In the pulpit I would undertake to present
fifty human characters as moving as our Lord; but when I am at the Altar
I shall actually give Him to those who will take Him. I shall know that
I am doing as much for the lowest savage as for the finest product of
civilization. All are equal on the altar steps. Elsewhere man remains
divided into classes. You may rent the best pew from which to see and
hear the preacher; but you cannot rent a stone on which to kneel at your
Communion."
Mark rarely indulged in these outbursts. On him too Silchester exerted a
mellowing influence, and he gained from his sojourn there much of what
he might have carried away from Oxford; he recaptured the charm of that
June day when in the shade of the oak-tree he had watched a College
cricket match, and conversed with Hathorne the Siltonian who wished to
be a priest, but who was killed in the Alps soon after Mark met him.
The bells chimed from early morning until sombre eve; ancient clocks
sounded the hour with strikes rusty from long service of time; rooks and
white fantail-pigeons spoke with the slow voice of creatures that are
lazily content with the slumbrous present and undismayed by the sleepy
morrow. In Summer the black-robed dignitaries and white choristers,
themselves not more than larger rooks and fantails, passed slowly across
the green Close to their dutiful worship.
Pages:
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543