Brother Copas

evening, M

ncial, police and betting news, or borrow all the newest novels-even this novel which I am writing, should the Library Sub-Committee of the Town Council (an austerely moral body) allow it to pass. In the Venables Library the books are mostly mellowed by age, even when naughtiest (it contains a whole roomful of Restoratio

y, the seventh Marquess of Merchester very handsomely made it over to a body of trustees, to house a collection of books bequeathed to the public by old Dean Venables, Merchester's most scholarly historian, it was with a stipulation that the amenities of the house should be as little as possible disturbed. The beds, to be sure, were removed from the upper rooms, and the old carpets from the staircase; and the walls,

ing all t

hought in a

covered and taught that of all things a book is about the most difficult to burn. You may smoke in 'Paradise,' for

rm, found Mr. Simeon seated there alone with a manuscript

You have been a stranger to us

litics, and for the last five or six weeks I have be

ve-came as near to frowning as

ster-though even in Merchester we put up fight enough to rattle you into a blue funk. But God help the pair of us, Mr. Simeon, if our principles are to be judg

opy of the Master's Gaudy Sermon. I am running it through and

st me. I am, as nearly as possible, impeccable with Greek accents, and may sur

we know, was we

ll excuse me-would care to have his sermon overlooked. Strictly speaking, indeed, I ought not to have brough

ivate school," sa

. Simeon sighed. "Moreover, as it happened, they w

fine myself to the Master's margin

ence, laid his own book on the table, and seated himself

and always... and proparoxyton

up, having some idea tha

pen and inserted the

else amiss,"

eedingly k

h, I know what you would say if your politeness allowed: 'Why, if bad temper's my object, did I leave the Liberal Club and come here?' Becau

bad temper have to do with one

od man, and therefore your re

e doesn't willingly talk of these inmost things, you mus

suffuses it with goodness as with a radiance. But actually, my friend, it is

receive but

fe alone does

a thing of beauty.... Whereas the real test of any religion is-as I saw it excellently well put the other day-'not what form it takes in a virtuous mind, but what effects it

imeon, "what can the Christian rel

a good many down at the Club: you heard some of the things they said and printed during the Election; and while your charity won't deny that they are religious-some of 'em passio

we show bad temper in any

1902: he does it in vain. The House of Lords-which is really not a political but a social body, the citadel of a class-will confound his politics, frustrate his knavish tricks. Can you wonder that he loses his temper, sometimes inelegantly? And when the rich Nonconformist tires of striving against all the odds-when he sets up his carriage and his wife and daughters find

other way about-of merging ou

politic: it keeps the blood circulating. It is when you start infecting it with religion the trouble beg

face, you father of six! No, of course you don't believe it. Nobody does. And the difference is not that religion has ceased to teach it-for it hasn't-but that men have grown decent and put it, with like doctrines, silently aside in disgust. So it has happened to Satan and his fork: they have become 'old hat.' So it will happen to all the old machinery of hell: the operating decency of hum

eon, "lifts a man out of himself

r Copas felt for his snuff-box.

somebody else, "the efficacy of religion is surely just here, that it lifts the individual man out of his

ny, lately. Who is it?... That sounds a trifle too florid even for Colt-the sort of thing Colt

ver the mischief with Brother Copas's worldly scent t

ars of a man's life are, roughly, threescore and ten. (Actually it works out far below that figure, but I make you a present of the difference.) Very well again. I take any average Christian aged forty-five, and what sort of premium do I observe him paying-I wo

hundred pounds he had happened on the precise sum in which Mr. Simeon was insured, and that trouble enough the poor man had to find the yearly premiu

p of Canterbury and allowed a strong hand, I would undertake to bring,

would

: 'You may deny me, hate me, persecute me, strip me: but you are a Christian of this parish and therefore my parishioner; and therefore I absolutely defy you to escape my forgiveness or my love. Though you flee to the uttermost parts of the earth, you shall not escape these: by these, as surely as I

s shone. The pic

at the Church must co

continued Brother Copas, resuming his lighter tone, "this presupposes not only a sensible Archbishop but a Church not given up to anarchy as the Church of England is. Let u

m the table and walked off

ed Mr. Simeon, taking off his spectacles and f

e calm of the current, as also that they stood neither in hope of much good nor in fear of much harm, he advised them to let the ship drive, nor busy themselves with anything but making good cheer. I have done with all worldly fear and ambition; and therefore in working up

election which her own choice had already determined, not because the bishops obtained any gifts or graces in their consecration which she herself respected, but because the shadowy form of an election, with a religious ceremony following it, gave them the semblance of spiritual in

in its careless rapture it twice misrelates the relative pronou

if sincere, might be dangerously powerful. The wisest and best of its bishops have found their influence impaired, their position made equivocal, by the element of unreality which adheres to them. A feeling approaching to conte

her fault

second-rate abilities. The latest and most singular theory about them is that of the modern English Neo-Catholic, who disregards his bishop's advice, and despises his cen

-a trivial action in itself; but he had a conscience about b

de is so diabolically effective just because in every

Tractarians in his young days,

mind is priestly despite himself. He has all the priesthood's alleged tricks: you can never be sure that he is not faking evidence or garblin