The war problem and the puzzle of German psychology ousted
for a time all other intellectual interests; like every one else the
bishop swam deep in Nietzsche, Bernhardi, Houston Stewart Chamberlain,
and the like; he preached several sermons upon German materialism
and the astonishing decay of the German character. He also read every
newspaper he could lay his hands on--like any secular man. He signed
an address to the Russian Orthodox church, beginning "Brethren," and
he revised his impressions of the Filioque controversy. The idea of a
reunion of the two great state churches of Russia and England had always
attracted him. But hitherto it had been a thing quite out of scale,
visionary, utopian. Now in this strange time of altered perspectives it
seemed the most practicable of suggestions. The mayor and corporation
and a detachment of the special reserve in uniform came to a great
intercession service, and in the palace there were two conferences of
local influential people, people of the most various types, people
who had never met tolerantly before, expressing now opinions of
unprecedented breadth and liberality.
All this sort of thing was fresh and exciting at first, and then it
began to fall into a routine and became habitual, and as it became
habitual he found that old sense of detachment and futility was creeping
back again.
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