I don't even complain of the nature of the
address; it was frankly worldly, such as might have been given by a
Sadducee in the time of Christ. But the interesting thing about it
was that most of the people present believed it to be an ethical
and even a religious address. It was the ethic of a professional
bowler and the religion of a banker. If a boy had been for all
intents and purposes a professional bowler to the age of twenty-
three, and a professional banker afterwards, he would almost
exactly have fulfilled the Bishop's ideal. I do not think it is a
bad ideal either. I only say that it is not an exalted ideal, and
it is not a Christian ideal. It is the world in disguise, the wolf
in sheep's clothing over again. We were taken in. We said to
ourselves, "This is an animal certainly clothed as a sheep--and we
must remember the old proverb and be careful." But as the Bishop's
address proceeded, and the fragrant oil fell down to the skirts of
our clothing, we said, "There is certainly a sheep inside."
Then a choir of strong, rough, boyish voices sang an old glee or
two--"Glorious Apollo" and "Hail smiling Morn," and a school song
about the old place that made some of us bite our lips and
furtively brush away an unexpected and inexplicable moisture from
our eyes, at the thought of the fine fellows we had ourselves sat
side by side with thirty and forty years ago, now scattered to all
ends of the earth, and some of them gone from the here to the
everywhere, as the poet says.
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