d ourselves. But there are two things I should like to tell
you, in case you do not realise them through some other impression. I
have thought about you, and all that I owe to you and my father, not
only in the way of affection, but of the ideals of honour and freedom
and charity and all other good things you always taught me: and I am
not conscious of the smallest break or difference in those ideals;
but only of a new and necessary way of fighting for them. I think, as
Cecil did, that the fight for the family and the free citizen and
everything decent must now be waged by [the] one fighting form of
Christianity. The other is that I have thought this out for myself
and not in a hurry of feeling. It is months since I saw my Catholic
friends and years since I talked to them about it. I believe it is
the truth. I must end now, you know with how much love; for the post
is going.

Always your loving son,

GILBERT.

DEAR MAURICE,

My abominable delay deserves every penalty conceivable, hanging,
burning and boiling in oil; but really not so inconceivable an idea
as that I should be offended with you at any time (let alone after
all you have done in this matter) however thoroughly you might be
justified in being offended with me. Really and truly my delay,
indefensible as it is, was due to a desire and hope of writing you a
letter quite different from all those I have had to write to other
people; a very long and intimate letter, trying to tell you all about
this wonderful business, in which you have helped me so much more
than anyone else. The only other person I meant to write to in the
same style is Father Knox; and his has been delayed in the same
topsy-turvy way. I am drowning in whirlpools of work and worry over
the _New Witness_ which nearly went bankrupt for good this week. But
worry does not worry so much as it did before . . . Unless it is
adding insult to injury, I shall send the long letter after all. This
I send off instantly on receipt of yours. Please forgive me; you see
I humiliate myself by using your stamped envelope.

Yours always,

G. K. CHESTERTON.

This sense that the Church was needed to fight for the world was
very strong in Gilbert when he hailed it to his mother as the "one
fighting form of Christianity." In the _New Witness_ he answered near
this time a newspaper suggestion that the Church