"Religion has ceased to inspire art because it has lost its own inspiration, and having so ceased, it has lost its only use."
The Bishop was annoyed. A well-bred man himself, he disliked what seemed to him ill-bred attacks on opinions which his position proclaimed him to hold.
"You cannot expect me to assent to either of your propositions, Mr. Morewood," he said. "If I believed them, you know, I should not be in the place I am."
"They're true, for all that," retorted Morewood. "And what is it to be traced to?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said poor Mrs. Lane.
"Why, to Established Churches, of course. As long as fancies and imaginary beings are left free to each man to construct or destroy as he will,—or again, I may say, as long as they are fluid,—they subserve the pleasurableness of life. But when you take in hand and make a Church out of them, and all that, what can you expect?"
"I think you must be confusing the Church with the Royal Academy," observed the Bishop, with some acidity.
"There would be plenty of excuse for me, if I did," replied Morewood. "There's no truth and no zeal in either of them."
"If you please, we will not discuss the truth. But as to the zeal, what do you say to the example of it among us now?" And the Bishop, lowering his voice, indicated Stafford.
Morewood directed a glance at him.