Next morning I left the house very early and wandered through the streets of London. To-day I knew that I would wander through those streets many, many times yet, and for a long, long while.
Once I stopped and entered a grey, small building. It was a Roman Catholic church. I walked about it aimlessly, and my eyes caught the picture of Christ in life-size. For the first time in my life, perhaps, the sight of it stirred nothing within me. What use could He be to me? Could He comprehend such a thing at all? It is true that He had become human in order to feel with us, but He was a good man. He only knew the sins and passions of others, never did He know a sin, or a passion of His own. Of godly descent. He was endowed with godly strength, with godly wisdom, with godliness. What did He really know of the nature of a thief, of a murderer, of a perjurer? And though He had died for the sake of love, what did He know of the sufferings of lovers?
I turned away from the picture and went out of the church. I went out on tip-toe by force of habit, but on my soul dawned the religion of life, which is older than the doctrine of Jesus ... and all round me walked its disciples. Men and women who had done with dreaming and were ready for the unknown hereafter--men with strong fists and hard looks, by which one could tell that they had battled with life; women whose faces looked wrinkled and worn, telling their story of hardship and silent surrender; men and women who in their days of severity and bitterness had surpassed the miracles wrought by Him, the Galilean; men and women among whose numbers I was also enlisted.
And out of that new consciousness arose to me a new wisdom and a new love--a wisdom which reigned over all former wisdom, and a love which reigned over all former love. And when I returned with it into my solitude, the stones began to speak.