feet was a dust of atoms and the little beginnings of life. And
long before the bishop bared his face again, he knew that he was

to see his God.
He looked up slowly, fearing to be dazzled.

But he was not dazzled. He knew that he saw only the likeness
and bodying forth of a being inconceivable, of One who is greater

than the earth and stars and yet no greater than a man. He saw a
being for ever young, for ever beginning, for ever triumphant.

The quality and texture of this being was a warm and living light
like the effulgence at sunrise; He was hope and courage like a

sunlit morning in spring. He was adventure for ever, and His
courage and adventure flowed into and submerged and possessed the

being of the man who beheld him. And this presence of God stood
over the bishop, and seemed to speak to him in a wordless speech.

He bade him surrender himself. He bade him come out upon the
Adventure of Life, the great Adventure of the earth that will

make the atoms our bond-slaves and subdue the stars, that will
build up the white fires of ecstasy to submerge pain for ever,

that will overcome death. In Him the spirit of creation had
become incarnate, had joined itself to men, summoning men to Him,

having need of them, having need of them, having need of their
service, even as great kings and generals and leaders need and

use men. For a moment, for an endless age, the bishop bowed
himself in the being and glory of God, felI the glow of the

divine courage and confidence in his marrow, felt himself one
with God.

For a timeless interval....
Never had the bishop had so intense a sense of reality. It

seemed that never before had he known anything real. He knew
certainly that God was his King and master, and that his unworthy

service could be acceptable to God. His mind embraced that idea
with an absoluteconviction that was also absolute happiness.

(11)
The thoughts and sensations of the bishop seemed to have lifted

for a time clean away from the condition of time, and then
through a vast orbit to be returning to that limitation.

He was aware presently that things were changing, that the
light was losing its diviner rays, that in some indescribable

manner the glory and the assurance diminished.
The onset of the new phase was by imperceptible degrees. From a

glowing, serene, and static realization of God, everything
relapsed towards change and activity. He was in time again and

things were happening, it was as if the quicksands of time poured
by him, and it was as if God was passing away from him. He fell

swiftly down from the heaven of self-forgetfulness to a
grotesque, pathetic and earthly self-consciousness.

He became acutely aware of his episcopallivery. And that God
was passing away from him.

It was as if God was passing, and as if the bishop was unable
to rise up and follow him.

Then it was as if God had passed, and as if the bishop was in
headlong pursuit of him and in a great terror lest he should be

left behind. And he was surely being left behind.
He discovered that in some unaccountable way his gaiters were

loose; most of their buttons seemed to have flown off, and his
episcopal sash had slipped down about his feet. He was sorely

impeded. He kept snatching at these things as he ran, in clumsy
attempts to get them off.

At last he had to stop altogether and kneel down and fumble
with the last obstinate button.

"Oh God!" he cried, "God my captain! Wait for me! Be patient
with me!"

And as he did so God turned back and reached out his hand. It
was indeed as if he stood and smiled. He stood and smiled as a

kind man might do; he dazzled and blinded his worshipper, and yet
it was manifest that he had a hand a man might clasp.

Unspeakable love and joy irradiated the whole being of the
bishop as he seized God's hand and clasped it desperately with

both his own. It was as if his nerves and arteries and all his
substance were inundated with golden light....

It was again as if he merged with God and became God....
CHAPTER THE SIXTH - EXEGETICAL

(1)
WITHOUT any sense of transition the bishop found himself

seated in the little North Library of the Athenaeum club and
staring at the bust of John Wilson Croker. He was sitting

motionless and musing deeply. He was questioning with a cool and
steady mind whether he had seen a vision or whether he had had a

dream. If it had been a dream it had been an extraordinarily
vivid and convincing dream. He still seemed to be in the presence

of God, and it perplexed him not at all that he should also be in
the presence of Croker. The feeling of mental rottenness and

insecurity that had weakened his thought through the period of
his illness, had gone. He was secure again within himself.

It did not seem to matter fundamentally whether it was an
experience of things without or of things within him that had

happened to him. It was clear to him that much that he had seen
was at most expressive, that some was altogether symbolical. For

example, there was that sudden absurdrealization of his sash and
gaiters, and his perception of them as encumbrances in his

pursuit of God. But the setting and essential of the whole thing
remained in his mind neither expressive nor symbolical, but as

real and immediately perceived, and that was the presence and
kingship of God. God was still with him and about him and over

him and sustaining him. He was back again in his world and his
ordinary life, in his clothing and his body and his club, but God

had been made and remained altogether plain and manifest.
Whether an actualvision had made his conviction, or whether

the conviction of his own subconscious mind had made the dream,
seemed but a small matter beside the conviction that this was

indeed the God he had desired and the God who must rule his life.
"The stuff? The stuff had little to do with it. It just cleared

my head.... I have seen. I have seen really. I know."
(2)

For a long time as it seemed the bishop remained wrapped in
clouds of luminousmeditation. Dream or vision it did not

matter; the essential thing was that he had made up his mind
about God, he had found God. Moreover, he perceived that his

theological perplexities had gone. God was higher and simpler and
nearer than any theological God, than the God of the Three

Creeds. Those creeds lay about in his mind now like garments
flung aside, no trace nor suspicion of divinity sustained them

any longer. And now--Now he would go out into the world.
The little Library of the Athenaeum has no visible door. He

went to the book-masked entrance in the corner, and felt among
the bookshelves for the hidden latch. Then he paused, held by a

curious thought. What exactly was the intention of that
symbolical struggle with his sash and gaiters, and why had they

impeded his pursuit of God?
To what particularly significant action was he going out?

The Three Creeds were like garments flung aside. But he was
still wearing the uniform of a priest in the service of those

three creeds.
After a long interval he walked into the big reading-room. He

ordered some tea and dry toast and butter, and sat down very
thoughtfully in a corner. He was still sitting and thinking at

half-past eight.
It may seem strange to the reader that this bishop who had been

doubting and criticizing the church and his system of beliefs for
four long years had never before faced the possibility of a

severance from his ecclesiasticaldignity. But he had grown up in
the church, his life had been so entirely clerical and Anglican,