"What if it be not 'dividing'--but doubling--the forces of Christ!" said Meynell, with pale resolution. "All that we ask is the Church should recognize existing facts--that organization should shape itself to reality. In our eyes, Christendom is divided to-day--or is rapidly dividing itself--into two wholly new camps. The division between Catholic and Protestant is no longer the supreme division; for the force that is rising affects both Protestant and Catholic equally. Each of the new divisions has a philosophy and a criticism of its own; each of them has an immense hold on human life, though Modernism is only now slowly realizing and putting out its power. Two camps!--two systems of thought!--both of them _Christian_ thought. Yet one of them, one only, _is in possession_ of the churches, the forms, the institutions; the other is everywhere knocking at the gates. 'Give us our portion!'--we say--'in Christ's name.' But _only our portion!_ We do not dream of dispossessing the old--it is the last thing, even, that we desire. But for the sake of souls now wandering and desolate, we ask to live side by side with the old--in brotherly peace, in equal right--sharing what the past has bequeathed! Yes, even the loaves and fishes!--they ought to be justly divided out like the rest. But, above all, the powers, the opportunities, the trials, the labours of the Christian Church!" "In other words, so far as the English Church is concerned, you propose to reduce us within our own borders to a peddling confusion of sects, held together by the mere physical link of our buildings and our endowments!" said the Bishop, as he straightened himself in his chair. He spoke with a stern and contemptuous force which transformed the small body and sensitive face. In the old room, the library of the Palace, with its rows of calf-bound folios, and its vaulted fifteenth century roof, he sat as the embodiment of ancient, inherited things, his gentleness lost in that collective, that corporate, pride which has been at once the noblest and the deadliest force in history. Meynell's expression changed, in correspondence. It, too, grew harder, more challenging. "My lord--is there no loss already to be faced, of another kind?--is all well with the Church? How often have I found you here--forgive me!--grieving for the loss of souls--the decline of faith--the empty churches--the dwindling communicants--the spread of secularist literature--the hostility of the workmen! And yet what devotion, what zeal, there is in this diocese, beginning with our Bishop. Have we not often asked ourselves what such facts could possibly mean--why God seemed to have forsaken us?" "They mean luxury and selfishness--the loss of discipline at home and abroad," said the Bishop, with bitter emphasis. "It is hard indeed to turn the denial of Christ into an argument against His Gospel!"