Painted Windows / Studies in Religious Personality

et somewhat raw, newly come from college, full of Latin

her he would be an agnostic or a Roman Catholic. "But is there not some doubt in the matter?" inquired a

delightful wit and brilliant playfulness of the young pr

k, has so imperceptibly retired from the Church of England. For all the interest it excited, the secession of this extremely brilliant person

deed of temperament which illumines some of the more obscure movements of religious psychology. Ronnie Knox, as everybody calls him, the eyes lighting up at the first mention of

uncles and aunts, but his own home, of which he speaks always with reverence and affection, was a kind and vigorous establishment, a home well calculated to develop his scholarly wit and his love of mischievous fun. Nothing in his surroundings made fo

lness which shook up his body and mind, he came under the influence of a matron who held with no little force of character the views of the Anglo-Catholic party. These views stole gradually into the mind of the rather ef

living in a rather provincial world-the w

t into the most melodious Greek and Latin, and of the remarkable range of his scholarship. He himself has told us of his love of port and bananas, his joy in early morning celebrations in the chapel of Pusey House, his tea-parties, his delight in debates at the Union, of which he became President, and of his m

and, after leading a life of extravagant and fighting ritualism as an Anglican priest, at the end

then, were insufficient for the spiritu

re thos

needs, the needs of a temperament?-a temperament which used wit and raillery chiefly as a shield for its

edy made an impression on him, for it fell at a time in his life when "one begins to fear death." Fear is a word which

ghteous men" of the University in the Chapel of Pusey House, which "conveyed a feeling, to me most gratif

oughly superstitious. "The name of Rome has always, for me, stood out from any printed page merely because its initial is that of my own name." "At the time of my ordination I took a private vow, which I always kept, never to preach without making some reference to Our Lady, by way of satisfaction for the neglect of other preachers." He was a youth when he took the vo

ned the inevitable decis

ent, particularly at Bruges, struck home with a sense of imm

he moral contrast between Be

east go on Friday morning to the chapel of the Saint Sang and witness the continuous stream of people that flows by, hour after hour, to salute the relic an

rches were once far more crowded than in Belgium, I was told by a discerning man, Prince Alexis Obolensky, a former Procurator of the Holy Synod, that all such devotion

y occurred to him that it was a Saint's Day. Instantly he dropped on his knees in the snow, crossed himself violently with trembling hands, and in a

r an effect on the stranger of unbalanced judgment, is largely a matter of superstition;

ery of priestly ceremonial, felt in Bruges that the spirit of the Chapel of the Sacred Blood must be introduced into the Chu

t of a Roman propagandist. I do not know that any words more damning to the Romish spirit have ever been written than those in which this

o use the language of the Prayer Book, when I spoke s

propaganda wo

e British public from the drive; we Anglican

e Roman service was s

my manner of celebrating, then perhaps more reminiscent of the miss

e brethren was heard to declare afterwards that if he had kno

exclaimed, "Thank God that's over." After his first sermon in Trinity Chapel, an underg

s been preaching heresy-al

ulling the episcopal leg. One is never conscious, not for a single moment, that the author is writing about Jesus of Nazareth, Gethsemane, and Calvary. About a Church, yes; about ceremonial, about mysterious rites, about pr

ine his intelle

written before he went over to Rome, h

thority, within which theorising is

. . . that the obscurantist, having fenced himself in behind hi

than the soldier who elects to fight in the open plain. He has ramparts to defend him

fences; give up one article of the Nicene Creed, and the whole si

o the volume ca

d

se I know that if I approached them myself without faith I should as lik

d what is faith? He tells us in the same preface: "Faith is to me, n

sy to exclude from faith the operations of the intellect. But the words were written when he was

; you are left to keep doubt continually at bay, with the cheerful assurance tha

y have, I think, a n

ng desire to defend it, but solely to escape from the enemy of his own soul? Is it not proba

erances since he became a Roman Catholic-fighting and most challenging utterances which for me at any rate are belied, and tragically belied, by a look in his eyes which is unmistakably, I a

curus judicat orbis terrarum; but later came the moan Quis mihi tribuat, and later still the stolen j

were darkening with fog. This fog crept slowly into the cathedral. The surpliced boy who presented an alms-dish just within the doors was stamping hi

wed to the monstrance. The altar bell rang snappishly through this cold fog like the dinner bell of a boarding house, and in that yellow mist, which deepened with every minute, the white flames of the candles lost nearly all their starlike brigh

earance of foreigners, many of them young men who looked like waiters: one

and rather apprehensive, a slight boyish figure, swaying uneasily, the large luminous eyes, of an extraordinary intensity, almost glazed with light, the full lips, so obviously meant f

nveniently from beginning to end. It was the strangest sermon I have listened to for many years, and all the stranger for its unimpassioned delivery. He spoke of the Fall of Man as a certainty[8]. He spoke continually of an offended God. Between this off

and punishment of the first pair, not the faintest explicit allusion to it is subsequently found anywhere in literature un

is not enough to say that a door is a thing for letting people in and letting peop

im thrice. What a marvellous choice! Would you have thought of doing that? Should I have thoug

l entrusted to even those Popes who lived sinful lives and brought disgrace on the name of religion? Yes. To them and to no others in their day. Whatever their live

nster Cathedral by one of the wittiest men now living and one of the cleverest young

he has come t

an extreme of traditional belief in order to destroy the last vestige in his mind of a free inte

man who is blest with an unusual sense of humour and intellectual subtlety of a rare order, is here found preaching a theology which is fast being rejected by

, as he states it, is a s

ch we are ordered to keep, or some

ng the fort? Or is it

for you and me in black and white; I mean to keep it, and def

theology looking for the Truth which the traditionalist, safe, warm,

ke a fai

ather Knox looks in the glass do

sm and seek for Truth in the fortress of Anglo-Catholicism? And here again, did he not break faith, and once more seek Tr

e rejection of Christ by the Jews? They had their tradition, a tradition of

Christian missionary, and would reduce the whole world to a s

kness of African forests, has been handed down as unquestionable truth commanding the loyalty of its disciples. What lo

ist the natural tendencies of his reason, and believe what he is told, jus

not bring myself to believe that he has yet found rest for his soul, or that he can so easily strangle

cks with the subtlety of a curiously agile brain, a casuist who sees quickly the chinks in the armour of an adversary. But with all his boyishness, and charm, and humility, and engaging cleverness, ther

he wrong. The door, which for Dr. Inge has no key, because it has no lock, is to Ronald Knox a door of terror which opens only to a single key-and a door which as surely shuts out from et

herd, only the dark shadow of an offended God. He

, may deliver him from all fear, all uneasiness, and that one day, forsaking the challenging sermon and the too violent assertion of the Catholic faith, he may find h

xcel all other books of religious autobiography in charming wit and endearing good humour. The Church o

the top of his voice that there is no violence to his reason and to his common sense which he cannot contemplate and most gladly accomplish, in the name of Tradition; but the pulses cool, the white heat of e

taken a barbarised and paganised Christianity. She has come with a winnowing fa

s ears against this movement of truth, and I am almost sure that h

. . . w

L.P.

ngham, 1860; m. 1889 Olive Cecilia, d. of late Rev. Stopford Brooke. Educ.: University School, Nottingham; University of London (M.A., 1886); Manchester College; G?ttingen; Harvard, U.S.A.; Hon. M.A., Oxford; H

L.P.