mind, I forgive all muddled and irresolute people their sins and foolishnesses, their aggravating incompetence, their practical inefficacy; because I know that they have somehow in a clumsy way got hold of the two great principles that “The end is not yet,” and “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.”  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.  Having received a so-called classical education, he had no particular intellectual interests.  He was not an athlete; he worked just enough to secure a pass-degree, and spent his time at Cambridge in mild sociability.  He takes no interest in politics, books, art, games, or even agriculture.  Just when his mind began to expand a little he went off to the Theological College, where he was indoctrinated with high ecclesiastical ideas, and formed a great idea of the supreme importance of his vocation.  He had no impulse to examine the foundations of his faith, but he meekly assimilated a large number of doctrinal and traditional propositions, such as the Apostolic succession, the visible corporate Church, the sacrificial theory of the Eucharist, priestly absolution, and so forth.  He is a believer in systematic confession, but is careful to say that this was not inculcated upon him, but only indicated, and that his belief in it is based on practical experience.  He also imbibed a great love of liturgical and ceremonial usage.  He was for a short time a country curate, and married a clergyman’s daughter.  His College gave him the living which he now holds, which