VII.--THE OFFICES OF THE "LUTHER LEAGUE"--AN INTERIOR 146 VIII.--A PRIVATE CONFERENCE AT MIDNIGHT A YEAR LATER 166 IX.--A UNION OF FORCES 182 X.--LOW WATER AND GREAT EXPECTATIONS 214 XI.--THE NEWS THAT CARR BROUGHT 241 XII.--THE REPARATION OF JANE PRITCHETT EX-PROTESTANT 281 XIII.--THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE HAMLYNS 302 A LOST CAUSE CHAPTER I THE INTERRUPTED EUCHARIST The Church of St. Elwyn was a building of brick that went up to a great height. In the crowded district between Hornsey and Wood Green, it was one of the largest buildings, and, though not externally beautiful, acquired dignity and impressiveness from its setting of small villa houses, which made an interminable brick wilderness all round it. It was nearing the time of the High Celebration on a Sunday morning in summer. Matins had been said in a side chapel, to a scanty congregation, at half-past nine, and now the central act of the day was to take place. The interior of St. Elwyn's was severe but beautiful, save for one or two minor blemishes here and there. The eye was caught and carried away down the aisles till it found its focus on the high altar which was set like a throne, above many marble steps, in the curve of the distant apse. The sanctuary was lighted from the sides and so the eye was not disturbed and distracted by hideous windows of stained glass with their clamorous coal-tar colours, but could rest quietly upon the altar with its green and gold, its flowers and central cross. The organ was hidden away in a side gallery and the pulpit was a stone bracket high in the sweep of the chancel arch, to which it clung like the nest of a bird on a cliff side. All this was as it should be. In so many English churches the object of the builders appears to have been to destroy all the dignity and beauty possible in a service. The organ and the pulpit are elevated to the importance of shrines, and dominate everything like Gog and Magog in the Guildhall. Everything is done to minimise the place and office of the altar, to exalt the less important functions of worship, and to prevent comfortable consciences from being uneasy in the realisation of the presence of God.