"
"Yes," the colleague said. "I thought that she was too much taken up
with that mind-healing business; but she evidently wants to help bring
the church back to the formalities of the Middle Ages. Frontford would
have the whole diocese going to confession if he had his way."
"He could do nothing of the kind if he did wish to do it," Mr.
Strathmore answered quietly. "The worst that he could bring about would
be to give the impression to the world that the church was retrograding
instead of progressing. He would be entirely opposed to individual
liberty of conscience everywhere, and that seems to me to be in
opposition to the spirit of the age."
"It undoubtedly is," assented the young man eagerly.
"The gravest harm that he could do in the church," pursued the other,
"would be to encourage the substitution of form for spirit. The more
religious faith is shaken, the greater is the temptation to supply its
place by a ritual, and this temptation seems to me the most imminent
and deadly peril of the church to-day."
"It certainly is," confirmed the colleague.
"Besides," Strathmore added emphatically, rising as he spoke, "the
deepest need of any time can be met only by a church which is in
sympathy with the tendencies of the time.
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