one of the residences of Henry VII. Much of the building had been injured during the Cromwellian period, and certain modern repairs to its walls had been somewhat clumsily executed, but it still retained numerous fine old mullioned windows, and a cloistered court of many sculptured arches still eminently beautiful, though grey and crumbling under the touch of the melancholy vandal, Time. The Bishop's study had formerly been King Henry's audience chamber, and possessed a richly-wrought ceiling of interlaced oak rafters, and projecting beams smoothly polished at the ends and painted with royal emblems, from which projections no doubt, in early periods, many a banner of triumph had floated and many a knightly pennon. Bishop Brent was fond of this room, and carefully maintained its ancient character in the style of its furniture and general surroundings. The wide angle-nook and high carved chimney-piece, supported by two sculptured angel-figures of heroic size, was left unmodernised, and in winter the gaping recess was filled with great logs blazing cheerily as in olden times, but in summer, as now, it served as a picturesque setting for masses of rare flowers which, growing in pots, or cut freshly and set in crystal vases, were grouped together with the greatest taste and artistic selection of delicate colouring, forming, as it seemed, a kind of blossom-wreathed shrine, above which, against the carved chimney itself, hung a wonderfully impressive picture of the Virgin and Child. Placed below this, and slightly towarde the centre of the room, was the Bishop's table-desk and chair, arranged so that whenever he raised his head from his work, the serene soft eyes of Mary, Blessed among Women, should mystically meet his own. And here just now he sat at evening, deep in conversation with John Walden, who with the perfect unselfishness which was an ingrained part of his own nature, had for the time put aside or forgotten all his own little troubles, in order to listen to the greater ones of his friend. He had been shocked at the change wrought in seven years on Brent's form and features. Always thin, he had now become so attenuated as to have reached almost a point of emaciation,—his dark eyes, sunk far back under his shelving brows, blazed with a feverish brilliancy which gave an almost unearthly expression to his pale drawn features, and his hand, thin, long, and delicate as a woman's, clenched and unclenched itself nervously when he spoke, with an involuntary force of which he was himself unconscious. "You have not aged much, Walden!" he said, thoughtfully regarding his old college chum's clear and open countenance with a somewhat sad smile—"Your eyes are the same blue eyes of the boy that linked his arm through mine so long ago and walked with me through the sleepy old streets of 'Alma Mater!' That time seems quite close to me sometimes—and again sometimes far away—dismally, appallingly, far away!" He sighed. Walden looked at him a little anxiously, but for the moment said nothing. "You give me no response,"—continued Brent, with sudden querulousness—"Since you arrived we have been talking nothing but generalities and Church matters. Heavens, how sick I am of Church matters! Yet I know you see a change in me. I am sure you do—and you will not say it. Now you never were secretive—you never said one thing and meant another—so speak the truth as you have always done! I AM changed, am I not?" "You are,"—replied Walden, steadily—"But I cannot tell how, or in what way. You look ill and worn out. You are overworked and overwrought—but I think there is something else at the root of the evil;—something that has happened during the last seven years. You are not quite the man you were when you came to consecrate my church at St. Rest." "St. Rest!" repeated the Bishop, musingly—"What a sweet name it is- -what a still sweeter suggestion! Rest—rest!—and a saint's rest too!—that perfect rest granted to all the martyrs for Christ!—how safe and peaceful!