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much afraid of an unconsidered anachronism creeping in to our services that we were blind to the glaring truth that the whole of our system of worship was one vast anachronism, that, in fact, it was just the Moxon-Hughes religion owing whatever vitality it possessed to the eclectic skill of Moxon-Hughes himself. I think that I first realized this clearly in the course of a discussion about Benediction.

"Benediction!" M.-H. smiled in his most Pooh-Bah manner. "My dear boy, do you know what is the earliest date that the compilers of the New English Dictionary find for an example of the use of the word in English? 1812! Before 1812 the word is not found in the English language; though I admit that liturgical research has apparently discovered an allusion to the service's being held in the time of Charles I, by the Romans, of course. No, no, the cult of Benediction is Oratorianism at its worst. We don't want Benediction in the English Church. Our object is to restore the Holy Mass to its pristine glory, to make it what it was in the middle ages, the hearth and centre of English life. And not merely English religious life, mark you, but of English social life. Benediction, as any honest Roman will tell you, is becoming a dangerous competitor. I should never be surprised to read a Papal encyclical warning Catholics-Roman Catholics-against the danger of substituting Benediction for Mass."

I pointed out that there could be no need of an encyclical so long as it remained a mortal sin for the faithful not to hear Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of obligation. I argued that nothing in the history of humanity had given such proof of common sense as the Roman Church, and that if Benediction was encouraged it must be that Benediction had been found a valuable aid to religious observance.

"It's a pretty service," said M.-H., becoming more than ever like Pooh-Bah as he spoke. "Yes, it's undeniably pretty, but it's a flimsy prettiness, my dear boy. It encourages feminine sentimentality. And it's un

English."

"In what way un-English?" I persisted. "If you

mean that it does not appeal to English people, that would certainly be an argument against its introduction generally; but if you simply mean that it wasn't invented in England, I might as well argue that because Beethoven's symphonies were not written in England we ought not to encourage their performance. Surely your object in restoring the lost beauties of the Catholic religion to the English people is to bring them nearer to God. You're not founding a museum in which people may study the habits of bygone generations of Englishmen.

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Moxon-Hughes loves an argument like this with all his heart, and I could see that he was in two minds whether he should not try to sustain the paradox that, until modern English people knew how their ancestors drew near to God with the forms and ceremonies he was trying to restore to them, they would not draw near to God by any kind of modern devotion. If he had tried to sustain this point of view, I was ready to retort that we had no proof whatever that people in the middle ages were any nearer to God than people of to-day. However, he contented himself with repeating that he thought Benediction was a bad substitute for Mass.

I replied that I was sure that, if the Romans suspected this, they would have given up Benediction long ago. I said that the remoteness of God was more powerful than anything else in people's imagination as a cause of unbelief. Benediction helped humanity to know God. Benediction got people into the habit of wanting God, and the more people wanted God, the nearer they must draw to God. To me, as I said, it seemed obvious. Moxon-Hughes replied that while, of course, people must draw near to God, they must draw near to Him in the right way. And then I knew that he did not really love human beings, which seemed to me to make all effort at St. Cuthbert's a waste of time and money and energy.

In fact, I was up against the individualism and congregationalism of English worship, and I began to ask myself if I ought to remain in a Church where it was possible to argue about the best way of bringing people to God. From the moment I was attacked by Roman fever it was clear that I should find myself criticizing the

Moxon-Hughes religion; for one of the great disadvantages of the Church of England is that it appears to be whatever church one is attached to at the moment. Perhaps Snaith was being almost more than subtle when he sent me here. He may have thought that by going to Holy Innocents' and finding Rowley's religion, which I had at one time accepted as THE religion of the Church of England, a failure in Shoreditch, I should be driven out of the Church of England altogether. He may have said to himself that nobody in his senses could possibly identify the Church of England with the Moxon-Hughes religion, and that if I only revolted against that I should not be doing myself much harm. It certainly is true that after I had talked to Andrew Hett about St. Chad's, Pimlico, my temperature subsided, and I am now looking forward immensely to a simpler expression of Catholic Christianity than I find here. I am not sorry that I came here, because I have met a number of interesting people and heard a lot of interesting talk. I feel more able to hold my own in the world and with the world than I did. Perhaps I've lost a good deal of provincialism. And one is bound to have a certain snobbish satisfaction in doing that. Not that I think I ought to hail Chelsea as metropolitan, for with all its coteries it seems much the most provincial part of London.

