BENEDICITE 161 



laughter with his whole body and soul. I would 

 lead him, ere the village wakes, beyond the 

 challenge of the tardy bell, in a way that winds by 

 lane and fieldpath, copse and cover, with here a 

 stream and there a reed-grown mere out into the 

 open, where life is, and the breath of life. And 

 lest conscience should prick him for his new way- 

 wardness a waywardness that should, in truth, 

 itself form part of conscience I would tell him of 

 a little square-towered church distant twelve blessed 

 miles across the fields, but set high on a hill above 

 a quiet mere ; a little beacon radiating peace for 

 light a little beacon by a little sea. 



Then all the bells of Christendom may sound; we 

 defy them. They are not our bell. We owe them 

 no allegiance. We are pilgrims to a distant shrine; 

 we shall solve our obligation at the journey's end. 



I would not burden the rigidly righteous with such 

 a pilgrimage. For such a pilgrim is become heathen 

 and fanatic at once. He will break the Sabbath 

 with the most devout exaltation of spirit. He is a 

 vagabond who shuns his fellows in the mass, to 

 thank God for every particular son of Adam he 

 chances upon in his ramblings. Avoiding the 

 authoritative call of his own conventicle, he delights 

 in the tinkling summons of the hamlet churches 

 scattered in the country around grey old bell- 

 wethers, leading their flocks, any one of which he 

 may, but none of which he is bound to follow. 



But, whence this strange contradiction ? Good 

 deeds themselves pall by monotony of practice. 

 Monotony begets perfunctoriness, perfunctoriness 

 insincerity; and when insincerity is come, the soul is 