—how sure and glorious! Would that such rest were mine! But I see nothing ahead of me but storm and turmoil, and stress of anguish and heartbreak, ending in—Nothingness!" Walden bent a little more forward and looked his friend full in the eyes. "What is wrong, Harry?" he asked, with exceeding gentleness. At the old schoolboy name of bygone years, Brent caught and pressed his hand with strong fervour. A smile lighted his eyes. "John, my boy, everything is wrong!" he said—"As wrong as ever my work at college was, before you set it right. Do you think I forget! Everything is wrong, I tell you! I am wrong,—my thoughts are wrong,—and my conscience leaves me no peace day or night! I ought not to be a Bishop—for I feel that the Church itself is wrong!" John sat quiet for a minute. Then he said— "So it is in many ways. The Church is a human attempt to build humanity up on a Divine model, and it has its human limitations. But the Divine model endures!" Brent threw himself back in his chair and closed his eyes. "The Divine model endures—yes!" he murmured—"The Divine foundation remains firm, but the human building totters and is insecure to the point of utter falling and destruction!" Here, opening his eyes, he gazed dreamily at the pictured face of the Madonna above him. "Walden, it is useless to contend with facts, and the facts are, that the masses of mankind are as unregenerate at this day as ever they were before Christ came into the world! The Church is powerless to stem the swelling tide of human crime and misery. The Church in these days has become merely a harbour of refuge for hypocrites who think to win conventional repute with their neighbours, by affecting to believe in a religion not one of whose tenets they obey! Blasphemy, rank blasphemy, Walden! It is bad enough in all conscience to cheat one's neighbour, but an open attempt to cheat the Creator of the Universe is the blackest crime of all, though it be unnamed in the criminal calendar!" He uttered these words with intense passion, rising from his seat, and walking up and down the room as he spoke. Walden watched his restless passing to and fro, with a wistful look in his honest eyes. Presently he said, smiling a little— "You are my Bishop—and I should not presume to differ from you, Brent! YOU must instruct ME,—not I you! Yet if I may speak from my own experience—-" "You may and you shall!"—replied Brent, swiftly—"But think for a moment, before you speak, of what that experience has been! One great grief has clouded your life—the loss of your sister. After that, what has been your lot? A handful of simple souls set under your charge, in the loveliest of little villages,—souls that love you, trust you and obey you. Compared to this, take MY daily life! An over-populated diocese—misery and starvation on all sides,—men working for mere pittances,—women prostituting themselves to obtain food—children starving—girls ruined in their teens—and over it all, my wretched self, a leading representative of the Church which can do nothing to remedy these evils! And worse than all, a Church in which some of the clergy themselves who come under my rule and dominance are more dishonourable and dissolute than many of the so- called 'reprobates' of society whom they are elected to admonish! I tell you, Walden, I have some men under my jurisdiction whom I should like to see soundly flogged!—only I am powerless to order the castigation—and some others who ought to be serving seven years in penal servitude instead of preaching virtue to people a thousand times more virtuous than themselves!" "I quite believe that!" said Walden, smiling—"I know one of them!" The Bishop glanced at him, and laughed. "You mean Putwood Leveson?" he said—"He seems a mischievous fool— but I don't suppose there is any real harm in him, is there?" "Real harm?"—and John flared up in a blaze of wrath—"He is the most pernicious scoundrel that ever masqueraded in the guise of a Christian!" The Bishop paused in his walk up and down, and clasping his hands behind his back, an old habit of his, looked quizzically at his friend. A smile, kindly and almost boyish, lightened the grey pallor of his worn face. "Why, John!" he said—"you are actually in a temper! Your mental attitude is evidently that of squared fists and 'Come on!' What has roused the slumbering lion, eh?" "It doesn't need a lion to spring at Leveson,"—said Walden, contemptuously—"A sheep would do it! The tamest cur that ever crawled would have spirit enough to make a dash for a creature so unutterably mean and false and petty! I may as well admit to you at once that I myself nearly struck him!" "You did?" And Bishop Brent's grave dark eyes flashed with a sudden suspicion of laughter. "I did. I know it was not Churchman-like,—I know it was a case of 'kicking against the pricks.' But Leveson's 'pricks' are too much like hog's bristles for me to endure with patience!" The Bishop assumed a serious demeanour. "Come, come, let me hear this out!" he said—"Do you mean to tell me that you—YOU, John—actually struck a brother minister?" "No—I do not mean to tell you anything of the