"But I agree with those people who think that the world cannot get on without a Church. Now, I am sanguine enough to believe that a Church founded on your ideas of what is orthodox would be the means of doing a great deal of good. It would do a great deal of good to my wife, to start with. She does not know that she is so soon to be a widow. Were she to know, the last months of my life would be miserable to both of us. I have noticed with some pain, or should I say amusement? perhaps that word would be the better--I have noticed, I say, that her life is one of complete aimlessness, and that, therefore, she is tempted to think too much about herself. She is also tempted to have longings for --well, for temptation. Ah, she is a woman and temptation is in the way of women. /Qui parle d'amour, fait l'amour/: temptation comes to the woman who thinks about being tempted. Now, I want to give her something to think about that shall lead her out of the thoughts of temptation which I suppose come naturally to a daughter of Eve--the first woman who thought about temptation and was therefore tempted. My wife is a perfectly good woman, and you will be surprised to find out when I am dead how fond of me she was--she will be the most surprised of all. But she is a woman. If she were not so much of a woman I don't suppose I should ever have cared so much for her as I do. I cared so much for her, Mr. Holland, that I remained away from her in Paris for three months so that I might school myself to my fate, making no sign that would lead her to suspect the truth. Why should she have six months' additional misery? I have strayed. The Church. I want to give my wife an aim in life; to make her feel that she is doing something worthy--to keep her from thinking of less worthy things. Now, I think you will agree with me that there is nothing women are really so fond of as a Church of some sort. To be devout is as much a part of a woman's disposition as to love--the passion of devoutness sometimes takes the place of the passion of love in her nature. Now, I want to give her this idea of a Church to work out when I am dead. I want you to carry out as joint trustee with her your theories in regard to the ritual, the art, the sermon; and for this purpose I should of course provide an ample endowment--say three or four thousand a year; anything you may suggest: I shall leave a great deal of money behind me."
"Your project startles me, Mr. Linton," said George Holland. "It startles me as greatly as the first revelation you made to me did.
They may be mistaken--the doctors; I have known cases where the highest authorities were ludicrously in error. Let us hope that."
"Well, we may hope; I may live long enough to lay the foundation stone of the Church myself. But I am most anxious that you should give the whole matter your earnest attention."
"I am quite dazed. Do you suggest that I should leave the Church of England?"
"By no means. That is a question which I leave entirely to your own decision. My own idea is that you would like a free hand. You will have to leave the Church sooner or later. A man with your advanced ideas cannot regulate your pace to that of an old woman. In twenty years the Church will think precisely as you think to-day. That is the way with the Church. It opposes everything in the way of an innovation. You stated the case very fairly in your paper. The Church opposes every discovery and every new thing as long as possible. It then only accepts grudgingly what all civilization has accepted cordially. Oh, yes, you'll find it impossible to remain in the Church, Mr. Holland. 'Crabbed age and youth,' you know."
"I should part from the Church with the greatest reluctance, Mr. Linton."
"Then don't part from it, only don't place yourself in its power.
Don't be beholden to it for your income. Don't go to the heads of the Church for orders. Be your own master and in plain words, run the concern on your own lines. The widow of the founder will have no power to interfere with you in the matter of such arrangements."
"I shall have to give the matter a good deal of thought. I should naturally have to reform a good deal of the ritual."
"Naturally. The existing ritual is only a compromise. And as for the hymns which are sung, why is it necessary for them to be doggerel before they are devotional?"
"The hymns are for the most part doggerel. We should have a first-rate choir and anthems--not necessarily taken from the Bible. Why should not Shakspere be sung in churches--Shakspere's divine poetry instead of the nonsense-rhymes that people call hymns? Shakspere and Milton;
Shelley I would not debar; Wordsworth's sonnets. But the scheme will require a great deal of thought."
"A great deal; that is why I leave it in your hands. You are a thinking man--you are not afraid of tradition."
"Tradition--tradition! the ruts made in the road by the vehicles that have passed over it in years gone by!"
"The road to the Church is sadly in need of macadamizing, Mr. Holland --or, better still, asphalting. Make a bicycle road of it, and you are all right. Now, come with me to my club and have lunch. We'll talk no more just now about this matter."
They went out together.
