"Ah!--but let us distinguish. _We_ are not anarchists--as those men are. Our claim is precisely that we are, and desire to remain, a part of a _Society_--a definite community with definite laws--of a National Church--of the nation, that is, in its spiritual aspect. The question for which we are campaigning is as to the terms of membership in that society. But terms and conditions there must always be. The 'wild living intellect of man' must accept conditions in the Church, as _we_ conceive it, no less than in the Church as Newman conceived it." Norham shrugged his shoulders. "Then why all this bother?" "Because the conditions must be adjusted from time to time! Otherwise the church suffers and souls are lost--wantonly, without reason. But there is no church--no religion--without some venture, some leap of faith! If you can't make any leap at all--any venture--then you remain outside--and you think yourself, perhaps, entitled to run amuck--as these men do!" He pointed to the books. "But _we_ make the venture!--_we_ accept the great hypothesis--of faith." The sound of voices came dimly to them from the farther rooms. Norham pointed toward them. "What difference then between you--and your Bishop?" "Simply that in his case--as _we_ say--the hypothesis of faith is weighted with a vast mass of stubborn matter that it was never meant to carry--bad history, bad criticism, an out-grown philosophy. To make it carry it--in our belief--you have to fly in the face of that gradual education of the world--education of the mind, education of the conscience--which is the chief mark of God in the world. But the hypothesis of Faith, itself, remains--take it at its lowest--as rational, as defensible, as legitimate as any other!" "What do you mean by it? God--conscience--responsibility?" "Those are the big words!" said Meynell, smiling--"and of course the true ones. But what the saint means by it, I suppose, in the first instance, is that there is in man something mysterious, superhuman--a Life in life--which can be indefinitely strengthened, enlightened, purified, till it reveal to him the secret of the world, till it 'toss him' to the 'breast' of God!--or again, can be weakened, lost, destroyed, till he relapses into the animal. Believe it, we say! Live by it!--make the venture. _Verificatur vivendo_!" * * * * * Again the conversation paused. From the distance once more came the merry clamour of the farther drawing-room. A din of young folk, chaffing and teasing each other--a girl's defiant voice above it--outbursts of laughter. Norham, who had in him a touch of dramatic imagination, enjoyed the contrast between the gay crowd in the distance and this quiet room where he sat face to face with a visionary--surely altogether remote from the marrying, money-making, sensuous world. Yet after all the League was a big, practical, organized fact.