The Altar Steps | Page 5

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 of England, and would Mr. Lidderdale pay him a visit at Fulham Palace as soon as possible. Lidderdale went, and he argued with the Bishop until the Chaplain thought his Lordship had heard enough, after which the argument was resumed by letter. Then Lidderdale was invited to lunch at Fulham Palace and to argue the whole question over again in person. In the end the Bishop was sufficiently impressed by the Missioner's sincerity and zeal to agree to withhold his decision until the Lord Bishop Suffragan of Devizes had paid a visit to the proposed new parish. This was the visit that was expected on the day after Mark Lidderdale woke from a nightmare and dreamed that London was being swallowed up by an earthquake.

CHAPTER III
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
When Mark was grown up and looked back at his early childhood--he