Anyway, please don't think that I live in a constant state of criticism with a correspondingly dangerous increase of self-esteem. I really am working hard. I sometimes wonder if the preparation of a "good" theological college is the best preparation for the priesthood. But so long as bishops demand the knowledge they do, it is obvious that this form of preparation will continue. There again though, I daresay if I imagined myself an inspired pianist I should grumble at the amount of scales I was set to practice. I'm not, once I've written down or talked out some of my folly, so very foolish at bottom. Beyond a slight inclination to flirt with the opinions of most of the great heresiarchs in turn, but only with each one until the next comes along, I'm not having any intellectual adventures. One of the excitements I had imagined beforehand was wrestling with Doubt. But I have no wrestles. Shall I always be spared? Your ever affectionate, Mark. Gradually, as the months went by, either because the students became more mellow in such surroundings or because he himself was achieving a wider tolerance, Mark lost much of his capacity for criticism and learned to recognize in his fellows a simple goodness and sincerity of purpose that almost frightened him when he thought of that great world outside, in the confusion and complexity of which they had pledged themselves to lead souls up to God. He felt how much they missed by not relying rather upon the Sacraments than upon personal holiness and the upright conduct of the individual. They were obsessed with the need of setting a good example and of being able from the pulpit to direct the wandering lamb to the Good Shepherd. Mark scarcely ever argued about his point of view, because he was sure that perception of what the Sacraments could do for human nature must be given by the grace of God, and that the most exhaustive process of inductive logic would not avail in the least to convince somebody on whom the fact had not dawned in a swift and comprehensive inspiration of his inner life. Sometimes indeed Mark would defend himself from attack, as when it was suggested that his reliance upon the Sacraments was only another aspect of Justification by Faith Alone, in which the effect of a momentary conversion was prolonged by mechanical aids to worship. "But I should prefer my idolatry of the outward form to your idolatry of the outward form," he would maintain. "What possible idolatry can come from the effect upon a congregation of a good sermon?" they protested.