At that a kind of chill fell upon Mr. Parchester. He went on across
Chexington Square by his own inertia.
He was still about as sure that he had seen God as he had been in his
study, but now he was no longer sure that the world would believe that
he had. He felt perhaps that this idea of rushing out to tell people
was precipitate and inadvisable. After all, a priest in the Church of
England is only one unit in a great machine; and in a world-wide
spiritual crisis it should be the task of that great machine to act as
one resolute body. This isolated crying aloud in the street was
unworthy of a consecrated priest. It was a dissenting kind of thing to
do. A vulgar individualistic screaming. He thought suddenly that he
would go and tell his Bishop--the great Bishop Wampach. He called a
taxicab, and within half an hour he was in the presence of his
commanding officer. It was an extraordinarily difficult and painful
interview....
You see, Mr. Parchester believed. The Bishop impressed him as being
quite angrily resolved not to believe. And for the first time in his
career Mr. Parchester realized just how much jealous hostility a
beautiful, fluent, and popular preacher may arouse in the minds of the
hierarchy. It wasn't, he felt, a conversation. It was like flinging
oneself into the paddock of a bull that has long been anxious to gore
one.
"Inevitably," said the Bishop, "this theatricalism, this star-turn
business, with its extreme spiritual excitements, its exaggerated soul
crises and all the rest of it, leads to such a breakdown as afflicts
you. Inevitably! You were at least wise to come to me. I can see you
are only in the beginning of your trouble, that already in your mind
fresh hallucinations are gathering to overwhelm you, voices, special
charges and missions, strange revelations.... I wish I had the power
to suspend you right away, to send you into retreat...."
Mr. Parchester made a violent effort to control himself. "But I tell
you," he said, "that I saw God!" He added, as if to reassure himself:
"More plainly, more certainly, than I see you."
"Of course," said the Bishop, "this is how strange new sects come into
existence; this is how false prophets spring out of the bosom of the
Church. Loose-minded, excitable men of your stamp----"
Mr. Parchester, to his own astonishment, burst into tears. "But I tell
you," he wept, "He is here. I have seen. I know."
"Don't talk such nonsense!" said the Bishop. "There is no one here but
you and I!"