And now Alison recalled, only to be thrilled again by an electric sensation she had never before experienced with such intensity, the look of inspiration on the preacher’s face as he closed.  The very mists of the future seemed to break before his importuning gaze, and his eyes seemed indeed to behold, against the whitening dawn of the spiritual age he predicted, the slender spires of a new Church sprung from the foundations of the old.  A Church, truly catholic, tolerant, whose portals were wide in welcome to all mankind.  The creative impulse, he had declared, was invariably religious, the highest art but the expression of the mute yearnings of a people, of a race.  Thus had once arisen, all over Europe, those wonderful cathedrals which still cast their spell upon the world, and art to-day would respond—­was responding —­to the unutterable cravings of mankind, would strive once more to express in stone and glass and pigment what nations felt.  Generation after generation would labour with unflagging zeal until the art sculptured fragment of the new Cathedral—­the new Cathedral of Democracy —­pointed upward toward the blue vault of heaven.  Such was his vision —­God the Spirit, through man reborn, carrying out his great Design . . .

CHAPTER XXII

“Which say to the seers, see not”

I

As Alison arose from her knees and made her way out of the pew, it was the expression on Charlotte Plimpton’s face which brought her back once more to a sense of her surroundings; struck her, indeed, like a physical blow.  The expression was a scandalized one.  Mrs. Plimpton had moved towards her, as if to speak, but Alison hurried past, her exaltation suddenly shattered, replaced by a rising tide of resentment, of angry amazement against a materialism so solid as to remain unshaken by the words which had so uplifted her.  Eddies were forming in the aisle as the people streamed slowly out of the church, and snatches of their conversation, in undertones, reached her ears.

“I should never have believed it!”

“Mr. Hodder, of all men. . .”

“The bishop!”

Outside the swinging doors, in the vestibule, the voices were raised a little, and she found her path blocked.

“It’s incredible!” she heard Gordon Atterbury saying to little Everett Constable, who was listening gloomily.

“Sheer Unitarianism, socialism, heresy.”

His attention was forcibly arrested by Alison, in whose cheeks bright spots of colour burned.  He stepped aside, involuntarily, apologetically, as though he had instinctively read in her attitude an unaccountable disdain.  Everett Constable bowed uncertainly, for Alison scarcely noticed them.

“Ahem!” said Gordon, nervously, abandoning his former companion and joining her, “I was just saying, it’s incredible—­”