The Altar Steps Part 29

St. Agnes' House,

Keppel Street,

Chatsea.

March 24.

My Lord Bishop,

I am unwilling to trouble you at a moment when you must be unusually busy; but I shall be glad to hear from you about the opening of the new church of the Silchester College Mission, which was fixed for Easter Sunday. Your predecessor, Bishop Crawshay, did not think that any new licence would be necessary, because the new St. Agnes' is joined by the sacristy to the old mission church.

There is no idea at present of asking you to const.i.tute St. Agnes'

a parish and therefore the question of consecration does not arise.

I regret to say that Bishop Crawshay thoroughly disapproved of our services and ritual, and I think he may have felt unwilling to commit himself to endorsing them by the formal grant of a new licence. May I hear from you at your convenience, and may I respectfully add that your lords.h.i.+p has the prayers of all my people?

I am your lords.h.i.+p's obedient servant,

John Rowley.

To which the Lord Bishop of Silchester replied as follows:

High Thorpe Castle.

March 26.

Dear Mr. Rowley,

As my predecessor Bishop Crawshay did not think a new licence would be necessary I have no doubt that you can go ahead with your plan of opening the new St. Agnes' on Easter Sunday. At the same time I cannot help feeling that a new licence would be desirable and I am asking Canon Whymper as Rural Dean to pay a visit and make the necessary report. I have heard much of your work, and I pray that it may be as blessed in my time as it was in the time of my predecessor. I am grateful to your people for their prayers and I am, my dear Mr. Rowley,

Yours very truly,

Harvard Silton.

Canon Whymper, the Rector of Chatsea and Rural Dean, visited the new church on the Monday of Pa.s.sion week. On Sat.u.r.day Father Rowley received the following letter from the Bishop:

High Thorpe Castle.

April 9.

Dear Mr. Rowley,

I have just received Canon Whymper's report upon the new church of the Silchester College Mission, and I think before you open the church on Easter Sunday I should like to talk over one or two comparatively unimportant details with you personally. Moreover, it would give me pleasure to make your acquaintance and hear something of your method of work at St. Agnes'. Perhaps you will come to High Thorpe on Monday. There is a train which arrives at High Thorpe at 2.36. So I shall expect you at the Castle at 2.42.

Yours very truly,

Harvard Silton.

Mark paid his second visit to High Thorpe Castle on one of those serene April mornings that sail like swans across the lake of time. The episcopal standard on the highest turret hung limp; the castle quivered in the sunlight; the lawns wearing their richest green seemed as far from being walked upon as the blue sky above them. Whether it was that Mark was nervous about the result of the coming interview or whether it was that his first visit to High Thorpe had been the climax of so many new experiences, he was certainly much more sharply aware on this occasion of what the Castle stood for. Looking back to the morning when he and Father Rowley sat with Bishop Crawshay in his bedroom, he realized how much the personality of the dead bishop had dominated his surroundings and how little all this dignity and splendour, which must have been as imposing then as it was now, had impressed his imagination.

There came over Mark, when he and Father Rowley were walking silently along the drive, such a foreboding of the result of this visit that he almost asked the priest why they bothered to continue their journey, why they did not turn round immediately and take the next train back to Chatsea. But before he had time to say anything Father Rowley had pulled the chain of the door bell, the butler had opened the door, and they were waiting the Bishop's pleasure in a room that smelt of the best leather and the best furniture polish. It was a room that so long as Dr.

Cheesman held the see of Silchester would be given over to the preliminary nervousness of the diocesan clergy, who would one after another look at that steel engraving of Jesus Christ preaching by the Sea of Galilee, and who when they had finished looking at that would look at those two oil paintings of still life, those rich and sombre acc.u.mulations of fish, fruit and game, that glowed upon the walls with a kind of sinister luxury. Waiting rooms are all much alike, the doctor's, the dentist's, the bishop's, the railway-station's; they may differ slightly in externals, but they all possess the same atmosphere of transitory discomfort. They have all occupied human beings with the perusal of books they would never otherwise have dreamed of opening, with the observation of pictures they would never otherwise have thought of regarding twice.

