fied of consuming time'--

As he spoke, his ear caught a familiar name, uttered by Christian
Moxey, and he turned to listen. Moxey and Earwaker were again talking
of the Rev. Bruno Chilvers. Straightway disregarding Marcella, Peak
gave attention to the men's dialogue, and his forehead wrinkled into
scornful amusement.

'It's very interesting,' he exclaimed, at a moment when there was
silence throughout the company, 'to hear that Chilvers is really coming
to the front. At Whitelaw it used to be prophesied that he would be a
bishop, and now I suppose he's fairly on the way to that. Shall we
write letters of congratulation to him, Earwaker?'

'A joint epistle, if you like.'

Mr. Morton, who had brightened since dinner, began to speak caustically
of the form of intellect necessary nowadays in a popular clergyman.

'He must write a good deal,' put in Earwaker, 'and that in a style
which would have scandalised the orthodox of the last century.
Rationalised dogma is vastly in demand.'

Peak's voice drew attention.

'Two kinds of books dealing with religion are now greatly popular, and
will be for a long time. On the one hand there is that growing body of
people who, for whatever reason, tend to agnosticism, but desire to be
convinced that agnosticism is respectable; they are eager for
anti-dogmatic books, written by men of mark. They couldn't endure to be
classed with Bradlaugh, but they rank themselves confidently with
Darwin and Huxley. Arguments matter little or nothing to them. They
take their rationalism as they do a fashion in dress, anxious only that
it shall be "good form". Then there's the other lot of people--a much
larger class--who won't give up dogma, but have learnt that bishops,
priests, and deacons no longer hold it with the old rigour, and that
one must be "broad"; these are clamorous for treatises which pretend to
reconcile revelation and science. It's quite pathetic to watch the
enthusiasm with which they hail any man who distinguishes himself by
this kind of apologetic skill, this pious jugglery. Never mind how
washy the book from a scientific point of view. Only let it obtain
vogue, and it will be glorified as the new evangel. The day has gone by
for downright assaults on science; to be marketable, you must prove
that _The Origin of Species_ was approvingly foreseen in the first
chapter of Genesis, and that the Apostles' Creed conflicts in no single
point with the latest results of biblical critici