kind, my Lord Bishop!" answered Walden, beginning to laugh. "I say that I 'nearly' struck him,—not quite! Someone else came on the scene at the critical moment, and did for me what I should certainly have done for myself had I been left to it. I cannot say I am sorry for the impulse!" "It sounds like a tavern brawl,"—said the Bishop, shaking his head dubiously—"or a street fight. So unlike you, Walden! What was it all about?" "The fellow was slandering a woman,"—replied Walden, hotly— "Poisoning her name with his foul tongue, and polluting it by his mere utterance—contemptible brute! I should like to have horsewhipped him—-" "Stop, stop!" interrupted the Bishop, stretching out his thin long white hand, on which one single amethyst set in a plain gold ring, shone with a pale violet fire—"I am not sure that I quite follow you, John! What woman is this?" Despite himself, a rush of colour sprang to Walden's brows. But he answered quite quietly. "Miss Vancourt,—of Abbot's Manor." "Miss Vancourt!" Bishop Brent looked, as he felt, utterly bewildered. "Miss Vancourt! My dear Walden, you surprise me! Did I not write to you—do you not know—-" "Oh, I know all that is reported of her,"—said John, quickly—"And I remember what you wrote. But it's a mistake, Brent! In fact, if you will exonerate me for speaking bluntly, it's a lie! There never was a gentler, sweeter woman than Maryllia Vancourt,—and perhaps there never was one more basely or more systematically calumniated!" The Bishop took a turn up to the farther end of the room. Then he came back and confronted Walden with an authoritative yet kindly air. "Look me straight in the face, John!" John obeyed. There was a silence, while Brent scanned slowly and with appreciative affection the fine intellectual features, brave eyes, and firm, yet tender mouth of the man whom he had, since the days of their youth together, held dearest in his esteem among all other men he had ever known, while Walden, in his turn, bore the sad and searching gaze without flinching. Then the Bishop laid one hand gently on his shoulder. "So it has come, John!" he said. Then and then only the brave eyes fell,—then and then only the firm mouth trembled. But Walden was not the man to shirk any pain or confusion to himself in matters of conscience. "I suppose it has!" he answered, simply. The Bishop sat down, and, seemingly out of long habit, raised his eyes to the blandly smiling Virgin and Child above him. "I am sorry!"—he murmured—"John, my dear old fellow, I am very sorry—-" "Why should you be sorry?" broke out Walden, impetuously, "There is nothing to be sorry for, except that I am a fool! But I knew THAT long ago, even if you did not!"—and he forced a smile—"Don't be sorry for me, Brent!—I'm not in the least sorry for myself. Indeed, if I tell you the whole truth, I believe I rather like my own folly. It does nobody any harm! And after all it is not absolutely a world's wonder that a decaying tree should, even in its decaying process, be aware of the touch of spring. It should not make the tree unhappy!" The Bishop raised his eyes. They were full of a deep melancholy. "We are not trees—we are men!" he said—"And as men, God has made us all aware of the love of woman,—the irresistible passion that at one time or another makes havoc or glory of our lives! It is the direst temptation on earth. Worst of all and bitterest it is when love comes too late,—too late, John!—I say in your case, it comes too late!" John sighed and smiled. "Love—if it has come to me at all—is never too late,"—he said with quiet patience,—"My dear Brent, don't you understand? This little girl—this child—for she is nothing more than that to a man of my years—has slipped into my life by chance, as it were, like a stray sunbeam—no more! I feel her brightness—her warmth—her vitality—and my soul is conscious of an animation and gladness whenever she is near, of which she is the sole cause. But that is all. Her pretty ways—her utter loneliness,—are the facts of her existence which touch me to pity, and I would see her cared for and protected,—but I know myself to be too old and too unworthy to so care for and protect her. I want her to be happy, but I am fully conscious that I can never make her so. Would you call this kind of chill sentiment 'love'?" Brent regarded him steadfastly. "Yes, John! I think I should!