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Title: Painted Windows
Studies in Religious Personality

Author: Harold Begbie

Release Date: February 9, 2005 [EBook #14996]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: BISHOP GORE]

PAINTED WINDOWS

STUDIES IN
RELIGIOUS PERSONALITY

BY

A GENTLEMAN WITH A DUSTER
AUTHOR OF "THE MIRRORS OF DOWNING STREET"

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY KIRSOPP LAKE

_It was simply a struggle for fresh air, in which, if the windows
could not be opened, there was danger that panes would be broken,
though painted with images of saints and martyrs. Light, coloured
by these reverend effigies, was none the more respirable for being
picturesque._

J.R. Lowell.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY EMILE VERPILLEUX

G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1922

_For the information presented in the biographical records connected
with the several chapters the publishers desire to express their
indebtedness to "Who's Who."_

FOREWORD

BY PROFESSOR KIRSOPP LAKE

No one who believes that the Christian churches have in the past been
the moral leaders of western civilization can fail to be interested in
the presentation of some of the English religious leaders by "A
Gentleman with a Duster" especially if, like myself, he have some
passing acquaintance with most of them. Nor can any neglect to regard
seriously his warning that the Church is failing as a moral leader.

What is the reason for that failure? It cannot, I think, be found in
lack of earnestness; for today all the guides of the churches in England
are serious, upright men, who would gladly lead if they could. Nor is it
because they are voices uttering strange announcements in the
wilderness; if they have a fault it is rather that they have so little
to announce. The defect which is disclosed by the pictures given by "A
Gentleman with a Duster" is primarily intellectual, and I propose