Painted Windows / Studies in Religious Personality

us raising dust and noise, mistake yourselves for the chariot of history; who, being always on the look-out for an opportunity to put in a word or two, lose all true productiveness. However des

eneration. But I am now told by an authority in the nonconformist world that th

the first person of this erratic trinity, and therefore we may still regard him with that mea

pies. His innovations are all made after visits to the lumber-room. It is by going back such a long dista

is rare, eccentricity

orthodox bishop. One might almost hazard the conjecture that he remains in the Congregationalist Communion, as so many Anglo-Catholics remain in the Establishment, solely to supply the

talist. To hear him use the word Catholic is to make one understand how the Church of Rome dazzles certain eyes, and to

e for more beautiful services in nonconformist chapels; but it is not so easy, while he remains a nonconformist, to understand, or to fe

ose momentum with the next few years-a movement not only away from sectarian isolation but towards the idea of one catholic and apostolic Church. There is certainly unrest in the Free Churc

ainfully: "A ritualistic Dissenter! What is it possible to think of him?" I said that he attracted a good many people to his services in the King's Weigh House Churc

ner with some people which must add, I should think, to this unpopularity. He seems sweepingly satisfied with himself and his opinions, which are mostly of a challenging nature. He does not discuss but attempts to browbeat. His voice

I am inclined to think; and he is a fighter whose blows, if not a teacher whose opinion

haired, clean-shaven, boyish-looking man, with light-coloured eyes behind shining spectacles, the head craning forward, the body elastic and restless with inex

allowing marks of time; it suggests rather the very architecture he takes so savage a pleasure in denouncing-a

araphrasing an account, given I think by Mr. James Douglas, of the building of a certain tabernacle in London-first it started out to be a Jam Factory, then a happy idea occurred to the builder that he should turn it into a Waterworks, then the foreman suggested that it would make an ideal swimming-bath, but finally the architect came on the sc

d, a Vesta Tilley quickness informing both his movements and his speech, as he nips forward in conversation with a friend, the arms, i

influence, must confess that there is nothing about him either of the smooth and oily or of the adroit and compromising. He is the last man on earth to be called an opportun

bout wrong things, and consumingly sincere in matters which are not perhaps definitely certain to advance the higher life of the human race. H

d it is said that "if he put a brass plate on his door and charged five guineas a time" he might be one of the richest mind-doctors in London. He himself declares that his real work is almost entirely personal. I have heard him speak

uggests unwholesomeness, and much that suggests sound strength and clean good sense. Also among his penitents are numerous shopgirls who have lost in the commercial struggle whatever piety they possessed in childhood and in their craving for excitement have gone astray from the path of safe simplicity-gambling

ly sane and so steadily uncompromising. London is stronger and less disreputable for Dr. Orchard's presence in its midst-no doubt a very vulgar, degrading, and trivial midst, b

were not regarded as a "novelty," if the eccentricity of his position in the nonconformist world had not so skilfully advertised him to a light and foolish generation ever

great one, and one of an entirely wholesome nature. It seems to me, then, that the nature of that which attracts the unhappy to seek his counsel is of small moment in comparison with the extent and benefice

meness which makes him disposed at times, in spite of an almost rollickin

anism, that the heart of it is really non-existent for the multitude. He speaks with impatience of the nonconformist churches and with contempt of the Anglican church. We are a

regards the system under which we live as thoroughly unchristian. It is the system of

nto it a more Christian spirit. For him the whole body of our industrialism is rotten with selfishness and covetousness, the high note of service entirely abs

out to its logical conclusion his thesis of guild socialism. Perhaps his tone is here

tion to theology is a quibble. The old dogmas are to stand: only the language is to be adjusted to the modern intelligence. You may picture

attention of the authorities. I believe he likened the great struggle to a battle between Sodom and Gomorrah. However, he was careful not

not distinguished or illuminating. With a pen in his hand he loses all his natural force. He writes, I think,

on. When he complains that people do not know what Christianity is, one wonders whether his own definition would satisfy the saints. He is a fighter rather

ual equals of the ablest of the clergy, referred it to the famous Dr. Dale of Birmingham, and remarked: "I have no fears concerning

his discontent of his is an important symptom, even if his prescription, a very old one, gives no hope of a cure. He is popular, influential, a figure of the day, and still young; yet his

thinks, and until there is only one Church in the world for the express

r the profound silence. The event

OP T

e Archbishop of Canterbury; in. 1916, Frances Gertrude Acland, y.d. of F.H. Anson, 72 St. George's Square, S.W. Educ.: Rugby (Scholar); Balliol College, Oxford (Exhibitioner) First class Classical Mods., 1902; 1st class Lit. Hum., 1904; President Oxford Union, 1904; Fe

OP T