tands
for a cherished monument of the Church, however differently we may
interpret its history."

He leaned forward in his chair, his gaze travelling from one to
another with a winning smile. All the petitioners were gathered
before him in the Master's library. They stood respectfully, each
with his hat and staff. At first sight you might have thought he was
dismissing them on a pilgrimage.

Master Blanchminster sat on the Bishop's right, with Mr. Colt close
behind him; Mr. Simeon at the end of the table, taking down a
verbatim report in his best shorthand.

"I tell you frankly," pursued the Bishop, "I come rather to appeal
for concord than to discuss principles of observance. If you compel
me to pronounce on the points raised, I shall take evidence and
endeavour to deal justly upon it: but I suggest to you that the
happiness of such a Society as this is better furthered by a spirit
of sweet reasonableness than by any man's insistence on his just
rights."

"_Fiat Caelum ruat justitia_," muttered Brother Copas. "But the man
is right nevertheless."

"Principles," said the Bishop, "are hard to discuss, justice often
impossible to deal. . . . 'Yes,' you may answer, 'but we are met to do
this, or endeavour to do it, and not to indulge in irrelevancy.'
Yet is my plea so irrelevant? . . . You are at loggerheads over
certain articles of faith and discipline, when a sound arrests you in
the midst of your controversy. You look up and perceive that your
Cathedral totters; that it was _her_ voice you heard appealing to
you. `Leave your antagonisms and help one another to shore me up--me
the witness of past generations to the Faith. Generations to come
will settle some of the questions that vex you; others, maybe, the
mere process of time will silently resolve. But Time, which helps
them, is fast destroying us. You are not young, and my necessity is
urgent. Surely, my children, you will be helping the Faith if you
save its ancient walls.' I bethink me," the Bishop went on, "that we
may apply to Merchester that fine passage of Matthew Arnold's on
Oxford and her towers: '_Apparitions of a day, what is our puny
warfare against the Philistines compared with the warfare which this
queen of romance has been waging against them for centuries, and will
wage after we are gone?_'" He paused, and on an afterthought
succumbed to the professional trick of improving the occasion.
"It may even be that the plight of our Cathedr