XI
A Picture of the Church in the Great State[1]
At last I came upon the Cathedral, as we must now call it, for every group of parishes has its bishop who is in more than name a "father in God" to his priests and people, and not, as too often in the past, a feeble person remotely overlording a vast area and following instead of forming public opinion, his mind a tangle of concessions and his days a round of trivialities. The people themselves are nowadays consulted in the election of the clergy, a custom which recalls the choice of Ambrose to the
- ↑ This paper takes the place of a projected essay upon Religion in relation to the Great State. The general editors of the book were unable to arrange for a comprehensive discussion of this important aspect of human life because they could find no writer at once interested and impartial; and the Rev. Conrad Noel has very obligingly, and under a considerable pressure of other work, sketched a Catholic ideal of religion in the Great State. Unlike our other contributors, he has not seen fit to adopt the form of a reasoned essay, but instead he has made an imaginative description of a visit to a cathedral in the year 2000 or so, the basis for his forecast of the future catholic teaching. It is his personal forecast, from his individual standpoint as a priest of the Church of England; but many will agree with his spirit who will not approve either of his doctrine or of his ornaments.
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