UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
or pupil who speaks behind the mask. What in the elder actor was a natural gift of personation is but an empirical knack of imitation in his copyist. At least we would fain know for certain whether the moral gambols performed before us are those of the old showman or his ape. Or say that we come thither as to church or lecture: it cannot tend to edification that we should not know whom we sit under. We are distracted throughout sermon-time by doubts whether the veiled preacher be indeed as we thought a man of gravity from his youth upwards, a holy and austere minister of the altar, a Nazarite of lifelong sanctity, a venerable athlete of the Church, about whose past there can be no more question than about his right to speak as one ordained to apostolic office and succession by laying on of hands; or haply a neophyte from the outer I court, a deacon but newly made reverend, an interloper even it may be or a schismatic: the doubt is nothing short of agony. I imagine, gathered about the pulpit, a little flock of penitents who come gladly to be admonished, who ask nothing better than to be convinced of sin, who listen humbly to the pastoral rebuke, accept meekly the paternal chastisement, of the preacher who summons them before him to judgment; what will be their consternation if they have cause to suspect that it is not an orthodox shepherd of souls whose voice of warning is in their ears, but a new-comer who has climbed into the
7
