But he was not dazzled.  He knew that he saw only the likeness and bodying forth of a being inconceivable, of One who is greater than the earth and stars and yet no greater than a man.  He saw a being for ever young, for ever beginning, for ever triumphant.  The quality and texture of this being was a warm and living light like the effulgence at sunrise; He was hope and courage like a sunlit morning in spring.  He was adventure for ever, and His courage and adventure flowed into and submerged and possessed the being of the man who beheld him.  And this presence of God stood over the bishop, and seemed to speak to him in a wordless speech.

He bade him surrender himself.  He bade him come out upon the Adventure of Life, the great Adventure of the earth that will make the atoms our bond-slaves and subdue the stars, that will build up the white fires of ecstasy to submerge pain for ever, that will overcome death.  In Him the spirit of creation had become incarnate, had joined itself to men, summoning men to Him, having need of them, having need of them, having need of their service, even as great kings and generals and leaders need and use men.  For a moment, for an endless age, the bishop bowed himself in the being and glory of God, felt the glow of the divine courage and confidence in his marrow, felt himself one with God.

For a timeless interval....

Never had the bishop had so intense a sense of reality.  It seemed that never before had he known anything real.  He knew certainly that God was his King and master, and that his unworthy service could be acceptable to God.  His mind embraced that idea with an absolute conviction that was also absolute happiness.

(11)

The thoughts and sensations of the bishop seemed to have lifted for a time clean away from the condition of time, and then through a vast orbit to be returning to that limitation.

He was aware presently that things were changing, that the light was losing its diviner rays, that in some indescribable manner the glory and the assurance diminished.

The onset of the new phase was by imperceptible degrees.  From a glowing, serene, and static realization of God, everything relapsed towards change and activity.  He was in time again and things were happening, it was as if the quicksands of time poured by him, and it was as if God was passing away from him.  He fell swiftly down from the heaven of self-forgetfulness to a grotesque, pathetic and earthly self-consciousness.

He became acutely aware of his episcopal livery.  And that God was passing away from him.

It was as if God was passing, and as if the bishop was unable to rise up and follow him.

Then it was as if God had passed, and as if the bishop was in headlong pursuit of him and in a great terror lest he should be left behind.  And he was surely being left behind.

He discovered that in some unaccountable way his gaiters were loose; most of their buttons seemed to have flown off, and his episcopal sash had slipped down about his feet.  He was sorely impeded.  He kept snatching at these things as he ran, in clumsy attempts to get them off.