We shall be very disappointed if you don't come to Molly's wedding, although it is to be rather a quiet one, or at any rate as quiet as we can manage to keep it--not because we are anything but desirous that as many people as are kind enough to do so may rejoice with us over the occasion; but because, from Molly downwards, we have a temperamental shrinking from crowded churches, pavement druggets, hired exotics, and paid choir-boys. And you mustn't worry because your favourite porter has been transferred to Leeds, and therefore won't be able to look after your luggage at St. Pancras. Because one of us will be sure to meet you with the carriage, and escort both you and it quite safely to Harley Street. I have received your cheque, and will buy the little medicine-chest for Rupert to-morrow. As you say, it's most important that the breadwinner should try to keep himself in as good a state of health as possible, even if he is so liable, as Rupert is, to be suddenly shot. And we all think the old bracelet that you have sent to Molly very beautiful. Both of them will so much want to thank you personally for your gifts that you must really make up your mind, I think, to take the risks of the journey (the most recent statistics show these to be quite small) and stay with us here for a couple of nights from December 6th. Yr. affect. nephew, PETER HARDING. XXIX _To the Rev. Bruce Harding, S. Peter's College, Morecambe Bay._ 91B HARLEY STREET, W., _December_ 2, 1910. MY DEAR BRUCE, It was very good of you to enclose a note in your letter to Molly, and the more so because I have an uncomfortable suspicion that I may have wounded you a little when I wrote to you last. If only we could use colours now, to express our deeper attitude on these occasions--as some of your fellow-clergy wear stoles at certain seasons--with what pleasant impunity could we write to one another in yellow, or purple, or red, leaving black for the editor of "The Times," or the plumber whose bill we're disputing. But, alas, even our lightest thoughts must needs go forth clad like mutes at a funeral, and dependent upon those who meet them to detect their forlorn humanity. And so if I have talked, as the outsider that I am, too harshly of things that are dear to you, you must forgive me even as Merridew has forgiven Rogers. For you know--why should I tell you?--that it was no Word from on high that my puny humanity was attempting to challenge, but only the chains (as they seem to me) of Its ecclesiastical exposition; as though man had been made for the Church, and not the Church for man. And yet even thus one can only bow before its achievement. For to be able, as the miner of whom we read the other day, to sing "Lead, kindly Light" through the foul air of some blocked-up coal-pit is better than to have all knowledge--and an abundant justification of any creed that makes it possible.