—yes, I certainly should call 'this chill sentiment' love! And tell me—have you never got out of your depth in the water of this 'chill sentiment,' or found yourself battling for dear life against an outbreak of volcanic fire?" Walden was silent. "I never thought,"—continued the Bishop, rather sorrowfully,—"when I wrote to you about the return of Robert Vancourt's daughter to her childhood's home, that she would in any serious way interfere with the peace of your life, John! I told you just what I had heard—no more. I have never seen the girl. I only know what people say of her. And that is not altogether pleasing." "Do you believe what people say?" interrupted Walden, suddenly,—"Is it not true that when a woman is pretty, intelligent, clean-souled and pure-minded, and as unlike the rest of 'society' women as she can well be, she is slandered for having the very virtues her rivals do not possess?" "Quite true!"—said Brent—"and quite common. It is always the old story—'Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.' Do not imagine for a moment, John, that I am going to run the risk of losing your friendship by repeating anything that may have been said against the reputation or the character of Miss Vancourt. I have always prayed that no woman might ever come between us,"—and here a faint tinge of colour warmed the pallor of his face—"And, so far, I fancy the prayer has been granted. And I do not think that this—this—shall we call it glamour, John?—this glamour, of the imagination and the senses, will overcome you in any detrimental way. I cannot picture you as the victim of a 'society' siren!" John smiled. A vision rose up before his eyes of a little figure in sparkling white draperies—a figure that bent appealingly towards him, while a soft childlike voice said—'I'm sorry! Will you forgive me?' The tender lines round his mouth deepened and softened at the mental picture. "She is not a society siren,"—he said, gently—"Poor little soul! "Well, she has been loved and sought in marriage for at least three years by Lord Roxmouth,"—said the Bishop. "Has SHE been loved and sought, or her aunt's millions?" queried Walden—"That is the point at issue. But my dear Brent, do not let us waste time in talking over this little folly of mine—for I grant you it is folly. I'm not sorry you have found it out, for in any case I had meant to make a clean breast of it before we parted,"—he hesitated—then looked up frankly—"I would rather you spoke no more of it, Harry! I've made my confession. I admit I nearly struck Leveson for slandering an innocent and defenseless woman,—and I believe you'll forgive me for that. Next, I own that though I am getting into the sere and yellow leaf, I am still conscious of a heart,—and that I feel a regretful yearning at times for the joys I have missed out of my life—and you'll forgive me for that too,—I know you will! For the rest, draw a curtain over this little weakness of mine, will you? I don't want to speak of it—I want to fight it and conquer it." The Bishop stretched out a hand and caught Walden's in a close grasp. "Right!"—he said—"Do that, and you will do well! It is all a question of fighting and conquering, or—being conquered. But YOU will never give in, John! You are not the man to yield to the wiles of the devil. For there IS a devil!—I am sure of it!" And his dark eyes flashed with a sudden wild light. "A cozening, crafty, lurking devil, that sets temptation before us in such varied and pleasing forms that it is difficult—sometimes impossible—to tell which is right and which is wrong! Walden, we must escape from this devil—we must escape!" He sprang up with an impulsive quickness which startled Walden, and began to pace up and down the room again. "A mocking devil,"—he said—"a lying devil!—whispering from morning till evening, and from evening till morning, doubts of God! Doubts whether He, the Creator of worlds, really exists,-doubts as to whether He, or It, is not some huge blind, deaf Force, grinding its way on through limitless and eternal Production and Reproduction to one end,—Annihilation! Walden, you must now hear MY confession! These doubts are driving me mad! I cannot bear the thought of the whirl of countless universes, immeasurable solar systems, crammed with tortured life for which there seems to be no hope, no care, no rescue, no future! I am unable to preach or to FEEL comfort for the human race! The very tragedy of the Cross only brings me to one result—that Truth is always crucified. The world prefers Falsehood. So much so indeed that the Christian religion itself is little more than a super-structure of lies raised above the sepulchre of a murdered Truth. I told you in my letter I had serious thoughts of resigning my bishopric. So I have. My spirit turns to Rome!" "Rome!" cried Walden—"What, YOU, Brent!