"Would you step this way," the butler requested. "His lords.h.i.+p is waiting for you in the library."

The two culprits, for by this time Mark was oblivious of every other emotion except one of profound guilt, guilt of what he could not say, but most unmistakably guilt, walked along toward the Bishop's library--Father Rowley like a fat and naughty child who knows he is going to be reproved for eating too many tarts.

There was a studied poise in the att.i.tude of the Bishop when they entered. One shapely leg trailed negligently behind his chair ready at any moment to serve as the pivot upon which its owner could swing round again into the every-day world; the other leg firmly wedged against the desk supported the burden of his concentration. The Bishop swung round on the shapely leg in attendance, and in a single sweeping gesture blotted the last page of the letter he had been writing and shook Father Rowley by the hand.

"I am delighted to have an opportunity of meeting you, Mr. Rowley," he began, and then paused a moment with an inquiring look at Mark.

"I thought you wouldn't mind, my lord, if I brought with me young Lidderdale, who is reading for Holy Orders and working with us at St.

Agnes'. I am apt to forget sometimes exactly to what I have and have not committed myself and I thought your lords.h.i.+p would not object. . . ."

"To a witness?" interposed the Bishop in a tone of courtly banter.

"Come, come, Mr. Rowley, had I known you were going to be so suspicious of me I should have asked my domestic chaplain to be present on my side."

Mark, supposing that the Bishop was annoyed by his presence at the interview, made a movement to retire, whereupon the Bishop tapped him paternally upon the shoulder and said:

"Nonsense, non-sense, I was merely indulging in a mild pleasantry. Sit down, Mr. Rowley. Mr. Lidderdale I think you will find that chair quite comfortable. Well, Mr. Rowley," he began, "I have heard much of you and your work. Our friend Canon Whymper spoke of it with enthusiasm. Yes, yes, with enthusiasm. I often regret that in the course of my ministry I have never had the good fortune to be called to work among the poor, the real poor. You have been privileged, Mr. Rowley, if I may be allowed to say so, greatly, immensely privileged. You find a wilderness, and you make of it a garden. Wonderful. Wonderful."

Mark began to feel uncomfortable, and he thought by the way Father Rowley was puffing his cheeks that he too was beginning to feel uncomfortable. The Missioner looked as if he was blowing away the lather of the soap that the Bishop was using upon him so prodigally.

"Some other time, Mr. Rowley, when I have a little leisure . . . I perceive the need of making myself acquainted with every side of my new diocese--a little leisure, yes . . . sometime I should like to have a long talk with you about all the details of your work at Chatsea, of which as I said Canon Whymper has spoken to me most enthusiastically.

The question, however, immediately before us this morning is the licence of your new church. Since writing to you first I have thought the matter over most earnestly. I have given the matter the gravest consideration.

I have consulted Canon Whymper and I have come to the conclusion that bearing all the circ.u.mstances in mind it will be wiser for you to apply, and I hope be granted, a new licence. With this decision in my mind I asked Canon Whymper in his capacity as Rural Dean to report upon the new church. Mr. Rowley, his report is extremely favourable. He writes to me of the n.o.ble fabric, n.o.ble is the actual epithet he employs, yes, the very phrase. He expresses his conviction that you are to be congratulated, most warmly congratulated, Mr. Rowley, upon your vigorous work. I believe I am right in saying that all the money necessary to erect this n.o.ble edifice has been raised by yourself?"

"Not all of it," said Father Rowley. "I still owe 3,000."

