ve thee light." He was
dissatisfied with these renderings and resorted to the revised version,
which gave "perfect" instead of "perform," and "shall shine upon you"
for "give thee light." He reflected profoundly for a time.

Then suddenly his addresses began to take shape in his mind, and these
little points lost any significance. He began to write rapidly, and as
he wrote he felt the Angel stood by his right hand and read and approved
what he was writing. There were moments when his mind seemed to be
working entirely beyond his control. He had a transitory questioning
whether this curious intellectual automatism was not perhaps what people
meant by "inspiration."

(11)

The bishop had always been sensitive to the secret fount of pathos that
is hidden in the spectacle of youth. Long years ago when he and Lady
Ella had been in Florence he had been moved to tears by the beauty
of the fresh-faced eager Tobit who runs beside the great angel in the
picture of Botticelli. And suddenly and almost as uncontrollably, that
feeling returned at the sight of the young congregation below him,
of all these scores of neophytes who were gathered to make a public
acknowledgment of God. The war has invested all youth now with the
shadow of tragedy; before it came many of us were a little envious of
youth and a little too assured of its certainty of happiness. All that
has changed. Fear and a certain tender solicitude mingle in our regard
for every child; not a lad we pass in the street but may presently be
called to face such pain and stress and danger as no ancient hero ever
knew. The patronage, the insolent condescension of age, has vanished out
of the world. It is dreadful to look upon the young.

He stood surveying the faces of the young people as the rector read the
Preface to the confirmation service. How simple they were, how innocent!
Some were a little flushed by the excitement of the occasion; some a
little pallid. But they were all such tender faces, so soft in outline,
so fresh and delicate in texture and colour. They had soft credulous
mouths. Some glanced sideways at one another; some listened with a
forced intentness. The expression of one good-looking boy, sitting in a
corner scat, struck the bishop as being curiously defiant. He stood
very erect, he blinked his eyes as though they smarted, his lips were
compressed bitterly. And then it seemed to the bishop that the Angel
stood beside him and gave him understanding.