If the
sheep are to be patient, if they are not to stray, if they are not to
die, there must be food for their grazing.
But the Bishop, at the very roots of his being, is conservative, and the
good qualities of conservatism do not develop foresight or permit of
vision. He would stick to the wattled cotes; and I think he would move
his flock on to new pastures as seldom as possible. This will not do,
however. The social reformer tells the Bishop who thinks democracy has
rejected religion that "the hungry sheep look up and are not fed." The
roots of the old sustenance are nibbled level to the ground, and the
ground itself is sour. If socialism is wrong, let the Bishop tell us
where lies a safer pasture.
One seems to see in this thrusting scholar and restless energetic
prelate a very striking illustration of the need in the Christian of
tenderness. Intellect is not enough. Intellect, indeed, is not light; it
is only the wick of a lamp which must be fed constantly with the oil of
compassion--that is to say, if its light is to shine before men. The
Bishop dazzles, but he does not illumine the darkness or throw a white
beam ahead of heavy-laden and far-journeying humanity on the road which
leads, let us hope, to a better order of things than the present system.
Whether such a man calls himself traditionalist or modernist does not
greatly matter. One respects him for his moral qualities, his courage,
and his devotion to his work; one honours him for his intellectual
qualities, which are of a high and brilliant order; but one does not
feel that he is leading the advance, or even that he knows in which
direction the army is definitely advancing.
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