She repelled the awkward feelings which invariably oppressed her at the mention of such things. She wanted to know more of this young brother of hers, of the conflicts in which he triumphed mysteriously.
“Gervase, I wish I understood you better. I can’t make out how it is that you, who’re so modern and even revolutionary in everything else, should be so reactionary in your religion. Why do you follow tradition there, when you despise it in other things.”
“Because it’s a tradition which stands fast when all the others are tumbling down. It’s not tradition that I’m out against, but all the feeble shams and conventions that can’t stand when they’re shaken.”
“But does religion stand? I thought it was coming down like everything else.”
“Some kinds are. Because they’re built on passing ideas instead of on unchanging instincts. But Catholic Christianity stands fast because it belongs to an order of things which doesn’t change. It’s made of the same stuff as our hearts. It’s the supernatural satisfaction of all our natural instincts. It doesn’t deal with abstractions, but with everyday life. The sacraments are all common things—food, drink, marriage, birth and death. Its highest act of worship is a meal—its most sacred figures are a dying man, and a mother nursing her child. It’s traditional in the sense that nature and life are traditional....”
It was many months since she had heard him talk like this. It reminded her of the old days when they were both at school, and he had brought her all his ideas on men and things, all his latest enthusiasms and discoveries.
“Jenny,” he continued, “I believe that we’ve come to the end of false traditions—to the ‘removing of those things which are shaken, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.’”
“Is there anything besides religion which can’t be shaken?”
“Yes—my dear, the earth. The land will still be there though the Squires go, just as the faith will still be there though the Parsons go. The Parson and the Squire will go, and their places will be taken by the Yeoman and the Priest who were there before them.”
“Go back to the Middle Ages?”