He lifted up his hands and cried to God, and with an emotion so profound, an earnestness so commanding, that very many of those who were present turned their faces to see the figure to which he looked and spoke.  And some of the children had a strange persuasion of a presence there, as of a divine figure militant, armed, and serene....

“Oh God our Leader and our Master and our Friend,” the bishop prayed, “forgive our imperfection and our little motives, take us and make us one with thy great purpose, use us and do not reject us, make us all here servants of thy kingdom, weave our lives into thy struggle to conquer and to bring peace and union to the world.  We are small and feeble creatures, we are feeble in speech, feebler still in action, nevertheless let but thy light shine upon us and there is not one of us who cannot be lit by thy fire, and who cannot lose himself in thy salvation.  Take us into thy purpose, O God.  Let thy kingdom come into our hearts and into this world.”

His voice ceased, and he stood for a measurable time with his arms extended and his face upturned....

The golden clouds that whirled and eddied so splendidly in his brain thinned out, his sense of God’s immediacy faded and passed, and he was left aware of the cathedral pulpit in which he stood so strangely posed, and of the astonished congregation below him.  His arms sank to his side.  His eyes fell upon the book in front of him and he felt for and gripped the two upper corners of it and, regardless of the common order and practice, read out the Benediction, changing the words involuntarily as he read: 

“The Blessing of God who is the Father, the Son, the Spirit and the King of all Mankind, be upon you and remain with you for ever.  Amen.”

Then he looked again, as if to look once more upon that radiant vision of God, but now he saw only the clear cool space of the cathedral vault and the coloured glass and tracery of the great rose window.  And then, as the first notes of the organ came pealing above the departing stir of the congregation, he turned about and descended slowly, like one who is still half dreaming, from the pulpit.

(13)

In the vestry he found Canon Bliss.  “Help me to take off these garments,” the bishop said.  “I shall never wear them again.”

“You are ill,” said the canon, scrutinizing his face.

“Not ill.  But the word was taken out of my mouth.  I perceive now that I have been in a trance, a trance in which the truth is real.  It is a fearful thing to find oneself among realities.  It is a dreadful thing when God begins to haunt a priest....  I can never minister in the church again.”

Whippham thrust forward a chair for the bishop to sit down.  The bishop felt now extraordinarily fatigued.  He sat down heavily, and rested his wrists on the arms of the chair.  “Already,” he resumed presently, “I begin to forget what it was I said.”