advise. As "A Gentleman with a Duster" has seen, the desire of the
church leaders whose portraits he paints is to preserve the Church
through a period of transition. I doubt the wisdom of their policy,
though I recognize the difficulty of their task and appreciate their
motives.

I doubt the wisdom of the policy because I think that though it may
satisfy the older members of the Church and so preserve continuity with
the past, it is doing so at the expense of the younger generation and
sacrificing continuity with the future. It may conciliate those who have
power to make trouble in the present; but it is only the young who are
now silently abandoning the Church, that have the power to give life in
the future. It is always safer to agree with the old, but it is
infinitely more important to convince the young; and the reason for the
failure which troubles "A Gentleman with a Duster" is that
ecclesiastical life in England is failing to convince the young. Is it
better here?

CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.,
February 5, 1922.




INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION


Some of the men whose personalities I attempt to analyse in this volume
are known to American students of theology: almost all of them, I think,
represent schools of thought in which America is as greatly interested