It is not the business of those who are enlightened to protest against conventional things, unless those conventions obscure and distort the truth.  It is rather their duty to fall in with the existing framework of life, and live as simply and faithfully inside it as they can.  To myself the plainest service is beautiful and uplifting, if it obviously evokes the spiritual ardour of the worshippers; and, on the other hand, a service in some majestic church, consecrated by age and tradition and association, and enriched by sacred art and heart-thrilling music, appeals as purely and graciously as anything in the world to my spiritual instinct.  But I would frankly realise that to some such ceremonies appear merely as unmeaning and uninspiring; and the presence of such people is a mere discord in the harmony of sweetness.

The one essential thing is that we should desire to draw near to God, that we should faithfully determine by what way and in what manner we can approach him best, and that we should pursue that path as faithfully and as quietly as we can.

IX

It is Good Friday to-day.  This morning I wandered through a clean, rain-washed world; among budding hedges, making for the great Cathedral towers that loom across the flat.  It was noon when I passed through the little streets.  Entering the great western portals, I found the huge Cathedral all lit by shafts of golden sunshine.  There was a little company of worshippers under the central lantern; and a grave and dignified priest, with a tender sympathy of mien, solemnly vested, was leading the little throng through the scenes of the Passion.  I sate for a long time among the congregation; and what can I say of the message there delivered?  It was subtle and serious enough, full of refinement and sweetness, but it seemed to me to have little or nothing to do with life.  I will not here go into the whole of the teaching that I heard—­but it was for me all vitiated by one thought.  The preacher seemed to desire us to feel that the sad and wasted form of the Redeemer, hanging in his last agony on the cross among the mocking crowd, was conscious at once of his humanity and his Divinity.  But the thought is meaningless and inconceivable to me.  If he was conscious then of his august origin and destiny, if he knew that, to use a material metaphor enough, he would shortly pass through lines of kneeling angels amid triumphant pealing music to the very Throne and Heart of God, the sufferings of his Passion can have been as nothing.  There is no touch of example or help for me in the scene.  Even the despairing cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” becomes a piece of unworthy drama; and yet if one presses the words of Jesus, and remembers that he had said but a few short hours before that he had but to speak the word, and legions of angels were at hand to succour him, it is impossible to resist the feeling that he knew who he was and whither he was bound.  I do not say that the thesis is untrue; I only say that if he knew the truth, then there is no medicine in his sufferings for human despair.