He stood surveying the faces of the young people as the rector read the Preface to the confirmation service.How simple they were, how innocent! Some were a little flushed by the excitement of the occasion; some a little pallid.But they were all such tender faces, so soft in outline, so fresh and delicate in texture and colour.They had soft credulous mouths.Some glanced sideways at one another; some listened with a forced intentness.
The expression of one good-looking boy, sitting in a corner scat, struck the bishop as being curiously defiant.He stood very erect, he blinked his eyes as though they smarted, his lips were compressed bitterly.And then it seemed to the bishop that the Angel stood beside him and gave him understanding.
"He is here," the bishop knew, "because he could not avoid coming.He tried to excuse himself.His mother wept.What could he do? But the church's teaching nowadays fails even to grip the minds of boys."The rector came to the end of his Preface: "They will evermore endeavour themselves faithfully to observe such things as they by their own confession have assented unto.""Like a smart solicitor pinning them down," said the bishop to himself, and then roused himself, unrolled the little paper in his hand, leant forward, and straightway began his first address.
Nowadays it is possible to say very unorthodox things indeed in an Anglican pulpit unchallenged.There remains no alert doctrinal criticism in the church congregations.It was possible, therefore, for the bishop to say all that follows without either hindrance or disturbance.The only opposition, indeed, came from within, from a sense of dreamlike incongruity between the place and the occasion and the things that he found himself delivering.
"All ceremonies," he began, "grow old.All ceremonies are tainted even from the first by things less worthy than their first intention, and you, my dear sons and daughters, who have gathered to-day in this worn and ancient building, beneath these monuments to ancient vanities and these symbols of forgotten or abandoned theories about the mystery of God, will do well to distinguish in your minds between what is essential and what is superfluous and confusing in this dedication you make of yourselves to God our Master and King.For that is the real thing you seek to do today, to give yourselves to God.This is your spiritual coming of age, in which you set aside your childish dependence upon teachers and upon taught phrases, upon rote and direction, and stand up to look your Master in the face.You profess a great brotherhood when you do that, a brotherhood that goes round the earth, that numbers men of every race and nation and country, that aims to bring God into all the affairs of this world and make him not only the king of your individual lives but the king--in place of all the upstarts, usurpers, accidents, and absurdities who bear crowns and sceptres today--of an united mankind."He paused, and in the pause he heard a little rustle as though the congregation before him was sitting up in its places, a sound that always nerves and reassures an experienced preacher.
"This, my dear children, is the reality of this grave business to-day, as indeed it is the real and practical end of all true religion.This is your sacrament urn, your soldier's oath.You salute and give your fealty to the coming Kingdom of God.And upon that I would have you fix your minds to the exclusion of much that, I know only too well, has been narrow and evil and sectarian in your preparation for this solemn rite.God is like a precious jewel found among much rubble; you must cast the rubble from you.The crowning triumph of the human mind is simplicity;the supreme significance of God lies in his unity and universality.The God you salute to-day is the God of the Jews and Gentiles alike, the God of Islam, the God of the Brahmo Somaj, the unknown God of many a righteous unbeliever.He is not the God of those felted theologies and inexplicable doctrines with which your teachers may have confused your minds.I would have it very clear in your minds that having drunken the draught you should not reverence unduly the cracked old vessel that has brought it to your lips.I should be falling short of my duty if I did not make that and everything I mean by that altogether plain to you."He saw the lad whose face of dull defiance he had marked before, sitting now with a startled interest in his eyes.The bishop leant over the desk before him, and continued in the persuasive tone of a man who speaks of things too manifest for laboured argument.
