The Case of Richard Meynell

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

Denunciation and warning sat with a curious majesty on the little Bishop as he launched these words. It was with a visible effort that Meynell braced himself against them.

"Perhaps I estimate the forces for and against differently from yourself, Bishop. But when you prophesy war, I agree. There will be war!—and that makes the novelty of the situation. Till now there has never been equality enough for war. The heretic has been an excrescence to be cut away. Now you will have to make some terms with him! For the ideas behind him have invaded your inmost life. They are all about you and around you—and when you go out to fight him, you will discover that you are half on his side!"

"If that means," said the Bishop impatiently, "that the Church is accessible to new ideas—that she is now, as she has always been, a learned Church—the Church of Westcott and Lightfoot, of a host of younger scholars who are as well acquainted with the ideas and contentions of Modernism—as you call it—as any Modernist in Europe—and are still the faithful servants and guardians of Christian dogma—why, then, you say what is true! We perfectly understand your positions—and we reject them."

Through Meynell's expression there passed a gleam—slight and gentle—of something like triumph.

"Forgive me!—but I think you have given me my point. Let me recall to you the French sayings—'Comprendre, c'est pardonner—Comprendre, c'est aimer.' It is because for the first time you do understand them—that, for the first time, the same arguments play upon you as play upon us—it is for that very reason that we regard the field as half won, before the battle is even joined."

The Bishop gazed upon him with a thin, dropping lip—an expression of suffering in the clear blue eyes.

"That Christians"—he said under his breath—"should divide the forces of Christ—with the sin and misery of this world devouring and defiling our brethren day by day!"

"What if it be not 'dividing'—but doubling—the forces of Christ!" said Meynell, with pale resolution. "All that we ask is the Church should recognize existing facts—that organization should shape itself to reality. In our eyes, Christendom is divided to-day—or is rapidly dividing itself—into two wholly new camps. The division between Catholic and Protestant is no longer the supreme division; for the force that is rising affects both Protestant and Catholic equally. Each of the new divisions has a philosophy and a criticism of its own; each of them has an immense hold on human life, though Modernism is only now slowly realizing and putting out its power. Two camps!—two systems of thought!—both of them Christian thought. Yet one of them, one only, is in possession of the churches, the forms, the institutions; the other is everywhere knocking at the gates. 'Give us our portion!'—we say—'in Christ's name.' But only our portion! We do not dream of dispossessing the old—it is the last thing, even, that we desire. But for the sake of souls now wandering and desolate, we ask to live side by side with the old—in brotherly peace, in equal right—sharing what the past has bequeathed! Yes, even the loaves and fishes!—they ought to be justly divided out like the rest. But, above all, the powers, the opportunities, the trials, the labours of the Christian Church!"

"In other words, so far as the English Church is concerned, you propose to reduce us within our own borders to a peddling confusion of sects, held together by the mere physical link of our buildings and our endowments!" said the Bishop, as he straightened himself in his chair.

He spoke with a stern and contemptuous force which transformed the small body and sensitive face. In the old room, the library of the Palace, with its rows of calf-bound folios, and its vaulted fifteenth century roof, he sat as the embodiment of ancient, inherited things, his gentleness lost in that collective, that corporate, pride which has been at once the noblest and the deadliest force in history.