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The New World4
The bishop became aware that Eleanor was returning to him across the sands. She had made an end to her paddling, she had put on her shoes and stockings and become once more the grave and responsible young woman who had been taking care of him since his flight from Princhester. He replaced the two letters in his pocket, and sat ready to smile as she drew near; he admired her open brow, the toss of her hair, and the poise of her head upon her neck. It was good to note that her hard reading at Cambridge hadn`t bent her shoulders in the least....
"Well, old Dad! " she said as she drew near. "You`ve got back a colour."
"I`ve got back everything. It`s time I returned to Princhester."
"Not in this weather. Not for a day or so." She flung herself at his feet. "Consider your overworked little daughter. Oh,how good this is!"
"No," said the bishop in a grave tone that made her look up into his face. "I must go hack."
He met her clear gaze. "What do you think of all this business, Eleanor?" he asked abruptly. "Do you think I had a sort of fit in the cathedral?"
He winced as he asked the question.
"Daddy," she said, after a little pause; "the things you said and did that afternoon were the noblest you ever did in your life. I wish I had been there. It must have been splendid to be there. I`ve not told you before--I`ve been dying to.... I`d promised not to say a word--not to remind you. I promised the doctor. But now you ask me, now you are well again, I can tell you. Kitty Kingdom has told me all about it, how it felt. It was like light and order coming into a hopeless dark muddle. What you said was like what we have all been trying to think--I mean all of us young people. Suddenly it was all clear."
She stopped short. She was breathless with the excitement of her confession.
Her father too remained silent for a little while. He was reminded of his weakness; he was, he perceived, still a little hysterical. He felt that he might weep at her youthful enthusiasm if he did not restrain himself.
I`m glad," he said, and patted her shoulder. "I`m glad, Norah."
She looked away from him out across the lank brown sands and water pools to the sea. "It was what we have all been feeling our way towards, the absolute simplification of religion, the absolute simplification of politics and social duty; just God, just God the King."
"But should I have said that--in the cathedral?"
She felt no scruples. "You had to," she said.
"But now think what it means," he said. "I must leave the church."
"As a man strips off his coat for a fight."
"That doesn`t dismay you?"
She shook her head, and smiled confidently to sea and sky.
"I`m glad if you`re with me," he said. "Sometimes--I think-- I`m not a very self-reliant man."
"You`ll have all the world with you," she was convinced, "in a little time."
"Perhaps rather a longer time than you think, Norah. In the meantime--"
She turned to him once more.
"In the meantime there are a great many things to consider. Young people, they say, never think of the transport that is needed to win a battle. I have it in my mind that I should leave the church. But I can`t just walk out into the marketplace and begin preaching there. I see the family furniture being carried out of the palace and put into vans. It has to go somewhere...."
"I suppose you will go to London."
"Possibly. In fact certainly. I have a plan. Or at least an opportunity.... But that isn`t what I have most in mind. These things are not done without emotion and a considerable strain upon one`s personal relationships. I do not think this--I do not think your mother sees things as we do."
"She will," said young enthusiasm, "when she understands."
"I wish she did. But I have been unlucky in the circumstances of my explanations to her. And of course you understand all this means risks--poverty perhaps--going without things--travel, opportunity, nice possessions--for all of us. A loss of position too. All this sort of thing," he stuck out a gaitered calf and smiled, "will have to go. People, some of them, may be disasagreeable to us...."
"After all, Daddy," she said, smiling, "it isn`t so bad as the cross and the lions and burning pitch. And you have the Truth."
"You do believe--?" He left his sentence unfinished.
She nodded, her face aglow. "We know you have the Truth."
"Of course in my own mind now it is very clear. I had a kind of illumination...." He would have tried to tell her of his vision, and he was too shy. "It came to me suddenly that the whole world was in confusion because men followed after a thousand different immediate aims, when really it was quite easy, if only one could be simple it was quite easy, to show that nearly all men could only be fully satisfied and made happy in themselves by one single aim, which was also the aim that would make the whole world one great order, and that aim was to make God King of one`s heart and the whole world. I saw that all this world, except for a few base monstrous spirits, was suffering hideous things because of this war, and before the war it was full of folly, waste, social injustice and suspicion for the same reason, because it had not realized the kingship of God. And that is so simple; the essence of God is simplicity. The sin of this war lies with men like myself, men who set up to tell people about God, more than it lies with any other class--"
"Kings?" she interjected. "Diplomatists? Finance?"
"Yes. Those men could only work mischief in the world because the priests and teachers let them. All things human lie at last at the door of the priest and teacher. Who differentiate, who qualify and complicate, who make mean unnecessary elaborations, and so divide mankind. If it were not for the weakness and wickedness of the priests, every one would know and understand God. Every one who was modest enough not to set up for particular knowledge. Men disputed whether God is Finite or Infinite, whether he has a triple or a single aspect. How should they know? All we need to know is the face he turns to us. They impose their horrible creeds and distinctions. None of those things matter. Call him Christ the God or call him simply God, Allah, Heaven; it does not matter. He comes to us, we know, like a Helper and Friend; that is all we want to know. You may speculate further if you like, but it is not religion. They dispute whether he can set aside nature. But that is superstition. He is either master of nature and he knows that it is good, or he is part of nature and must obey. That is an argument for hair-splitting metaphysicians. Either answer means the same for us. It does not matter which way we come to believe that he does not idly set the course of things aside. Obviously he does not set the course of things aside. What he does do for certain is to give us courage and save us from our selfishness and the bitter hell it makes for us. And every one knows too what sort of things we want, and for what end we want to escape from ourselves. We want to do right. And right, if you think clearly, is just truth within and service without, the service of God`s kingdom, which is mankind, the service of human needs and the increase of human power and experience. It is all perfectly plain, it is all quite easy for any one to understand, who isn`t misled and chattered at and threatened and poisoned by evil priests and teachers."
"And you are going to preach that, Daddy?"
"If I can. When I am free--you know I have still to resign and give up--I shall make that my message."
"And so God comes."
"God comes as men perceive him in his simplicity.... Let men but see God simply, and forthwith God and his kingdom possess the world."
She looked out to sea in silence for awhile.
Then she turned to her father. "And you think that His Kingdom will come--perhaps in quite a little time--perhaps in our lifetimes? And that all these ridiculous or wicked little kings and emperors, and these political parties, and these policies and conspiracies, and this nationalist nonsense and all the patriotism and rowdyism, all the private profit-seeking and every baseness in life, all the things that it is so horrible and disgusting to be young among and powerless among, you think they will fade before him?"
The bishop pulled his faith together.
"They will fade before him--but whether it will take a lifetime or a hundred lifetimes or a thousand lifetimes, my Norah --"
He smiled and left his sentence unfinished, and she smiled back at him to show she understood.
And then he confessed further, because he did not want to seem merely sentimentally hopeful.
"When I was in the cathedral, Norah--and just before that service, it seemed to me--it was very real.... It seemed that perhaps the Kingdom of God is nearer than we suppose, that it needs but the faith and courage of a few, and it may be that we may even live to see the dawning of his kingdom, even--who knows?--the sunrise. I am so full of faith and hope that I fear to be hopeful with you. But whether it is near or far--"
"We work for it," said Eleanor.
Eleanor thought, eyes downcast for a little while, and then looked up.
"It is so wonderful to talk to you like this, Daddy. In the old days, I didn`t dream--Before I went to Newnham. I misjudged you. I thought Never mind what I thought. It was silly. But now I am so proud of you. And so happy to be back with you, Daddy, and find that your religion is after all just the same religion that I have been wanting."
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