—you think of going over to "Rome," said Brent, slowly, stopping in his restless walk—"is the Mother of Creeds—the antique Muse of the world's history! Filled with the blood of martyrs, hallowed by the memories of saints, she is, she must always be, supreme in matters of faith—or superstition!" And he smiled,—a wan and sorrowful smile—"Or even idolatry, if you will! Emotionalism,—sensationalism in religion— these the craving soul must have, and these Rome gives! We must believe,—mark you, Walden!—we must positively BELIEVE that the Creator of all Universes was moved to such wrath against the helpless human creature He had made, that he cursed that creature forever for merely eating, like a child, fruit which had been forbidden! And after that we must believe everything else that has since followed in the track of the Woman, the Serpent and the Tree. Now in the Church of England I find I cannot believe these things— in the Church of Rome I WILL believe, because I MUST! I will humble myself in dust and ashes, and accept all—all. Anything is better than Nothingness! I will be the lowest of lay brethren, and in solitude and silence, make atonement for my unbelief. It is the only way, Walden!—for me, it is the only way! To Her!" And he pointed up to the picture of the Virgin and Child—"To Her, my vows! As Woman, she will pity me—as Woman, she can be loved!" Walden heard this wild speech without any word or gesture of interruption. Then, raising his eyes to the picture Brent thus apostrophised, he said, quietly— "When did you have that painted, Brent?" A sudden change came over the Bishop's features. He looked as though startled by some vague terror. Then he answered, slowly: "Some years ago—in Florence. Why do you ask? It is a copy—-" "Of HER likeness—yes!" said Walden, softly—"I saw that at once. You had it done, of course! She was beautiful and good—she died young. I know! But you have no right to turn your personal passion and grief into a form of worship, Harry!" The Bishop gazed at him fixedly and solemnly. "You do not know,"—he murmured—"You have not seen what I have seen! She has come to me lately—she, who died so long ago!—she has come to me night after night, and she has told me to pray for her— 'pray' she says—'pray that I may help to save your soul!' And I must surely do as she bids. I must get away from this place—away from this city of turmoil and wickedness, into some quieter comer of the world,—some monastic retreat where I may end my days in peace,- -I cannot fight my devils here—they are too strong for me!" "They will be too strong for you anywhere, if you are a coward!"— said Walden, impetuously. "Brent, I thought you had gotten the victory over this old despair of yours long ago! I thought you had made the memory of the woman you loved a noble spur to noble actions! I never dreamed that it would be possible for you to brood silently on your sorrow till you made it a cause of protest against God's will! And worst and strangest of all is this frenzied idea of yours to fly to the Church of Rome for shelter from yourself and your secret misery, and there give yourself over to monasticism and a silent, idolatrous worship,—not of Mary, the Mother of Christ,— but of the mere picture of the woman you loved! And you would pray to THAT?—you would kneel before THAT?—you would pass long hours of fasting and vigil, gazing at that face, till, like the 'stigmata,' it is almost outlined in blood upon your heart? My dear Brent, is it possible your brain is so shaken and your soul so feeble that you must needs seek refuge in a kind of half-spiritual, half-sensuous passion, which is absolute rank blasphemy?" At this the Bishop raised his head with an air of imperious authority. "I cannot permit!—-" he said, in unsteady accents—"You have no right to speak to me in such a tone—it is not your place—-" Then, suddenly, his voice broke, and throwing himself into his chair, he dropped his head forward on the desk and covered it with his hands in an attitude of the utmost abandonment and dejection. The moisture rose to Walden's eyes,—he knew the great tragedy of his friend's life—all comprised in one brief, romantic episode of the adoring love, and sudden loss of a beautiful woman drowned by accident in her own pleasure-boat on the very eve of her marriage with him,—and be knew that just as deep and ardent as the man's passion had been, so deep and ardent was his sorrow—a sorrow that could never be consoled. And John sat