terrestrial days; and on the other hand there is the truly spiritual belief that you and I share, which is absolutely intolerant of such grotesque ideas.  My argument to you is that the new faith, the clearer vision, gains ground; that the only thing that can prevent or delay the church from being altogether possessed by what you call and I admit is, the true God, is that such men as yourself, as the light breaks upon you, should be hasty and leave the church.  You see my point of view, do you not?  It is not one that has been assumed for our discussion; it is one I came to long years ago, that I was already feeling my way to in my St. Matthew’s Lenton sermons.

“A word for your private ear.  I am working.  I cannot tell you fully because I am not working alone.  But there are movements afoot in which I hope very shortly to be able to ask you to share.  That much at least I may say at this stage.  Obscure but very powerful influences are at work for the liberalizing of the church, for release from many narrow limitations, for the establishment of a modus vivendi with the nonconformist and dissentient bodies in Britain and America, and with the churches of the East.  But of that no more now.

“And in conclusion, my dear Scrope, let me insist again upon the eternal persistence of the essential Religious Fact:” 

(Greek Letters Here)

(Rev. i. 18.  “Fear not.  I am the First and Last thing, the Living thing.”)

And these promises which, even if we are not to take them as promises in the exact sense in which, let us say, the payment of five sovereigns is promised by a five-pound note, are yet assertions of practically inevitable veracity: 

(Greek Letters Here)

(Phil. i. 6.  “He who began... will perfect.”  Eph. v. 14.  “He will illuminate.”)

The old man had written his Greek tags in shakily resolute capitals.  It was his custom always to quote the Greek Testament in his letters, never the English version.  It is a practice not uncommon with the more scholarly of our bishops.  It is as if some eminent scientific man were to insist upon writing H2O instead of “water,” and “sodium chloride” instead of “table salt” in his private correspondence.  Or upon hanging up a stuffed crocodile in his hall to give the place tone.  The Bishop of Princhester construed these brief dicta without serious exertion, he found them very congenial texts, but there were insuperable difficulties in the problem why Likeman should suppose they had the slightest weight upon his side of their discussion.  The more he thought the less they seemed to be on Likeman’s side, until at last they began to take on a complexion entirely opposed to the old man’s insidious arguments, until indeed they began to bear the extraordinary interpretation of a special message, unwittingly delivered.

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