"NEITHER DO I CONDEMN THEE"
Autumn came to London, a warm, lingering season. There was a hint of the South in the atmosphere of town. All business moved with languor; there was more enjoyment in life as people went and came through the streets under so ripe and genial a sun.
Gortre had settled down to steady, regular work. At no time before had a routine been so pleasant to him. His days were full of work, which, hard as it was, came to him with far more appeal than his duties at Walktown. Nothing ever stagnated here, at the very hub and centre of things.
The splendid energy and force of Father Ripon, the magnificent unconvention of his methods, animated his staff to constant and unflagging exertions.
Gortre felt that he was suddenly "grown up," that his life before had been spent in futile playtime compared to the present.
One central fact in St. Mary's parish held all the great organisation together. This was the daily services in the great church. Priests, deacons, sisters of mercy, school teachers, and lay helpers all drew their strength and inspiration from this source. The daily Eucharist, matins, evensong, were both a stimulus and stimulant of enormous power.
Church brought the mysteries in which they lived, moved, and had their being into intimate relation with every circumstance of daily life.
The extraordinary thing, which many of Father Ripon's staff were almost unable to understand, was that more people did not avail themselves of what they regarded—viewing the thing from a standpoint of personal experience—such helpful opportunities.
"They are always coming to me," Father Ripon had said on one occasion, "and complaining that they find such a tremendous difficulty in leading a holy life—say that the worldly surroundings and so forth kill their good impulses—and yet they won't come to church. People are such fools! My young men imagine that they can become good Christians by a sort of sudden magic—a low beast on Saturday night, the twentieth of August, and, after a nerve storm in church and a few tears in the vestry, a saint for evermore! And then when they get drunk or do something beastly the next week, they rail against the Christian Faith because it isn't a sort of spiritual hand cuffs! And yet if you told them you could manage a bank after merely experience in a shipping office, they would see the absurdity of that at once. Donkeys!"