"Wells, H G - Soul Of A Bishop" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wells H G)

"We've got to mend things or end things," continued the big
employer. "Nothing goes on for ever. Things can't last as they
are going on now...."

Then he went on abruptly to something that for a time he had
been keeping back.

"Of course just at present the church may do a confounded lot
of harm. Some of you clerical gentlemen are rather too fond of
talking socialism and even preaching socialism. Don't think I
want to be overcritical. I admit there's no end of things to be
said for a proper sort of socialism, Ruskin, and all that. We're
all Socialists nowadays. Ideals--excellent. But--it gets
misunderstood. It gives the men a sense of moral support. It
makes them fancy that they are It. Encourages them to forget
duties and set up preposterous claims. Class war and all that
sort of thing. You gentlemen of the clergy don't quite realize
that socialism may begin with Ruskin and end with Karl Marx. And
that from the Class War to the Commune is just one step."

(5)


From this conversation the bishop had made his way to the
vicarage of Mogham Banks. The vicar of Mogham Banks was a
sacerdotal socialist of the most advanced type, with the
reputation of being closely in touch with the labour extremists.
He was a man addicted to banners, prohibited ornaments, special
services at unusual hours, and processions in the streets. His
taste in chasubles was loud, he gardened in a cassock and, it was
said, he slept in his biretta; he certainly slept in a hair
shirt, and he littered his church with flowers, candles, side
altars, confessional boxes, requests for prayers for the
departed, and the like. There had already been two Kensitite
demonstrations at his services, and altogether he was a source of
considerable anxiety to the bishop. The bishop did his best not
to know too exactly what was going on at Mogham Banks. Sooner or
later he felt he would be forced to do something--and the
longer he could put that off the better. But the Rev. Morrice
Deans had promised to get together three or four prominent labour
leaders for tea and a frank talk, and the opportunity was one not
to be missed. So the bishop, after a hasty and not too digestible
lunch in the refreshment room at Pringle, was now in a fly that
smelt of straw and suggested infectious hospital patients, on his
way through the industry-scarred countryside to this second
conversation.

The countryside had never seemed so scarred to him as it did
that day.