Page:Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory, 1922.djvu/60

The Secret Glory and looked up the letter. "In the first place," wrote the Archdeacon, "your correspondent does not seem to have realised that the ethoes of the Diocese of Melby is not identical with that of sacerdotalism. The sturdy folk of the Midlands have not yet, I am thankful to say, forgotten the lessons of our great Reformation. They have no wish to see a revival of the purely mechanical religion of the Middle Ages—of the system of a sacrificing priesthood and of sacraments efficacious ex opere operato. Hence they do not regard the episcopate quite in the same light as your correspondent 'Senex,' who, it seems to me, looks upon a bishop as a sort of Christianised 'medicine-man,' endowed with certain mysterious thaumaturgic powers which have descended to him by an (imaginary) spiritual succession. This was not the view of Hooker, nor, I venture to say, has it ever been the view of the really representative divines of the Established Church of England.

"Still," the Archdeacon went on, "it must be admitted that the present diocese of Melby is unwieldly and, it may be fairly said, unworkable."

Then there followed the humorous anecdote of Sir Boyle Roche and the Bird, and finally the Archdeacon emitted the prayer that God in His own good time would put it into the hearts of our 44