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Soul of a Bishop-Part8_H. G. WELLS (1866-1946)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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He went to Brighton-Pomfrey too upon the score of his general



health, and Brighton-Pomfrey revised his general regimen,

discouraged indiscreet fasting, and suggested a complete



abstinence from red wine except white port, if indeed that can be

called a red wine, and a moderate use of Egyptian cigarettes.



But 1913 was a strenuous year. The labour troubles revived, the

suffragette movement increased greatly in violence and



aggressiveness, and there sprang up no less than three

ecclesiastical scandals in the diocese. First, the Kensitites set



themselves firmly to make presentations and prosecutions against

Morrice Deans, who was reserving the sacrament, wearing, they



said, "Babylonish garments," going beyond all reason in the

matter of infantconfession, and generally brightening up Mogham



Banks; next, a popular preacher in Wombash, published a book

under the exasperating title, "The Light Under the Altar," in



which he showed himself as something between an Arian and a

Pantheist, and treated the dogma of the Trinity with as little



respect as one would show to an intrusive cat; while thirdly, an

obscure but overworked missioner of a tin mission church in the



new working-class district at Pringle, being discovered in some

sort of polygamous relationship, had seen fit to publish in



pamphlet form a scandalous admission and defence, a pamphlet

entitled "Marriage True and False," taking the public needlessly



into his completest confidence and quoting the affairs of Abraham

and Hosea, reviving many points that are better forgotten about



Luther, and appealing also to such uncanonical authorities as

Milton, Plato, and John Humphrey Noyes. This abnormal concurrence



of indiscipline was extremelyunlucky for the bishop. It plunged

him into strenuouscontroversy upon three fronts, so to speak,



and involved a great number of personal encounters far too vivid

for his mental serenity.



The Pringle polygamist was the most moving as Morrice Deans was

the most exacting and troublesome and the Wombash Pantheist the



most insidiously destructive figure in these three toilsome

disputes. The Pringle man's soul had apparently missed the normal



distribution of fig-leaves; he was an illiterate, open-eyed,

hard-voiced, freckled, rational-minded creature, with large



expository hands, who had come by a side way into the church

because he was an indefatigable worker, and he insisted upon



telling the bishop with an irrepressible candour and completeness

just exactly what was the matter with his intimate life. The



bishop very earnestly did not want these details, and did his

utmost to avoid the controversial questions that the honest man



pressed respectfully but obstinately upon him.

"Even St. Paul, my lord, admitted that it is better to marry



than burn," said the Pringle misdemeanant, "and here was I, my

lord, married and still burning!" and, "I think you would find,



my lord, considering all Charlotte's peculiarities, that the

situation was really much more trying than the absolute celibacy



St. Paul had in view."...

The bishop listened to these arguments as little as possible,



and did not answer them at all. But afterwards the offender came

and wept and said he was ruined and heartbroken and unfairly



treated because he wasn't a gentleman, and that was distressing.

It was so exactly true--and so inevitable. He had been



deprived, rather on account of his voice and apologetics than of

his offence, and public opinion was solidly with the sentence. He



made a gallant effort to found what he called a Labour Church in

Pringle, and after some financial misunderstandings departed with



his unambiguous menage to join the advancedmovement on the

Clyde.



The Morrice Deans enquiry however demanded an amount of

erudition that greatly fatigued the bishop. He had a very fair



general knowledge of vestments, but he had never really cared for




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