CHAPTER XIII

WHOSE SINS

A NEW element was added to Mark's duties when he came to St. Chad's, Pimlico, which was the confessional. Nobody ever came to confession at Galton, or at any rate those that did found Shuter's ghostly aid all that they required. Moxon-Hughes, when he was told that Mark had not yet heard any confessions, suggested that it would be wiser for him to wait until he was a year or two older, a postponement for which he was grateful because on the human side this aspect of his priestly office was more heavily weighted with responsibility than any other.

At St. Chad's every priest was allowed to have his own special penitents; but, generally speaking, and as far as it was possible to control individual preferences, the Vicar took the women and girls, Hett the men, and Chator the boys. It was decided that this rough grouping should not be altered, and that Mark should at certain times during the week sit in the confessional-box at the disposal of whatever sick souls should come to him to be healed by God. Until Hett's arrival, confessionalboxes had not been used at St. Chad's; the Glastonbury chair and prie-dieu had served there, as they serve in most English churches. So far, no Protestant busybodies had sniffed them out, and gratified their obscene imaginations by spilling ink on letters to the Bishop; but Mark found that the possibility of such an occurrence increased the strain of his task.

"Of course, we don't have to put up with the foulness against which our predecessors had to contend," he said to Hett one day. "Still, ever since that row about The Priest in Absolution, one always dreads some such horrible attack as that being made. I wonder how many

Anglicans have had their first grave doubts about their position when sitting in the box."

Hett looked at Mark sharply for a moment.

"You'll soon get over that," he said. "It's usually a strain when one first begins to hear confessions."

"I think it will always be a strain to me," Mark replied. "I can't bear the absence of matter-of-factness about confession in the Establishment. For instance, when the Bishop wrote to me before my ordination, he asked at the end of his letter if there was anything I wished to consult him about in private. Why couldn't he have written do you want me to hear your confession?' I don't know; it makes the whole thing unpleasant somehow. It's like the horrid euphemisms of nurses and governesses for the natural needs of the body. I suppose it is the prurient bashfulness of the AngloSaxon character that is to blame; and yet I don't know; it was perhaps rather that the Anglo-Saxon character responded to Protestant individualism more readily than the Latin and the Kelt."

"The Kelt has responded with disastrous results in Wales and Cornwall, and I should be inclined to add, though I'm speaking without first-hand experience, in Scotland," said Hett. "And we surely ought to consider it one of Almighty God's major mercies that he did not allow the whole of Ireland to turn Protestant. What an appalling country it would have been!"

"It's a superficial judgment, of course," said Mark, "to say that Protestantism was built up on the lechery of individuals, and yet when one seeks for a more profound explanation we can only substitute desire for lechery, though at its best I suppose we might use aspiration."

"Protestantism is a malady of the soul," said Hett. "What I am going to say may sound like a paradox, but I believe it to be a truth. Protestantism was begotten out of man's apprehension of mortality. From the moment that a life to come began to appear, with the progress of knowledge, a less certain prospect, the importance of the individual life in this world was enormously heightened. Such a doctrine as justification

by faith alone was a cry of despair from souls that no longer regarded faith as their natural inheritance. Faith had been so easy for so many years, and now suddenly with the possibility of losing it man tried to keep it by proclaiming its worth not merely over everything else, but to the exclusion of everything else, so that you get the perfectly ludicrous conception of good works that the reformers evolved."

"But what do you think really marks the temperamental difference between a Catholic and a Protestant?" Mark asked. "I mean, of course, apart from any question of grace, and from any begging of the question by saying that one is true and the other false. It's conceivable, for instance, that one might talk of the Catholic temperament and the Protestant temperament in human beings who were not Christians. I should be inclined

to say that Catholicism was Aristotelian, objective, realistic, classic, conservative, epic, and feminine; and that Protestantism was Platonic, subjective, idealistic, romantic, liberal, lyric, and masculine."

"Yes, on the whole I should agree with you," Hett said. "Though I think some of your antitheses are rather dim and cloudy about the edges, and I should prefer to say that Catholicism was all that you claim for it and all that you allow to Protestantism, but that Protestantism was only what you allow to it. Wouldn't you allow any masculinity to Catholicism, for instance?"

