Painted Windows | Page 6

at harmonising his ideas with the Gospel,
but of fusing his whole spirit into the Divine Wisdom."
In one, and only one, respect, this salience of Dr. Gore may be likened
to the political prominence of Mr. Lloyd George. It is a salience
complete, dominating, unapproached, but one which must infallibly
diminish with time. For it is, I am compelled to think, the salience of
personality. History does not often endorse the more enthusiastic
verdicts of journalism, and personal magnetism is a force which
unhappily melts into air long before its tradition comes down to
posterity[3].
[Footnote 3: The genius of the Prime Minister, which makes so

astonishing an impression on the public, plainly lies in saving from
irretrievable disaster at the eleventh hour the consequences of his own
acts.]
Mr. Joseph Chamberlain was once speaking to me of the personality of
Gladstone. He related with unusual fervour that the effect of this
personality was incomparable, a thing quite unique in his experience,
something indeed incommunicable to those who had not met the man;
yet, checking himself of a sudden, and as it were shaking himself free
of a superstition, he added resolutely, "But I was reading some of his
speeches in Hansard only the other day, and upon my word there's
nothing in them!"
One may well doubt the judgment of Mr. Chamberlain; but it remains
very obviously true that the personal impression of Gladstone was
infinitely greater than his ideas. The tradition of that almost marvellous
impression still prevails, but solely among a few, and there it is fading.
For the majority of men it is already as if Gladstone had never existed.
We should be wise, then, to examine the mind, and only the mind, of
this remarkable prelate, and to concern ourselves hardly at all with the
beauty of his life or the bewitchments of his character; for our purpose
is to arrive at his value for religion, and to study his personality only in
so far as it enables us to understand his life and doctrine.
Dr. Gore lives in a small and decent London horse which at all points
in its equipment perfectly expresses a pure taste and a wholly unstudied
refinement. Nothing there offends the eye or oppresses the mind. It is
the dignified habitation of a poor gentleman, breathing a charm not to
be found in the house of a rich parvenu. He has avoided without effort
the conscious artistry of Chelsea and the indifference to art of the
unæsthetic vulgarian. As to the manner of his life, it is reduced to an
extreme of simplicity, but his asceticism is not made the excuse for
domestic carelessness. A sense of order distinguishes this small interior,
which is as quiet as a monk's cell, but restful and gracious, as though
continually overlooked by a woman's providence.
Here Dr. Gore reads theology and the newspaper, receives and

embraces some of his numerous disciples, discusses socialism with
men like Mr. Tawney, church government with men like Bishop
Temple, writes his books and sermons, and on a cold day, seated on a
cushion with his feet in the fender and his hands stretched over a
timorous fire, revolves the many problems which beset his peace of
mind[4].
[Footnote 4: Concerning modernising tendencies, Father Ronald Knox
says, "I went to a meeting about it in Margaret Street, where crises in
the Church are invested with a peculiar atmosphere of delicious
trepidation."]
Somewhere, in speaking of the Church's attitude towards rich and poor,
he has confessed to carrying about with him "a permanently troubled
conscience." The phrase lives in his face. It is not the face of a man
who is at peace with himself. If he has peace of mind, it is a Peace of
Versailles.
One cannot look at that tall lean figure in its purple cassock, with the
stooping head, the somewhat choleric face, the low forehead deeply
scored with anxiety, the prominent light-coloured and glassy eyes
staring with perplexity under bushy brows, which are as carefully
combed as the hair of his head, the large obstinate nose with its
challenging tilt and wide war-breathing nostrils, the broad white
moustache and sudden pointed beard sloping inward; nor can one listen
to the deep, tired, and ghostly voice slowly uttering the laborious ideas
of his troubled mind with the somewhat painful pronunciation of the
elocutionist (he makes chapell of Chapel); nor mark his languorous
movements and the slow swaying action of the attenuated body; one
cannot notice all this without feeling that in spite of his great courage
and his iron tenacity of purpose, he is a little weary of the battle, and
sometimes even perhaps conscious of a check for the cause which is far
dearer to him than his own life.
One thinks of him as