Once in a while, when doors are closed and curtains drawn on a
group of free spirits, the miracle happens, and Good Talk
begins. 'Tis a sudden illumination--the glow, it may be of
sanctified candles, or, more likely, the blaze around a cauldron
of gossip.

Is there an ecstasy or any intoxication like it? Oh? to talk, to
talk people into monsters, to talk one's self out of one's
clothes, to talk God from His heaven, and turn everything in the
world into a bright tissue of phrases!

These Pentecosts and outpourings of the spirit can only occur
very rarely, or the Universe itself would be soon talked out of
existence.




_The Church of England_


I have my Anglican moments; and as I sat there that Sunday
afternoon, in the Palladian interior of the London Church, and
listened to the unexpressive voices chanting the correct service,
I felt a comfortable assurance that we were in no danger of
being betrayed into any unseemly manifestations of religious
fervour. We had not gathered together at that performance
to abase ourselves with furious hosannas before any dark
Creator of an untamed Universe, no Deity of freaks and miracles
and sinister hocus-pocus; but to pay our duty to a highly