btle an idea to have a very general hold
upon unimaginative persons. Thus the beauty of these exquisite and
stately little sanctuaries, enriched by long associations and touched
with a delicate grace by the gentle hand of time, has something
infinitely pathetic about it. The theory that brought them into
existence has lost its hold, while the spirit that could animate them
and give them a living message has not yet entered them; the refined
grace, the sweet solemnity of these simple buildings, has no voice for
the plain, sensible villager; it cannot be interpreted to him. If all
the inhabitants of a village were humble, simple, spiritually minded
people, ascetic in life, with a strong sense of beauty and quality,
then a village church might have a tranquil and inspiring influence.
But who that knows anything of village life can anticipate even in the
remote future such a type of character prevailing? Meanwhile the
beautiful churches, with all the grace of antiquity and subtle beauty,
must stand as survivals of a very different condition of life and
belief; while we who love them can only hope that a more vital
consciousness of religion may come back to the shrines from which
somehow the significance seems to have ebbed away. They are now too
often mere monuments and memorials of the past. Can one hope that they
may become the inspiration and the sanctification of the present?

XXXIV

I have just returned from a very curious and interesting visit. I have
been to stay with an old school friend of my own, a retired Major; he
has a small place of his own in the country, and has lately married a
very young and pretty wife. I met him by chance in my club in London,
looking more grey and dim than a man who has just married a lovely and
charming girl ought to look. He asked me rather pressingly to come and
stay with him; and though I do not like country-house visits, for the
sake of the old days I went.

Well, it was a very interesting visit; I was warmly welcomed. The young
wife, who I must say is the daughter of a penniless country clergyman
with a large family, was radiant; the Major was quietly and
undemonstratively pleased to see me; the veil of the years fell off,
and I found myself back on the old easy terms with him, as when we were
schoolboys together thirty years ago. He is a very simple and
transparent creature, and I read him as if he were a book. He indulged
in almost extravagant panegyrics of his wife a