Paul threw himself heart and soul into all this. He did a great part in making religion seem to the holiday-makers what it was truly and happily to himself, the central joy and inspiration of life. If any were inclined to think that attendance at a mission might be a poor way of spending a holiday, they had only to watch Paul for a while. He was in love with Christ, and he was indifferent to the world's opinion that it might be indecent to show it as brazenly as a pair of Cockney lovers on the top of a motor-bus. In which conclusion both Paul and the lovers are undoubtedly and altogether right. And yet Paul was troubled. Mr. Stuart's bland piety was new to him; the workers' robust ignorance had him by the throat; above all the scorning of a ceremony (he would not have said a sacrament) which he had come to feel had behind it the authority of an Institution that he was finding increasingly necessary to the interpretation of the Bible, while it might be a small thing in itself, worried him. And it worried him the more because nobody else--not even Dick--was worried; while behind everything, lay the ever-deepening shadow of his father's refusal to see one particle of evidence or necessity for the Church. But still another influence had laid fingers on Paul's life, although he knew it not yet. He had come out that morning definitely to seek something, definitely to rest himself on something. Paul had always loved nature; he had always "been one" (as his mother would have said) for a country walk; and he had written verses to chestnut-trees in May and beech-trees in Autumn. Yet for all that, the beauty of the world had ever been a secondary thing--something you enjoyed because you were satisfied. But that morning he had come to it because he was not satisfied. And he lay now, almost immovable, introspective, peering at the tiny heather-bells, taking definite note of a fragment of moss, seeing with delight the veins of colour in the small stones. Things were beautiful, he told himself, beautiful in themselves; also they were unfathomable; and the joy of them was a caress to his troubled spirit. Presently he sighed, and rolled over on his back, staring up and away into the vast, distant blue, watching, as the minutes sped, a pin-point of white come out of nothing, gather, build itself with others, form a tiny cloud, and trail off across the sparkling sea. Paul felt himself incredibly small; saw himself, definitely, less than nothing, for the first time in his life. And was content. (2)