“What a ladylike woman to be the matron of an asylum!” I said.

Falconer laughed. “That is no asylum. It is private house.”

“And the lady?” I asked.

“Is a lady of private means,” he answered, “who prefers Bloomsbury to some of the more luxurious sections of the city, because it is easier to do noble work in it. Her heaven is on the confines of hell.”

“What will she do with those children?”

“Kiss them and wash them and put them to bed.”

“And after that?”

“Oh, there’s time enough. We’ll see. There’s only one thing she won’t do.”

“What is that?”

“Turn them out again.”

A pause followed. I was thinking. “Are you a society, then?” I asked at length.

“No. At least we don’t use the word. And certainly no other society would acknowledge us.”

“What are you, then?”

“Why should we be anything, so long as we do our work?”

“Do you lay claim to no designation of any sort?”

“We are a church if you like. There!”

“Who is your clergyman?”

“Nobody.”

“Where do you meet?”

“Nowhere.”

“What are your rules, then?”

“We have none.”

“What makes you a church?”

“Divine service.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“The rot of the you have seen tonight.”

“What is your creed?”

“Jesus Christ.”

“But what do you believe about him?”

“We believe in him. We consider any belief in him – however small – far better than any amount of belief about him.”

“But you must have some rules,” I insisted.

“None whatever. The would only cause us trouble and take us from our work. We only do as he has instructed and as he has shown us through his life.”

“But who are the we?”

“Why, you – if you will do anything – and I and Miss St. John, and twenty others – and a great many more I don’t know. It is our work that binds us together.”

“But if thee’s nothing bigger, then when you stop, your ministry stops.”

“Ah, but there is something bigger – much bigger! We are not the life of the world. God is. And when we are gone he will send out more and better laborers into the harvest fields.”

“But surely the church must be constituted by more than this.”

“My dear sir, you forget; I said we were a church not the church.”

“Do you belong to the Church of England?”

“Yes, some of us. She has preserved records and traditions and we owe her a great deal. And to leave her would inevitably start a quarrel, for which life is too serious in my eyes. I have no time for that.”

“Then you count the Church of England the Church?”

“Of the universe, no; this is constituted just like ours, with the living, working Lord for the heart of it.”

“Will you take me for a member?”

“No.”

“Will you not, if-?”

“You  may make yourself one if you will. I will not speak a word to gain you. I have shown you work. Do something, and you are of Christ’s Church.”

-George MacDonald, The Musician’s Quest