All this, however,
seemed rather matter for philosophic musing than for definite action.
His predominant feeling was still that of remoteness from the immediate
issues of life: the soeva indignatio had been succeeded by a great calm.
The soothing influences of the monastic life had doubtless helped to
tide him over the stormy passage of returning consciousness. His
sensitiveness to these influences inclined him for the first time to
consider them analytically. Hitherto he had regarded the Church as a
skilfully-adjusted engine, the product of human passions scientifically
combined to obtain the greatest sum of tangible results. Now he saw that
he had never penetrated beneath the surface. For the Church which
grasped, contrived, calculated, struggled for temporal possessions and
used material weapons against spiritual foes--this outer Church was
nothing more than the body, which, like any other animal body, had to
care for its own gross needs, nourish, clothe, defend itself, fight for
a footing among the material resistances of life--while the soul, the
inner animating principle, might dwell aloof from all these things, in a
clear medium of its own.
To this soul of the Church his daily life now brought him close. He felt
it in the ordered beneficence of the great community, in the simplicity
of its external life and the richness and suavity of its inner
relations. No alliance based on material interests, no love of power
working toward a common end, could have created that harmony of thought
and act which was reflected in every face about him.
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