Modernism, he defines, at its simplest, as personal experience, in contradistinction from authority.  The modernist is one whose knowledge of Christ is so personal and direct that it does not depend on miracle or any accident of His earthly life.  Rome, he thinks, is a falling power, but she may get back some of her strength in any great industrial calamity—­a revolution, for example.  Someone once asked him which he would choose, a Black tyranny, or a Red?  He replied “On the whole, I think a Black.”  The friend corrected him.  “You are wrong.  Men would soon emerge from the ruins of a Red tyranny, but Rome never lets go her power till it is torn from her.”

His contempt for the idea of reunion with Rome in her present condition is unmeasured.  “The notion almost reminds us of the cruel jest of Mezentius, who bound the living bodies of his enemies to corpses.”  It is the contempt both of a great scholar and a great Englishman for ignorance and a somewhat ludicrous pretension.  “The caput orbis has become provincial, and her authority is spurned even within her own borders.”  England could not kneel at this Italian footstool without ceasing to be England[6].

[Footnote 6:  “There are, after all, few emotions of which one has less reason to be ashamed than the little lump in the throat which the Englishman feels when he first catches sight of the white cliffs of Dover.”—­Outspoken essays, p. 58.]

“A profound reconstruction is demanded,” he says, “and for those who have eyes to see has been already for some time in progress.  The new type of Christianity will be more Christian than the old, because it will be more moral.  A number of unworthy beliefs about God are being tacitly dropped, and they are so treated because they are unworthy of Him.”

He sees the future of Christianity as a deep moral and spiritual power in the hearts and minds of men who have at length learned the value of the new currency, and have exchanged profession for experience.

But this Erasmus, far more learned than the other, and with a courage which far exceeds the other’s, and with an impatience of nature, an irritability of mind, which the other seldom knew, is nevertheless patient of change.  He does not lead as decisively as he might.  He does not strike as often as he should at the head of error.  Perhaps he is still thinking.  Perhaps he has not yet made up his mind whether “Art is a Crime or only an Absurdity,” whether Clergymen ought to be multiplied or exterminated, whether in general we are getting on, and if so where we are going to.

I feel myself that his mind is made up, though he is still thinking and still seeking; and I attribute his indecision as a leader, his want of weight in the affairs of mankind, to one fatal deficiency in his mysticism.  It is, I presume to suggest, a mysticism which is separated by no gulf from egoism—­egoism of the highest order and the most spiritual character, but still egoism.  In his quest of God he is not conscious of others.  He thinks of mankind with interest, not with affection.  Humanity is a spectacle, not a brotherhood.