The type of ecclesiastic whom I would like to see in a place like this
would be a man deeply sensitive to art and music, with a strong
mystical sense of wonder and desire; visionary perhaps, and what is
called unpractical, believing that religion was not so much a matter of
conduct as a matter of mood; in whom conduct would follow mood, as a
rush bends in the stream. I do not say that this is the most vital form
of religion. It is not the spirit of Luther or of John Wesley; it lives
more among hopes than certainties; it desires to see God rather than to
proclaim His wrath. Such a man, tenderly courteous to all, patient,
wise, sad with a hopeful sadness, living in an atmosphere of uplifted
prayer, hearing the ripple of the spring or the bird's song among the
thickets, his heart rising in ecstasy upon the holy music, upborne by
the grave organ-thunders, speaking sometimes out of a full heart of the
secrets of God, would lead a life that would be shepherded by his Lord
in a green pasture; led by waters of comfort and in paths of
righteousness, with a table indeed prepared. Such a life is apt
nowadays to be viewed contemptuously by the virile man, by the
practical philanthropist; but it is such a spirit as this that produced
the Psalms, the Book of Job, the Apocalypse. It is a type of religion
that even those who base their faith upon the open Bible are apt to
despise and condemn; if so, their Bible is not an open one, but sealed
with many seals of ignorance and dulness.
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