“I confess I am surprised, Mr. Alwyn,”—­he was saying—­“that you, a man of such genius and ability, should be still in the leading strings of the Church!”

“There is no Church”—­returned Alwyn quietly,—­“The world is waiting for one!  The Alpha Beta of Christianity has been learned and recited more or less badly by the children of men for nearly two thousand years,—­the actual grammar and meaning of the whole Language has yet to be deciphered.  There have been, and are, what are called Churches,—­one especially, which, if it would bravely discard mere vulgar superstition, and accept, absorb, and use the discoveries of Science instead, might, and possibly will, blossom into the true, universal, and pure Christian Fabric.  Meanwhile, in the shaking to and fro of things,—­the troublous sifting of the wheat from the chaff,—­we must be content to follow by the Way of the Cross as best we can.  Christianity has fallen into disrepute, probably because of the Self-Renunciation it demands,—­for, in this age, the primal object of each individual is manifestly to serve Self only.  It is a wrong road,—­a side-lane that leads nowhere,—­and we shall inevitably have to turn back upon it and recover the right path—­if not now, why then hereafter!”

His voice had a tremor of pain within it;—­he was thinking of the millions of men and women who were voluntarily wandering astray into a darkness they did not dream of,—­and his heart, the great, true heart of the Poet, became filled with an indescribable passion of yearning.

“No wonder,” he mused—­“no wonder that Christ came hither for the sake of Love!  To rescue, to redeem, to save, to bless! ...  O Divine sympathy for sorrow!  If I—­a man—­can feel such aching pity for the woes of others, how vast, how limitless, how tender, must be the pity of God!”

And his eyes softened,—­he almost forgot his surroundings.  He was entirely unaware of the various deep and wistful emotions he had wakened in the hearts of his hearers.  There was a great attractiveness in him that he was not conscious of,—­and while all present certainly felt that he, though among them, was not of them, they were at the same time curiously moved by an impression that notwithstanding his being, as it were, set apart from their ways of existence, his sympathetic influence surrounded them as resistlessly as a pure atmosphere in which they drew long refreshing breaths of healthier life.

“I should like,”—­suddenly said a bearded individual who was seated half-way down the table, and who had listened attentively to everything—­“I should like to tell you a few things about Esoteric Buddhism!—­I am sure it is a faith that would suit you admirably!”