In such a countryside no claims papal or
episcopal possessed the least importance; and Mark dismissed the subject
from his mind, abandoning himself to the pleasure of the slow ascent.
Looking back after a while he could see the town of Wield riding like a
ship in a sea of verdure, and when he surveyed thus England asleep in
the sunlight, the old ambition to become a preaching friar was kindled
again in his heart. He would re-establish the extinct and absolutely
English Order of St. Gilbert so that there should be no question of
Roman pretensions. Doubtless, St. Francis himself would understand a
revival of his Order without reference to existing Franciscans; but
nobody else would understand, and it would be foolish to insist upon
being a Franciscan if the rest of the Order disowned him and his
followers. If anybody had asked Mark at that moment why he wanted to
restore the preaching friars, he might have found it difficult to
answer. He was by no means imbued with the missionary spirit just then;
his experience at Chatsea had made him pessimistic about missionary
effort in the Church of England. If a man like Father Rowley had failed
to win the support of his ecclesiastical superiors, Mark, who possessed
more humility than is usual at twenty-one, did not fancy that he should
be successful.
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