Only the Vicar could not know that there was a veritable gulf fixed between his comfortable reasoned theology and the devastating vivid modernism of either Manning or Paul. The priest said that, "of course," Darwinism was not proved; an increasing host of scientists disagreed with it. Besides, Darwin had never taught Darwinism. Again, if he had, there was nothing inherently hostile to the true teachings of the Church in the theory of evolution. There was nothing of revelation as to the precise point at which the ape-man became the man-ape with a soul. And it was only those who had forgotten the true relation of Church and Bible who found any difficulty in Genesis. The devout churchman only saw in these inspired fragments of ancient legend illustrations of the eternal groping of the soul of man after truth, and, he might say, an unique witness to the guiding hand of God....
Mr. Prideaux came to supper afterwards, and played a couple of rubbers of bridge. He was genial, and hoped, when he learned of Paul's taking up of residence at Fordham, that Paul would come to see him. He was a bachelor, and it would be delightful if they could see a good deal of each other.
Paul went up slowly to his room at last. He opened the window and looked out towards the avenue and the lake. The trees stretched grey and ghostly in a dim misty starlight, but they were not friendly or inviting to-night. Something had gone from the face of earth and sky. Darwin, evolution, science, ape-men, the interpretations of texts—what jargon! Where was God now, and why would He not speak? What else mattered? He was silent; He had been eternally silent it seemed; it was but the promptings of their own imagination which men had taken for His voice.
No, he could not go and write poetry any more.
CHAPTER X
"THE BLIND BEGGAR"
The only strength for me is to be found in the sense of a personal presence everywhere, it scarcely matters whether it be called human or divine; a presence which only makes itself felt at first in this and that particular form and feature.... Into this presence we come, not by leaving behind what are usually called earthly things, or by loving them less, but by living more intensely in them, and loving more what is really lovable in them; for it is literally true that this world is everything to us, if only we choose to make it so, if only we "live in the present" because it is eternity....—RICHARD LEWIS NETTLESHIP: Lectures and Memories, Vol. I., p. 72.
He hath made everything beautiful in its time; He hath also set the world in their heart, and yet so that man cannot find out the work that God hath wrought from the beginning even unto the end....—ECCLES. iii.
"Fool," said my muse to me, "look in thy heart and write."—SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.
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