e all, in the importance
of the state of the pastor's own soul, and was convinced that his work
would be weak and futile done under such conditions; that in theological
language, there would be no blessing on it. When he had once reached
that conclusion, his path was plain before him. He would go to the
Retreat. This word Retreat has become familiar to those who study
ecclesiastical items in the paper. But the Retreat Stafford had in his
mind was not quite of the common kind. It had been founded by one of the
leaders of his party, and was intended to serve the function of a
spiritual casual ward, whither those who were for the moment at a loss
might resort and find refuge until they had time to turn round. It was
not a permanent home for any one. After his stay, the visitor returned
to the world if he would; if he were finally disabled he was passed on
to a permanent residence of another kind. The Retreat was a temporary
refuge only. Sometimes it was full, sometimes it was empty; save for the
Superintendent, as he was called; for religious terms were avoided, and
a severe neutrality of description forbade the possibility of the
Retreat itself seeming to take any side in the various mental battles
for which it afforded a clear field, remote from interruption and from
the bias alike of the world and of previous religious prepossessions. A
man was entirely left to himself at the Retreat. Save at the dinner
hour, no one spoke to him except the Superintendent. The rule of his
office was that he should always be ready to listen on all subjects, and
to talk on all indifferent subjects. Advice and exhortation were
forbidden to him. If a man wanted the ordinary consolations of religion,
his case was not the special case the Retreat was founded to meet. When
nobody could help a man, and nothing was left for him but to go through
with the struggle in his own soul, then he came to the Retreat. There
he stayed till he reached some conclusion: that is, if he could reach
one within a reasonable time; for the pretense of unconquerable
hesitation was not received. When he arrived at his resolve, he went
away: what the resolve was, and where he was going, whether to High or
Low, to Rome or Islington, to Church or Dissent, or even to Mohammed or
Theosophy, or what not, or nothing, nobody asked. Such a foundation had
struck many devoted followers of the Founder as little better than a
negation or an abdication. The Founder thought otherwise.