That's all very
well, and it's quite right of him to bear in mind that the main object
of the Order is to work among soldiers; but at the same time he leaves
this place to run itself, and whenever he does come down here he plans
some hideous addition, to pay for which he has to go off preaching for
another three months, so that the Abbey gets looked after by a young
novice of twenty-five. It's ridiculous, you know. I was grumbling at the
Bishop; but really I can understand his disinclination to countenance
Burrowes. I have hopes of Brother George, and I shall take an early
opportunity of talking to him."
Mark was discouraged by Sir Charles' criticism of the Order; and that it
could be criticized like this through the conduct of its founder
accentuated for him the gulf that lay between the English Church and the
rest of Catholic Christendom.
It was not much solace to remember that every Benedictine community was
an independent congregation. One could not imagine the most independent
community's being placed in charge of a novice of twenty-five. It made
Mark's proposed monastic life appear amateurish; and when he was back in
the matchboarded guest-room the impulse to abandon his project was
revised. Yet he felt it would be wrong to return to Wych-on-the-Wold.
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