"No, I don't think I would," Mark said. "St. Paul perceived the inherent femininity of the Church, and we have followed him ever since."

"Yes, but that may have arisen from the Greek word's being feminine. We've lost so much with the loss of gender in our language."

"The original allotment of gender," Mark argued, "showed a perception of reality by early man which the complications of progress have done much to destroy. You might compare our modern insensitiveness to words with the deterioration of our sight and hearing and smell."

"But ékkλýola originally meant an Athenian assemblage that had been called forth," said Hett.

"Precisely. And what could be more feminine than a crowd?" Mark retorted. "And presumably that feminine word was chosen for the Church of Christ with a keen sense of the Church's femininity. Protestantism is essentially an active and masculine principle. It is dynamic, but Catholicism is static. The strength of Catholicism is its weakest link; the strength of Protestantism is its strongest link. Another feminine characteristic of Catholicism is its adaptability. Compare Catholic missions with Protestant missions."

"Do you know what I'm wondering all the time you're talking?" Hett asked, with a crooked smile. "I'm wondering if the Establishment is bi-sexual, or whether it is merely neutral! Yes, I think I prefer the femininity of Rome, even if she really is the Scarlet Whore of the Apocalypse."

"All this arose," Mark said, "out of my observation that confession was treated in the Establishment too much as a spiritual excitement. Those were not my words, but that's what I meant. And perhaps the reason has nothing to do with pruriency or bashfulness, but is a sign of the importance to which our Protestant leaven raises the individual. I know that the other point of view might instance the five sparrows sold for two farthings and the numbered hairs of our head that show each of us to be of more value than many sparrows. But that is God's business. I think it's a mistake for us to count our own hairs. David got into trouble for taking a census of the people. I think we're looking for trouble when we take a census of our hairs. Yes, I like the feminine way the Roman Church regards mankind. 'They're all alike,' she seems to say. Let's do what we can for the brutes. Feed them and flatter them, but don't let's forget that we mustn't expect too much.' Don't you find it difficult, Hett, when you're hearing confessions not to cheapen the sins? Of course, at St. Chad's we don't get a great many of those very introspective sinners, but some of the young females are extremely tiresome. I do wish that Whitmore would make it a fixed rule that none of the young females in his parish should confess to the junior priests. What I

find myself nearly doing sometimes is saying, 'Yes, yes. But please don't think you're the first young woman who has behaved in such a way. You all do. It's part of your make up. So don't stammer and gulp over it. Some of the self-consciousness may be in yourself," Hett said.

"Ah, yes, that hadn't struck me," Mark admitted. "Yes, I think you're right, Hett. Thanks very much. I'll remove that beam as soon as I can.'

And in this he was successful, so that he was able within a short while to achieve the impersonality that the administration of the sacrament required, and yet at the same time as director to exercise an influence over his penitents that bore fruit in the perseverance with which they fought against temptation. At the same time, he was in no danger of fancying himself in a spiritual Harley Street. He was very much the general practitioner in his cure of souls; and if in this parish there existed complicated cases, they did not come his way.

One afternoon in early March soon after the patronal festival, Mark, after having listened for an hour to catalogues of minor domestic delinquencies, had come to the end of the time when he was on duty in the confessional and had left the box and was walking toward the sacristy, when he saw a man leave one of the chairs and make a move toward him as if he would speak to him. When Mark stopped to wait for him, he drew back and sat down again. Mark always dreaded the notion of playing spider to flies, particularly in the confessional, and this made him unwilling to encourage the stranger by asking him if he wanted anything. Yet his curiosity was roused by one who was quite unknown to him, and whose outward appearance did not at all suggest a penitent. In fact, with his protruding underjaw and big peaked cap held fumblingly in his hands and red kerchief tied round his neck, he looked like a young costermonger who had taken up with the Ring. decided that his presence in the church had nothing to do with any desire to confess his sins, and, turning back, he asked what he wanted. At this the man rose clumsily, and, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, said in

Mark