Hilda's religion was, like the religion of a great many Englishwomen of
her class, of a very curious sort. She never, of course, analysed it
herself, and conceivably she would object very strongly to the
description set down here, but in practical fact there is no doubt about
the analysis. To begin with, this conventional and charming young lady of
Park Lane had in common with Napoleon Bonaparte that Christianity meant
more to them both as the secret of social order than as the mystery of
the Incarnation. Hilda was convinced that a decent and orderly life
rested on certain agreements and conclusions in respect to marriage and
class and conduct, and that these agreements and conclusions were
admirably stated in the Book of Common Prayer, and most ably and
decorously advocated from the pulpit of St. John's. She would have said
that she believed the agreements and conclusions because of the Prayer
Book, but in fact she had primarily given in her allegiance to a social
system, and supported the Prayer Book because of its support of that.
Once a month she repeated the Nicene Creed, but only because, in the
nature of things, the Nicene Creed was given her once a month to repeat,
and she never really conceived that people might worry strenuously about
it, any more than she did. Being an intelligent girl, she knew, of
course, that people did, and occasionally preachers occupied the pulpit
of St. John's who were apparently quite anxious that she and the rest
of the congregation should understand that it meant this and not that,
or that and not this, according to the particular enthusiasm of the
clergyman of the moment. Sentence by sentence she more or less understood
what these gentlemen keenly urged upon her; as a whole she understood
nothing. She was far too much the child of her environment and age not
to perceive that Mr. Lloyd George's experiments in class legislation were
vastly more important.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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