from the clerical profession, it will end in a complete
indifference on the part of the nation to religion
at all. The fault lies largely, I believe, with
the seminaries. They have set up so exotic a
standard, screwed up the ecclesiastical tone so high,
that few but timid, unintellectual, cautious, and
sentimental people will embrace a vocation where so
many pledges have to be given. The type of old-fashioned
village clergyman, who was at all events a man among
men, kindly, generous, hospitable, tolerant, and sensible,
seems doomed to extinction, and I cannot help thinking
that it is a grievous pity. The new type of clergyman
would think, on the other hand, that their disappearance
is an unmixed blessing. They would say that they
were sloppy, self-indulgent, secular persons, and
that the improvement in tone and standard among the
clergy was a pure gain; it all depends upon whether
you put the social or the priestly functions of the
clergyman highest. I am inclined to rate their
social value very high, but then I prefer the parson
to the priest. I dislike the idea of a priestly
caste, an ecclesiastical tradition, a body of people
who have the administering of mysterious spiritual
secrets. I want to bring religion home to ordinary
people, not to segregate it. I would rather have
in every parish a wise and kindly man with the same
interests as his neighbours, but with a good simple
standard of virtuous and brotherly living, than a
man endowed with spiritual powers and influences,
upholding a standard of life that is subtle, delicate,
and refined indeed, but which is neither simple nor
practical, and to which the ordinary human being cannot
conform, because it lies quite outside of his range
of thought. To my mind, the essence of the Gospel
is liberty and simplicity; but the Gospel of ecclesiasticism
is neither simple nor free.
XLI
It was a pleasant, fresh autumn day, and the philosopher
was in a good temper. He was my walking companion
for that afternoon. He is always in a good temper,
for the matter of that, but his temper has different
kinds of goodness. He is always courteous and
amiable; but sometimes he has a gentle irony about
him and evades all attempts to be serious—to-day,
however, he was both benevolent and expansive; and
I plunged into his vast mind like a diver leaping
headlong from a splash-board.
Let me describe my philosopher first. He is not
what is called a social philosopher, a pretentious
hedonist, who talks continuously and floridly about
himself. I know one such, of whom an enthusiastic
maiden said, in a confidential moment, that he seemed
to her exactly like Goethe without any of his horrid
immorality. Neither is he a technical philosopher,
a dreary, hurrying man, travel-stained by faring through
the ultimate, spectacled, cadaverous, uncertain of
movement, inarticulate of speech. No, my philosopher
is a trim, well-brushed man of the world, rather scrupulous