And so when one sees prosperity spreading wider and lower, and the neat villa residences begin to cluster round the knot of ancient buildings, we must not conclude too hastily that our new wealth has swamped ancient ideals; probably the ideals of prosperous people do not vary very much, whether they are monks or railway officials.  The monks in their decadent days have no abounding reputation for virtue or austerity.  One likes to think of them as lost in splendid dreams of God’s glory and man’s holiness, but there is little to show that such was the case.

I do not want to decry the ideas of the monks in order to magnify our modern middle-class ideals.  I do not for a moment pretend to think that our national ideals are very exalted ones nowadays.  I wish I could believe it; but there is no sign of any particular interest in religion or cultivation or art or literature or romance.  We have a certain patriotism, of a somewhat commercial type; we have a belief in our honesty, not, I fear, wholly well-founded.  We claim to be plain people who speak our mind; which very often does not mean more than that we do not take the trouble to be polite; we should all say that we valued liberty, which means little more than that we resent interference, and like to do things in our own way.  But I do not think that we are at present a noble-minded or an unselfish nation, though we are rich and successful, and have the good humour that comes of wealth and success.

Peterborough is to me a parable of England; it stands for a certain pride in antiquity, coupled with a good-natured contempt for the religious spirit—­for, though these cathedrals of ours are well cared for and well-served, no one can say that they have any very deep influence on national life.  And it stands, too, for the thing that we do believe in with all our hearts—­trim, comfortable material prosperity; a thing which bewilders a dreamer like myself, because it seems to be the deliberate gift and leading of God to our country, while all the time I long to believe that he is pointing us to a far different hope, and a very much quieter and simpler ideal.  How little we make of Christ’s blessing on poverty, on simplicity, on tenderness!  How ready we are to say that his strong words about the dangers of wealth were only counsels given to individuals!  The deepest article of our creed, that a man must make his way, fight for his own hand, elbow himself to the front if he can—­how little akin that is to the essential spirit of Christ, by which a man ought to lavish himself for others, and quit the world poorer than he entered it!

I turn again into the great, shadowy, faintly lit church, with all its interlaced arches, its colour, its richness of form; I see the figures of venerable, white-robed clergy in their tabernacled stalls, a—­little handful of leisurely worshippers.  The organ rises pouring sweet music from its forest of pipes.  Hark to what they are singing to the rich blending of artful melodies:—­