’How all this makes me ponder about my own special work I need not say.  There is not the complication of an English colony, it is true; that makes a great difference.

’My own feeling is that one should teach positive truth, the plain message of Christianity, not attacking prejudices.  Conviction as it finds its way into the heart by the truth recommending itself will do the work of casting out the old habits.  I do not mean to say that the devil is not in a special way at work to deceive people to follow lying delusions.  But all error is a perversion of truth; it has its existence negatively only, as being a negation of truth.  But God is truth, and therefore Truth is ——.  Now this is practically to be put, it seems to me, in this way.  Error exists in the mind of man, whom God has created, as a perversion of truth; his faculties are constructed to apprehend and rest satisfied with truth.  But his faculties are corrupted,, and the devil supplies a false caricature of truth, and deceives him to apprehend and rest satisfied with a lie.  But inasmuch as his nature, though damaged, is not wholly ruined by the Fall, therefore it is still not only possible for him to recognise positive truth when presented to him, but he will never rest satisfied with anything else—­he will be restless and uneasy till he has found it.

’It is because I feel that it is more natural to man to follow truth than error ("natural” being understood to mean correspondent to the true nature) that I believe the right thing is to address oneself to the principle in a man which can and will recognise truth.  Truth when recognised expels error.  But why attack error without positively inculcating truth?  I hope it does not bore you for me to write all this.  But I wish you to learn all that may explain my way of dealing with these questions.’

The next day, October 25, a headache gives the Bishop a reason for indulging himself, while waiting for his pupils, in calling up and setting down a realisation of his sisters’ new home at St. Mary Church, where for the time he seems to go and live with them, so vividly does he represent the place to himself.  His first return to his own affairs is a vision that once more shows his unappeased craving for all appliances ‘for glory and for beauty’ in the worship of God.

’I may some day have a connection with Mary Church marbles.  Sometimes I have a vision—­but I must live twenty years to see more than a vision—­of a small but exceedingly beautiful Gothic chapel, rich inside with marbles and stained glass and carved stalls and encaustic tiles and brass screen work.  I have a feeling that a certain use of really good ornaments may be desirable, and being on a very small scale it might be possible to make a very perfect thing some day.  There is no notion of my indulging such a thought.  It may come some day, and most probably long after I am dead and gone.  It would be very foolish to spend money upon more necessary