The sound of voices came dimly to them from the farther rooms. Norham pointed toward them.
"What difference then between you—and your Bishop?"
"Simply that in his case—as we say—the hypothesis of faith is weighted with a vast mass of stubborn matter that it was never meant to carry—bad history, bad criticism, an out-grown philosophy. To make it carry it—in our belief—you have to fly in the face of that gradual education of the world—education of the mind, education of the conscience—which is the chief mark of God in the world. But the hypothesis of Faith, itself, remains—take it at its lowest—as rational, as defensible, as legitimate as any other!"
"What do you mean by it? God—conscience—responsibility?"
"Those are the big words!" said Meynell, smiling—"and of course the true ones. But what the saint means by it, I suppose, in the first instance, is that there is in man something mysterious, superhuman—a Life in life—which can be indefinitely strengthened, enlightened, purified, till it reveal to him the secret of the world, till it 'toss him' to the 'breast' of God!—or again, can be weakened, lost, destroyed, till he relapses into the animal. Believe it, we say! Live by it!—make the venture. Verificatur vivendo!"
* * * * *
Again the conversation paused. From the distance once more came the merry clamour of the farther drawing-room. A din of young folk, chaffing and teasing each other—a girl's defiant voice above it—outbursts of laughter. Norham, who had in him a touch of dramatic imagination, enjoyed the contrast between the gay crowd in the distance and this quiet room where he sat face to face with a visionary—surely altogether remote from the marrying, money-making, sensuous world. Yet after all the League was a big, practical, organized fact.
"What you have expressed—very finely, if I may say so—is of course the mystical creed," he replied at last, with suave politeness. "But why call it Christianity?"
As he spoke, he was conscious of a certain pride in himself. He felt complacently that he understood Meynell and appreciated him; and that hardly any of his colleagues would, or could have done so.
"Why call it Christianity?" he repeated.