248 IDLEHURST : 



reminiscences of the Missa and the camp-meeting ; 

 we do much, I am afraid, to show by doggerel verse 

 and worthless settings, that anything is good enough 

 for Church. 



By sermon-time the church is growing dark ; the 

 windows have turned from pale aquamarine to deep 

 azure ; the doors are wide to the evening air. From 

 where I sit I can see the shadowy loom of the Downs, 

 the black gloom that hangs under the yew-boughs, 

 where the bats circle to and fro along the flagged 

 path and wheel up against the green sky. We are 

 all very quiet, for we never tire of listening to the 

 Rector bringing forth things new and old from his 

 treasure; things old as our catechisms, new with 

 sudden life of meanings and force undivined. To- 

 night he is most simple and direct. There is not the 

 exquisite fitness of words, the eloquence growing out 

 of the subject, not clothing it, which we often hear. 

 Half conscious, in the twilight, of the man leaning 

 over his desk between the wavering candles, of the 

 intensely mental face, grown sadder and older of 

 late, we listen to the great effort to set the unseen 

 before slow hearts, to lead his people beyond the 

 little hedge of their lives to thoughts of the Real 

 beyond. Beyond to-morrow with its pleasant return 



