Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 81:321 (Jan 1924)
Article: Painted Windows
Author: Parke P. Flournoy

BSac 81:321 (Jan 1924) p. 28

Painted Windows

Parke P. Flourney

A recent book was put out under this title: Painted Windows, Studies of Religious Personality, by A Gentleman with a Duster, Author of The Mirrors of Downing Street, with an Introduction by Kirsopp Lake.

Most readers of Bibliotheca Sacra naturally feel that religious conditions in England at this time are a most interesting study for us in America, and the above named book presents them in a very intimate and interesting way.

The “Gentleman with a Duster,” the author, not only of The Mirrors of Downing Street, but also of The Glass of Fashion, in this book with its sensational title, Painted Windows, invites us to come, and, peering through the many colored panes, try to see, in the dim religious light, some of the forms moving there; and, if possible, to decide what they are doing, and proposing to do, if we can just look into their minds and find what is moving there. The anonymous, and therefore supposedly unknown, author seems to have no trouble about assisting us in this introspection, as he implies that his information is from intimate personal intercourse with those whose inner thoughts and purposes he knows. This may seem mysterious to us; but mystery piques curiosity and enhances interest, and we will follow him as he shows us portrait after portrait of some of the religious leaders of our mother country.

The first portrait we come to is that of the Rt. Rev’d Charles Gore, Bishop of Oxford 1911–1919, but now retired and living in London. The “Gentleman” says (p. 3):

“No man occupies a more commanding position in the churches of England than Dr. Gore” and that “such is the quality of his spirit that a person so different from him both in temperament and intellect as the Dean of St. Paul’s has confessed that he is ‘one of the most powerful spiritual forces in our generation’.”

He also tells of a shock which Dr. Gore gave to the

BSac 81:321 (Jan 1924) p. 29

most conservative some years ago, when as editor of Lux Mundi “he abandoned the dogma of verbal inspiration and accepted the theory that the human knowledge of Christ was limited.”

This limitation was described as a Kenosis (emptying), spoken of in Philippians 2:7, where it is said that Christ “humbled Himself” (ἐκένωσεν, emptied Himself). Our

Saviour Himself spoke of one limitation of His human knowledge, i.e., the day and hour of His second coming (Matthew 24:36). And m...