The Altar Steps | Page 5

added strain of
these hours of prayer, which were not robbed from his work in the
Mission, but from the already short enough time he allowed himself for
sleep, told upon his health, and he was ordered by the doctor to take a
holiday to avoid a complete breakdown of health. He stayed for two
months in Cornwall, and came back with a wife, the daughter of a
Cornish parson called Trehawke. Lidderdale had been a fierce upholder
of celibacy, and the news of his marriage astonished all who knew him.
Grace Lidderdale with her slanting sombre eyes and full upcurving lips
made the pink and white Madonnas of the little mission church look
insipid, and her husband was horrified when he found himself
criticizing the images whose ability to lure the people of Lima Street to
worship in the way he believed to be best for their souls he had never
doubted. Yet, for all her air of having _trafficked for strange webs with
Eastern merchants_, Mrs. Lidderdale was only outwardly Phoenician or
Iberian or whatever other dimly imagined race is chosen for the strange
types that in Cornwall more than elsewhere so often occur. Actually
she was a simple and devout soul, loving husband and child and the
poor people with whom they lived. Doubtless she had looked more
appropriate to her surroundings in the tangled garden of her father's
vicarage than in the bleak Mission House of Lima Street; but inasmuch
as she never thought about her appearance it would have been a waste
of time for anybody to try to romanticize her. The civilizing effect of
her presence in the slum was quickly felt; and though Lidderdale
continued to scoff at the advantages of civilization, he finally learnt to

give a grudging welcome to her various schemes for making the bodies
of the flock as comfortable as her husband tried to make their souls.
When Mark was born, his father became once more the prey of gloomy
doubt. The guardianship of a soul which he was responsible for
bringing into the world was a ceaseless care, and in his anxiety to
dedicate his son to God he became a harsh and unsympathetic parent.
Out of that desire to justify himself for having been so inconsistent as
to take a wife and beget a son Lidderdale redoubled his efforts to put
the Lima Street Mission on a permanent basis. The civilization of the
slum, which was attributed by pious visitors to regular attendance at
Mass rather than to Mrs. Lidderdale's gentleness and charm, made it
much easier for outsiders to explore St. Simon's parish as far as Lima
Street. Money for the great church he designed to build on a site
adjoining the old tabernacle began to flow in; and five years after his
marriage Lidderdale had enough money subscribed to begin to build.
The rubbish-strewn waste-ground overlooked by the back-windows of
the Mission House was thronged with workmen; day by day the walls
of the new St. Wilfred's rose higher. Fifteen years after Lidderdale took
charge of the Lima Street Mission, it was decided to ask for St.
Wilfred's, Notting Dale, to be created a separate parish. The Reverend
Aylmer Majendie had become a canon residentiary of Chichester and
had been succeeded as vicar by the Reverend L. M. Astill, a man more
of the type of Thurston and only too anxious to help his senior curate to
become a vicar, and what is more cut £200 a year off his own net
income in doing so.
But when the question arose of consecrating the new St. Wilfred's in
order to the creation of a new parish, the Bishop asked many questions
that were never asked about the Lima Street Mission. There were
Stations of the Cross reported to be of an unusually idolatrous nature.
There was a second chapel apparently for the express purpose of
worshipping the Virgin Mary.
"He writes to me as if he suspected me of trying to carry on an intrigue
with the Mother of God," cried Lidderdale passionately to his vicar.
"Steady, steady, dear man," said Astill. "You'll ruin your case by such

ill-considered exaggeration."
"But, Vicar, these cursed bishops of the Establishment who would
rather a whole parish went to Hell than give up one jot or one tittle of
their prejudice!" Lidderdale ejaculated in wrath.
Furthermore, the Bishop wanted to know if the report that on Good
Friday was held a Roman Catholic Service called the Mass of the
Pre-Sanctified followed by the ceremony of Creeping to the Cross was
true. When Majendie departed, the Lima Street Missioner jumped a
long way forward in one leap. There were many other practices which
he (the Bishop) could only characterize as highly objectionable and
quite contrary to the spirit of the Church