silent, deeply moved in himself, and ever and anon glancing upwards at the exquisite face of the painted Virgin above him,—the face of the dead girl whom her lover had thus sanctified. Presently Brent raised his head,—his face was white and worn—his eyes were wet. "Forgive me, John!" he said—"I have been working hard of late, and my nerves are unstrung. And—I cannot, I cannot forget her! And what is more awful and terrible to me than anything is that I cannot forgive God!" He uttered these words in an awed whisper. "I cannot! I bear the Almighty a grudge for wrenching her life away from mine! Of what use was it to be so cruel? Of what purpose to kill one so young? If God is omnipotent, God could have saved her. But He let her die! I tell you, Walden, that ever since I have been Bishop of this diocese, I have tried to relieve sorrow and pain whenever I have met with it—I have striven to do my duty, hoping against hope that perhaps God would teach me—would explain the why and wherefore of so much needless agony to His creatures—and that by discovering reasons for the afflictions of others, I should learn to become reconciled to my own. But no!—nothing has been made clear! I have seen innocent women die in the tortures of the damned—while their drunken husbands have lived to carouse over their coffins. Children,—mere babes—are afflicted with diseases for which often no cause can be assigned and no cure discovered—while over the whole sweltering mass of human helplessness and ignorance, Death stalks triumphant,—and God, though called upon for rescue with prayers and tears, withdraws Himself in clouds of impenetrable silence. It is all hopeless, useless, irremediable! That is why my thoughts turn to Rome—I say, let me believe in SOMETHING, if it be only a fairy tale! Let me hear grand music mounting to heaven, even if human words cannot reach so high!—let me think that guardian angels exist, even if there is nothing in space save a blind Chance spawning life particles uselessly,—let my soul and senses feel the touch of something higher, vaster, purer and better than what the Church of England calls Christianity at this present day!" "And that 'something higher, vaster, purer and better'—would you call it the Church of Rome?" asked Walden. "In suggestion,—in emotion and poetic inspiration, yes!"—said Brent—"In theory and in practice, no!" There was a pause. Walden sat for a few moments absorbed in anxious thought. Then he looked up with a cheerful air. "Harry," he said—"Will you do me a favour? Promise that you will postpone the idea of seceding, or as you put it, 'returning' to Rome, for six months. Will you? At the end of that time we'll discuss it again." The Bishop looked uneasy. "I would rather do what has to be done at once,"—he said. "Then I must talk to you straightly,"—continued John, bracing himself up, and squaring his shoulders resolutely—"I must forget that you are my Bishop, and speak just as man to man. All the facts of the case can be summed up in one word—Selfishness! Pure Selfishness, Harry!—and I never thought I should have had to convict you of it!" Brent drew himself slowly up in his chair. "Selfishness!" he echoed, dreamily—"I can take anything from you, "Selfishness!" repeated John, firmly—"You have had to suffer a grief—a great grief,—and because it was so sudden, so tragic and overwhelming, you draw a mourning veil of your own across the very face of God! You try to rule your diocese by the measure of your own rod of affliction. And, finding that nothing is clear to you, because of your own obstructive spirit, you would set up a fresh barrier between yourself and Eternal Wisdom, by deserting your post here, and separating yourself from all the world save the shadow of the woman you yourself loved! Harry, my dear old friend, unless I had heard this from your own lips, I should never have believed it of you!" Brent sat heavily in his chair, sunk in a brooding melancholy. "'The heart knoweth its own bitterness!'"—he murmured wearily— "Your reproaches are just,—I know I deserve them, but they do not rouse me. They do not stir one pulse in my soul! What have I learned of Eternal Wisdom?—what have I seen? Nothing but cruelty upon cruelty dealt out, not to the wicked, but to the innocent! And because I protest against this, you call my spirit an obstructive one—well!—it may be so! But, Walden, you have never loved!—you have never felt all your life rush like a river to the sea of passion!—not low, debasing passion, but passion born of vitality, ardour, truth, hope, sympathy!