The

I've read through this unending letter, and I've been asking myself if I am doing right to leave here. answer is in the affirmative. I am sure that I am right.

I propose myself at Wych sometime during the first week of October, and I shall be able to stay at least a fortnight if you can put me up. Love to everybody, Yours ever, M. L.

CHAPTER XII

ST. CHAD'S, PIMLICO

ST. CHAD'S was a smoky edifice built of yellow bricks in the Byzantine manner associated from the laying of the foundation-stone with the Catholic revival in the Church of England. It was now a much poorer district than when, some forty years ago, it had been created a separate parish. Those grey Pimlico streets had been steadily peeling without and decaying within ever since, and each new year that arrived found another of them nearer to the status of the slum. Besides those habitations of the very poor, there was in the immediate environment of Victoria Station, as there is in the immediate environment of any great London terminus, a raffish neighbourhood that existed as a repository of evil and a clearing-house for vice. Any terminus quickly creates a festering sore. Such a comparatively fresh wound as the Great Central terminus at Marylebone has set up a gangrene of manners and morals in the neighbourhood.

Where the parish of St. Chad's included a portion of Grosvenor Road there were still several squares and terraces in the vicinity lived in by people sufficiently enamoured of respectability to print South Belgravia instead of Pimlico on their note-paper. But these people did not seem to belong to the parish, and indeed most of them worshipped at a church farther west, to attend a service at which they were not compelled to penetrate into the unsavoury hinterland of St. Chad's.

The Vicar, Charles Whitmore, reminded Mark of Moxon-Hughes in appearance; but though tall and heavily built, he was not imposing like Moxon-Hughes, and he had no ambition to advertise himself or his church. He was a genial and cultured man with a strong sense of humour and a great deal of simple piety. The senior

curate, Andrew Hett, was the dominant personality. He had been a beneficed priest before he had quarrelled with the Bishop of Ipswich and resigned his living, and it was obvious that his influence with the Vicar was paramount. Unfortunately he was not popular among the parishioners, towards whom he always adopted an unpleasantly domineering manner, to which he added several extremely high-handed actions. The second curate was Chator, who was so good as sometimes to be nearly tiresome. He had certainly enjoyed a sense of humour once upon a time, but Mark decided that he had tried to get rid of it with all the other human passions that required quelling. He had a face like a sheep, light hazel eyes like very weak tea, and a spluttering way of talking; but he was wonderful with the poor people, in whom his simplicity, which sometimes verged on imbecility, roused a desire to protect him and thus secured him their deep affection. The other curate, Nigel Stewart, was leaving at Christmas to go to Mortemer, at St. Cyprian's, South Kensington. Mark was sorry to hear this, for he found Stewart the most attractive young priest he had met hitherto. He was one of those people whom everybody likes and whose universal popularity always creates a prejudice against him beforehand; but, however much prejudiced a stranger might be, Stewart never failed to add him to the long list of his friends, and to this rule Mark was no exception. Stewart was handsome in a seraphic way and had no more insincerity than the bare minimum that every popular young man must have in order to be popular. Perhaps he may not have been quite so fond of you as he seemed when he took your arm and asked your advice, but whenever you heard that he had mentioned your name it was always with affection, and so in the end you began to believe that perhaps he really was every bit as fond of you as he pretended to be. On the whole Mark found the Clergy House in Balm Street, Pimlico, as sympathetic an environment as any in which he had been placed. Chator, like himself, was a literate, so that he did not feel himself out of it with the others, who were all Oxford men. Instead of finding their manner tiresome and affected, as he might have done had

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