Project Gutenberg's The Inside of the Cup, Volume 3, by Winston Churchill

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Title: The Inside of the Cup, Volume 3

Author: Winston Churchill

Release Date: October 17, 2004 [EBook #5358]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INSIDE OF THE CUP, VOLUME 3 ***

Produced by David Widger

THE INSIDE OF THE CUP

By Winston Churchill

Volume 3.

IX. THE DIVINE DISCONTENT
X. THE MESSENGER IN THE CHURCH
XI. THE LOST PARISHIONER
XII. THE WOMAN OF THE SONG

CHAPTER IX

THE DIVINE DISCONTENT

I

It was the last Sunday in May, and in another week the annual flight to
the seashore and the mountains would have begun again. The breezes
stealing into the church through the open casements wafted hither and
thither the odours of the chancel flowers, and mingled with those fainter
and subtler perfumes set free by the rustling of summer gowns.

As on this day he surveyed his decorous and fashionable congregation,
Hodder had something of that sense of extremity which the great apostle
to the Gentiles himself must have felt when he stood in the midst of the
Areopagus and made his vain yet sublime appeal to Athenian indifference
and luxury. "And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now
commandeth all men everywhere to repent." . . Some, indeed, stirred
uneasily as the rector paused, lowering their eyes before the intensity
of his glance, vaguely realizing that the man had flung the whole passion
of his being into the appeal.

Heedlessness--that was God's accusation against them, against the age.
Materialism, individualism! So absorbed were they in the pursuit of
wealth, of distraction, so satisfied with the current philosophy, so
intent on surrounding themselves with beautiful things and thus shutting
out the sterner view, that they had grown heedless of the divine message.
How few of them availed themselves of their spiritual birthright to renew
their lives at the altar rail! And they had permitted their own children
to wander away . . . . Repent!

There was a note of desperation in his appeal, like that of the hermit
who stands on a mountain crag and warns the gay an