"A mere trifle," said the Bishop, dismissing the sum with the airy gesture of a conjurer who palms a coin. "A mere trifle compared with what you have already raised. I know that at the moment there is no question of const.i.tuting as a parish what is at present merely a district; but such a contingency must be borne in mind by both of us, and inasmuch as that would imply consecration by myself I am unwilling to prejudice any decision I might have to take later, should the necessity for consecration arise, by allowing you at the moment a wider lat.i.tude than I might be prepared to allow you in the future. Yes, Canon Whymper writes most enthusiastically of the n.o.ble fabric." The Bishop paused, drummed with his fingers on the arm of his chair as if he were testing the pitch of his instrument, and then taking a deep breath boomed forth: "But Mr. Rowley, in his report he informs me that in the middle of the south aisle exists an altar or Holy Table expressly and exclusively designed for what he was told are known as ma.s.ses for the dead."

"That is perfectly true," said Father Rowley.

"Ah," said the Bishop, shaking his head gravely. "I did not indeed imagine that Canon Whymper would be misinformed about such an important feature; but I did not think it right to act without ascertaining first from you that such is indeed the case. Mr. Rowley, it would be difficult for me to express how grievously it pains me to have to seem to interfere in the slightest degree with the successful prosecution of your work among the poor of Chatsea, especially to make such interference one of the first of my actions in a new diocese; but the responsibilities of a bishop are grave. He cannot lightly endorse a condition of affairs, a method of services which in his inmost heart after the deepest confederation he feels is repugnant to the spirit of the Church Of England. . . ."

"I question that opinion, my lord," said the Missioner.

"Mr. Rowley, pray allow me to finish. We have little time at our disposal for a theological argument which would in any case be fruitless, for as I told you I have already examined the question with the deepest consideration from every standpoint. Though I may respect your opinions in my private capacity, for I do not wish to impugn for one moment the sincerity of your beliefs, in my episcopal, or what I may call my public character, I can only condemn them utterly. Utterly, Mr.

Rowley, and completely."

"But this altar, my lord," shouted Father Rowley, springing to his feet, to the alarm of Mark, who thought he was going to shake his fist in the Bishop's face, "this altar was subscribed for by the poor of St. Agnes', by all the poor of St. Agnes', as a memorial of the lives of sailors and marines of St. Agnes' lost in the sinking of the _King Harry_. Your predecessor, Bishop Crawshay, knew of its existence, actually saw it and commented on its ugliness; yet when I told him the circ.u.mstances in which it had been erected he was deeply moved by the beautiful idea.

This altar has been in use for nearly three years. Ma.s.ses for the dead have been said there time after time. This altar is surrounded by memorials of my dead people. It is one of the most vital factors in my work there. You ask me to remove it, before you have been in the diocese a month, before you have had time to see with your own eyes what an influence for good it has on the daily lives of the poor people who built it. My lord, I will not remove the altar."

While Father Rowley was speaking the Bishop of Silchester had been looking like a man on a railway platform who has been ambushed by a whistling engine.

"Mr. Rowley, Mr. Rowley," he said, "I pray you to control yourself. I beg you to understand that this is not a mere question of red tape, if I may use the expression, of one extra altar or Holy Table, but it is a question of the services said at that altar or Holy Table."

"That is precisely what I am trying to point out to your lords.h.i.+p,"

said Father Rowley angrily.

"You yourself told me when you wrote to me that Bishop Crawshay disapproved of much that was done at St. Agnes'. It was you who put it into my head at the beginning of our correspondence that you were not asking me formally to open the new church, because you were doubtful of the effect your method of wors.h.i.+p might have upon me. I don't wish for a moment to suggest that you were trying to bundle on one side the question of the licence, before I had had a moment to look round me in my new diocese, I say I do _not_ think this for a moment; but inasmuch as the question has come before me officially, as sooner or later it must have come before me officially, I cannot allow my future action to be prejudiced by giving you liberties now that I may not be prepared to allow you later on. Suppose that in three years' time the question of consecrating the new St. Agnes' arises and the legality of this third altar or Holy Table is questioned, how should I be able to turn round and forbid then what I have not forbidden now?"