this, He would find that men had seized
upon the letter, not the spirit, of His teaching, and had devised a
huge mundane organisation, full of pomp and policy, elaborate, severe,
hard, unloving. Now if I apply my intellectual tests to the central
truths of Christianity, such as the law of Love, the power of
self-sacrifice, the brotherhood of men, they stand the test; they seem
to contain a true apprehension of the needs of the world, of the
methods by which the happiness of humanity may be attained. But when I
apply the intellectual test to the superstructure of any Church, there
are innumerable doctrines which appear to me to be contrary to reason.
It is difficult indeed, in this world of mystery, to affirm that any
mystical claim is not true, but such claims ought not to appear to be
repugnant to reason, but to confirm the processes of reason, in a
region to which reason cannot scientifically and logically attain.
Such doctrines, for instance, as prayers to saints for their
intercession, or the efficacy of Masses for the dead, seem to me to
have a certain poetical beauty about them, but to be contrary both to
reason and experience. I do not see the slightest hint of them in the
teaching of Christ, or anything which can be taken as giving them any
support whatever. They seem to me purely human fancies, hardened into
a painful mechanical form, which forfeit all claim to be inspired by
the Spirit of Christ. But I must apologise for giving you such an
harangue--still, you brought it on yourself."

The priest smiled quietly. "I quite see your point," he said, "and we
are at one in your main position; the difficulty of the Church is that
it has to organise its system for people of all kinds of temperament,
and at all stages of development. But the spirit is there--and if one
lets go of the letter, the grasp of many human beings is so weak that
they tend to lose the spirit. The Church no doubt appears to many to
be over-organised, over-definite, but that is a practical difficulty
which every system which has to deal with large masses of people is
confronted with. It is the same with education; boys have to do many
definite and precise things which seem at the time to have no
educational value; but at the end of their time they see the need of
these processes."

Hugh laughed. "I wish they did!" he said; "my own belief is that, in
education as well as religion, we want more individualism, more
elasticity. I think