—such emotion as most surely palpitates through the whole body of the natural creation, else there would be naught created. God Himself—if there be a God—must be conscious of Love! Do we not say: 'God IS Love'?—and this too while we suffer beneath His heavy chastisements which are truely more like Hate! I repeat, Walden, you have never loved,—till now perhaps—and even now you are scarcely conscious of the hidden strength of your own feelings. But suppose—just for the sake of argument—suppose this 'little girl' as you call her, Maryllia Vancourt, were to die suddenly, would you not, as you express it, 'draw a mourning veil of your own across the face of God'?" Walden started as though suddenly wounded. If Maryllia were to die!' He shuddered as the mere thought passed across his brain. 'If Maryllia were to die!' Why then—then the world would be a blank— there would be no more sunshine!—no roses!—no songs of birds!— nothing of fairness or pleasure left in life—not for him, whatever there might be for others. Was it possible that her existence meant so much to him? Yes, it meant so much!—it had come to mean so much! He felt his old friend's melancholy eyes upon him, and looking up met their searching scrutiny with a serious and open frankness. "Honestly, I think I should die myself, or lose my senses!"—he said—"And honestly, I hardly realised this,—which is just as much selfishness on my part as any of which I hastily accused you,—till you put it to me. I will not profess to have a stoicism beyond mortal limits, Harry, nor should I expect such from you. But I WILL say, that despite our human weakness, we must have courage!—we are not men without it. And whether faith stands fast or falters, whether God seems far off or very near, we must face and fight our destiny—not run away from it! You want to run away,"—and he smiled gravely—"or rather, just in the present mood of yours you think of doing so—but I believe it is only a mood—and that you will not, after putting your hand to the plough, turn back because of the aridness or ungratefulness of the soil,—that would not be like you. If one must needs perish, it is better to perish at one's post of duty than desert over to the enemy." "I am not sure that Rome is an enemy;"—said the Bishop, musingly. To this Walden gave no reply, and the conversation fell into other channels. But, during the whole time of his visit, John was forced to realise, with much acute surprise and distress, that constant brooding on grief,—and excessive spiritual emotion of an exalted and sensuous kind, with much perplexed pondering on human evils for which there seemed no remedy, had produced a painful impression of life's despair and futility on Brent's mind,—an impression which it would be difficult to eradicate, and which would only be softened and possibly diminished by tenderly dealing with it as though it were an illness, and gradually bringing about restoration and recovery through the gentlest means. Though sometimes it was to be feared that all persuasion would be useless, and that the scandalous spectacle of an English Bishop seceding to the Church of Rome would be exhibited with an almost theatrical effect in his friend's case. For the ornate ritual which the Bishop maintained in his Cathedral services was almost worthy of a Mass at St. Peter's. The old, simple chaste English style of 'Morning Prayer' was exchanged for 'Matins,'—choristers perpetually chanted and sang,—crosses were carried to and fro,—banners waved—processions were held—and the 'Via Crucis' was performed by a select number of the clergy and congregation every Friday. "I never have this sort of thing in my church,"—said Walden, bluntly, on one occasion—"My parishioners would not understand it." "Why not teach them to understand it?" asked the Bishop, dreamily. They were standing together in the beautiful old Cathedral, now empty save for their presence, and Brent's eyes were fixed with a kind of sombre wistfulness on a great gold crucifix up on the altar. "Teach them to understand it?" echoed Walden, with a touch of sorrow and indignation—"You are my Bishop, but if you commanded me to teach them these 'vain repetitions' prohibited by the Divine Master, I should disobey you!" The Bishop flushed red. "You disapprove?" "I disapprove of everything that tends to put England back again into the old religious fetters which she so bravely broke and cast aside,"—said John, warmly—"I disapprove of all that even hints at the possibility of any part of the British Empire becoming the slave of Rome!" Brent gave a weary gesture. "In religious matters it is wiser to be under subjection than free,"—he said, with a sigh—"In a state of freedom we may think as we please—and freedom of thought breeds doubt,—whereas in a state of subjection we think as we MUST, and so we are gradually forced into an attitude of belief. The spread of atheism among the English is entirely due to the wild, liberty of opinion allowed tham by their forms of faith." "I do not agree with you!"