it is very doubtful whether great ideas, rigidly
interpreted and mechanically enforced, have any value at all for
undeveloped minds; the whole secret lies in their being liberally and
freely apprehended."

"What really divides us," said the priest--"and I do not think we are
very far apart--is my belief that God has not left the world without a
definite witness to Himself--which I believe the Church to be."

"Yes," said Hugh, "I believe that the Church is a witness to God: any
system which teaches pure morality is that; but I could not limit His
witness to a single system; Nature, beauty, music, poetry, art--to say
nothing of sweet and kindly persons--they are all the witnesses of His
spirit; and the Church is, in my belief, simply hampered and restricted
from doing what she might, by the woeful rigidity, the mechanical and
hard precision, which she has imported into the spiritual region. The
moment that the liberty of the spirit is restricted, and grace is made
to flow in definite traditional channels, that moment the stream loses
its force and brightness."

"I should rather believe," said the priest, "that, with all the obvious
disadvantages of organisation, left to itself, the stream welters into
a shapeless marsh, instead of making glad the City of God! And may I
say that you, and those like you, with ardent spiritual instincts, make
the mistake of thinking that we exclude you; indeed it is not so. You
would find the yoke as easy and the burden as light as ever. In
submission you would gain and not lose the liberty of which you are in
search."

The priest soon after this took his leave. Hugh sate long pondering,
as the evening faded into dusk. Was there no certainty, then,
attainable? And the answer of his own spirit was that no ready-made
certainty was of avail; that a man must begin from the beginning, and
construct his own faith from the foundation; that reason must play its
part, lead the soul as far as it could, and set it in the right way;
but that the spirit must not halt there, but pass courageously and
serenely into the trackless waste, content, if need be, to make
mistakes, to retrace its path, only sincerely and gently advancing,
waiting for any hint that might fall from the divine spirit,
interpreting rather than selecting, divesting itself of preferences and
prejudices one by one, and conscious that One waited, smiling and
encouraging, but a little ahead upon the road, and that any turn in th