less immediately there. The silence invited the bishop to speak.
"In the light of this vision, I see my church plainly for the

little thing it is," he said.
He wanted to be perfectly clear with the Angel and himself.

"This church of which I am a bishop is just a part of our poor
human struggle, small and pitiful as one thinks of it here in the

light of the advent of God's Kingdom, but very great, very great
indeed, ancient and high and venerable, in comparison with me.

But mostly it is human. It is most human. For my story is the
church's story, and the church's story is mine. Here I could

almost believe myself the church itself. The world saw a light,
the nations that were sitting in darkness saw a great light. Even

as I saw God. And then the church began to forget and lose itself
among secondary things. As I have done.... It tried to express

the truth and lost itself in a maze of theology. It tried to
bring order into the world and sold its faith to Constantine.

These men who had professed the Invisible King of the World,
shirked his service. It is a most terrible disaster that

Christianity has sold itself to emperors and kings. They forged a
saying of the Master's that we should render unto Ceasar the

things that are Ceasar's and unto God the things that are
God's....

"Who is this Ceasar to set himself up to share mankind with
God? Nothing that is Ceasar's can be any the less God's. But

Constantine Caesar sat in the midst of the council, his guards
were all about it, and the poor fanatics and trimmers and

schemers disputed nervously with their eyes on him, disputed
about homoousian and homoiousian, and grimaced and pretended to

be very very fierce and exact to hide how much they were
frightened and how little they knew, and because they did not

dare to lay violent hands upon that usurper of the empire of the
world....

"And from that day forth the Christian churches have been
damned and lost. Kept churches. Lackey churches. Roman, Russian,

Anglican; it matters not. My church indeed was twice sold, for it
doubled the sin of Nicaea and gave itself over to Henry and

Elizabeth while it shammed a dispute about the sacraments. No one
cared really about transubstantiation any more than the earlier

betrayers cared about consubstantiality; that dispute did but
serve to mask the betrayal."

He turned to the listening Angel. "What can you show me of my
church that I do not know? Why! we Anglican bishops get our sees

as footmen get a job. For months Victoria, that old German Frau,
delayed me--because of some tittle-tattle.... The things we

are! Snape, who afterwards became Bishop of Burnham, used to
waylay the Prince Consort when he was riding in Hyde Park and

give him, he boasts, 'a good loud cheer,' and then he would run
very fast across the park so as to catch him as he came round,

and do it again.... It is to that sort of thing we bearers of the
light have sunken....

"I have always despised that poor toady," the bishop went on.
"And yet here am I, and God has called me and shown me the light

of his countenance, and for a month I have faltered. That is the
mystery of the human heart, that it can and does sin against the

light. What right have I, who have seen the light--and failed,
what right have I--to despise any other human being? I seem to

have been held back by a sort of paralysis.
"Men are so small, so small still, that they cannot keep hold

of the vision of God. That is why I want to see God again.... But
if it were not for this strange drug that seems for a little

while to lift my mind above the confusion and personal
entanglements of every day, I doubt if even now I could be here.

I am here, passionate to hold this moment and keep the light. As
this inspiration passes, I shall go back, I know, to my home and

my place and my limitations. The littleness of men! The
forgetfulness of men! I want to know what my chief duty is, to

have it plain, in terms so plain that I can never forget.
"See in this world," he said, turning to the globe, "while

Chinese merchants and Turkish troopers, school-board boys and
Norwegian fishermen, half-trained nurses and Boer farmers are

full of the spirit of God, see how the priests of the churches of
Nicaea spend their time."

And now it was the bishop whose dark hands ran over the great
silver globe, and it was the Angel who stood over him and

listened, as a teacher might stand over a child who is learning a
lesson. The bishop's hand rested for a second on a cardinal who

was planning a political intrigue to produce a reaction in
France, then for a moment on a Pomeranian pastor who was going

out to his well-tilled fields with his Sunday sermon, full of
fiercehatred of England, still echoing in his head. Then he

paused at a Mollah preaching the Jehad, in doubt whether he too
wasn't a German pastor, and then at an Anglican clergyman still

lying abed and thinking out a great mission of Repentance and
Hope that should restore the authority of the established church

--by incoherent missioning--without any definite sin indicated
for repentance nor any clear hope for anything in particular

arising out of such activities. The bishop's hand went seeking to
and fro, but nowhere could he find any religious teacher, any

religious body rousing itself to meet the new dawn of faith in
the world. Some few men indeed seemed thoughtful, but within the

limitation of their vows. Everywhere it was church and creed and
nation and king and property and partisanship, and nowhere was it

the True God that the priests and teachers were upholding. It was
always the common unhampered man through whom the light of God

was breaking; it was always the creed and the organization of the
religious professionals that stood in the way to God....

"God is putting the priests aside," he cried, "and reaching out
to common men. The churches do not serve God. They stand between

man and God. They are like great barricades on the way to God."
The bishop's hand brushed over Archbishop Pontifex, who was

just coming down to breakfast in his palace. This pompous old man
was dressed in a purplegarment that set off his tall figure very

finely, and he was holding out his episcopal ring for his guests
to kiss, that being the customary morning greeting of Archbishop

Pontifex. The thought of that ring-kissing had made much hard
work at lower levels "worth while" to Archbishop Pontifex. And

seventy miles away from him old Likeman breakfasted in bed on
Benger's food, and searched his Greek Testament for tags to put

to his letters. And here was the familiar palace at Princhester,
and in an armchair in his bed-room sat Bishop Scrope insensible

and motionless, in a trance in which he was dreaming of the
coming of God.

"I see my futility. I see my vanity. But what am I to do?" he
said, turning to the darkness that now wrapped about the Angel

again, fold upon fold. "The implications of yesterday bind me for
the morrow. This is my world. This is what I am and what I am in.

How can I save myself? How can I turn from these habits and
customs and obligations to the service of the one true God? When

I see myself, then I understand how it is with the others. All we
priests and teachers are men caught in nets. I would serve God.

Easily said! But how am I to serve God? How am I to help and
forward His coming, to make myself part of His coming?"

He perceived that he was returning into himself, and that the
vision of the sphere and of the starry spaces was fading into

non-existence.
He struggled against this return. He felt that his demand was

still unanswered. His wife's face had suddenly come very close to