" For them the misty goal is not
even in sight; the vale is bounded by huge pine-clad precipices,
wreathed with snow and crowned with cloud; but to Meyrick it does
appear quite definitely what we are, and as for the end, well, the
avenue of the world seems to lead up to a neat classical building with
pillars and a pediment, that is called the temple of reason and
common-sense.
I do not know what Meyrick's religious views are; he attends his
College chapel with a cool decorum. But I suspect him of being a quiet
agnostic. I do not think he cares a straw whether his individuality
endures, and he looks forward to a progress which can be tabulated and
statistics about the decrease of crime and disease that can be
verified; that, I am sure, is his idea of the Kingdom of Heaven.
XL
I have been staying with a friend in Yorkshire, in an out-of-the-way
place, and I have seen a good deal of the parish clergyman there, who
is rather a pathetic person, I think. It seems to me that he belongs to
a type which is perhaps becoming more common, and the fact makes me
somewhat anxious about the future of the Church of England, because it
is a type that does not seem to me to correspond to the needs of the
day at all. He was, I believe, the son of a solicitor in a small
country town; he was educated at a local grammar-school, and went up to
a small Cambridge College; here he took a pass-degree, and then went
into a Theological College, of a rather advanced High-Church type.
Pages:
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256