—declared Walden, firmly—"The spread of atheism is due, not to freedom of opinion, nor forms of faith, but simply to the laxity and weakness of the clergy." The Bishop looked at him with a smile. "You always speak straight out, John!" he said—"You always did! And strange to say, I like you all the better for it. I could, if I chose, both reprove and command you—but I will do neither. You must take your own way, as you always have done. But there is a flavour of Rome even in your little church of St. Rest,—your miracle shrine,—your unknown saint in the alabaster coffin. You and your parishioners kneel before that every Sunday." "True—but we do not kneel to IT,—nor do we pray through It,"— replied Walden—"It stays in the chancel because it was found in the chancel. But it does not make a miracle shrine' as you say,—there is nothing miraculous about it." "If it contains the body of a Saint,"—said the Bishop, slowly—"it MUST be miraculous! If, in the far-gone centuries, the prayers and tears of sorrowful human beings have bedewed that cold stone, some efficacy, some tenderness, some vitality, born of these prayers and tears, must yet remain! Walden, we preach the supernatural—do we not believe in it?" "The Divine supernatural—yes!" answered Walden,—"But—-" The "There are no 'buts' in the matter, John,"—he said, quietly—"What is supernatural is so by its own nature. The Divine is the Human, the Human is the Divine. In all and through all things the Spirit moves and makes its way. Our earth and ourselves are but particles of matter, worked by the spirit or essence of creative force. This spirit we can neither see nor touch, therefore we call it super- natural. But it permeates all things,—the stone as completely as the flower. It circulates through that alabaster sarcophagus in your church, as easily as through your own living veins. Hence, as I say, if the mortal remains of a saint are enshrined within that reliquary, the spirit or 'soul' enveloping it MAY work 'miracles,' for all we dare to know!" He paused, and looking kindly at Walden's grave and somewhat troubled face, added—"Some day, when we are in very desperate straits, John, we will am what your saint can do for us!" He smiled. Walden returned the smile, but nevertheless was conscious of a sorrowful sense of regret at what he considered his friend's leaning toward superstitious observances and idolatrous ceremonies. At the same time he well knew that any violent opposition on the subject would be worse than useless in the Bishop's present mood. He therefore contented himself with, as he mentally said, 'putting in the thin end of the wedge'—and,—carefully steering clear of all controversial matters,—contrived in a great measure to reassert the old magnetic sway he had been wont to exercise over Brent's more pliable mind when at college—so that before they parted, he had obtained from him a solemn promise that there should be no 'secession' or even preparation for secession to Rome, till six months had elapsed. "And if you would only put away that picture,"—said Walden, earnestly, pointing towards the 'Virgin and Child'—"Or rather, if you would have another one painted of the sweet woman you loved as she really was in life, it would be wiser and safer for your own peace." The Bishop shook his head. "The Virgin and Child are a symbol of all humanity,"—he said— "Mother and Son,—Present and Future! Woman holds the human race in her arms—at her breast!—without her, Chaos would come again! And for me, all Womanhood is personified in that one face!" He raised his eyes to the picture with an almost devout passion—and then abruptly turned away. The conversation was not renewed again between them, but when Walden parted from his friend, he had the satisfaction of knowing that he left him in a brighter, more hopeful and healthful condition, cheered, soothed and invigorated by the exchange of that mutual confidence and close sympathy which had linked their two lives together in boyhood, and which held them still subtly and tenderly responsive to each other's most intimate emotions as men. |