"What do you _do_, then?" I said.

"Well, I meditate," said Father Payne. "I believe in meditation very much,
and in solitude it is very hard work. But the silent company of friends,
and the old arches and woodwork, some simple music, a ceremony, and a
little plan of thought going on--that seems to me a fruitful atmosphere.
Some verse, some phrase, which I have heard a hundred times before,
suddenly seems written in letters of gold. I follow it a little way into
the dark, I turn it over, I wonder about it, I enjoy its beauty. I don't
say that my thoughts are generally very startling or poignant or profound;
but I feel the sense of the Fatherly, tolerant, indulgent presence of God,
and a brotherly affection for my fellow-men. It's a great thing to be in
the same place with a number of people, all silent, and on the whole
thinking quiet, happy, and contented thoughts. It all brings me into line
with my village friends, it gives me a social mood, and I feel for once
that we all want the same things from life--and that for once instead of
having to work and push for them, we are fed and comforted. 'Open thy mouth
wide, and I will fill it'--that's a wholesome, childlike verse, you know.
The whole thing seems to me a simple device for producing a placid and
expectant mood--I don't know anything else that produces it so well."

"You mean it is something mystical--almost hypnotic?" I said.

"Perhaps I should if I knew what those big words meant," said Father Payne,
smiling. "No; church seems to me a thing that has really grown up out of
human nature, not a thing imposed upon it. I don't like what may be called
ecclesiasticism, partly because it emphasizes the intellectual side of
belief, partly because it tries to cast a slur on the people who don't like
ceremonial, and whom it does not suit--and most of all because
ecclesiasticism aims at making you believe that other people can transact