English churchmen have long gazed with love on the primitive

Host: The cathedral was quiet except for the faint echo of footsteps on stone and the low murmur of wind through stained glass. Dust floated like forgotten incense beneath the ribs of the great arching ceiling. The air smelled of candle wax and time — that sweet mix of devotion and decay that belongs only to old churches.

Outside, the city was modern and impatient, full of noise and traffic, but inside these walls, the centuries still breathed — steady, reverent, eternal.

Jack stood in the nave, coat collar turned up, his grey eyes tracing the colors of the windows — saints, martyrs, and nameless figures staring back in light. In his hands, he held a small guidebook, its edges curled and yellowed.

Jeeny knelt near the front pew, her fingers trailing the wood worn smooth by countless prayers. Her dark hair fell forward, catching the light of a candle she had just lit. When she rose, her eyes were luminous — the quiet kind of faith that looks more like thought than belief.

On the lectern, an open book rested — The Lives of the Saints — and from it, someone had left a bookmark on a passage by Sabine Baring-Gould.
The words read:
"English churchmen have long gazed with love on the primitive church as the ideal of Christian perfection, the Eden wherein the first fathers of their faith walked blameless before God and passionless towards each other."

Jeeny read the line aloud, her voice echoing softly against the stone.

Jeeny: “Passionless towards each other… what a strange kind of Eden.”

Jack: “Strange? Or safe?”

Jeeny: “Safe doesn’t sound divine to me. It sounds… empty.”

Jack: “Maybe that’s the point. The first church wasn’t about emotion. It was about purity — the absence of corruption, of excess.”

Jeeny: “And of warmth.”

Jack: “Warmth leads to fire. Fire burns temples.”

Jeeny: “But fire builds faith too. No one ever followed a passionless prophet.”

Host: The candle flames trembled as a gust of air moved through the cathedral, the shadows bending along the pews like ghosts stretching their limbs.

Jack closed the guidebook and looked at her, his voice low.

Jack: “You ever wonder why people romanticize the primitive church? Why they long for a purity that never really existed?”

Jeeny: “Because purity promises escape — from complication, from contradiction. They want to believe there was a time when faith was simple.”

Jack: “And you don’t?”

Jeeny: “No. Simplicity is sterile. Real faith lives in conflict — in doubt and longing, not in the absence of it.”

Host: She moved toward the altar, her steps slow, deliberate, her voice softening as she looked up at the great crucifix above them.

Jeeny: “They imagined Eden as a place where people walked without passion, without fault. But maybe perfection isn’t peace. Maybe it’s honesty.”

Jack: “Honesty before God?”

Jeeny: “Honesty before each other.”

Jack: “That’s harder.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s why no church can stay primitive.”

Host: The organ pipes glimmered faintly in the dim light. Somewhere outside, a bell tolled the hour — slow, deep, solemn.

Jack leaned against one of the marble pillars, his voice echoing softly across the nave.

Jack: “You know what strikes me about Baring-Gould’s words? The way he calls it an Eden. Like the church was humanity’s second garden — another chance at innocence. But if Eden taught us anything, it’s that innocence never lasts.”

Jeeny: “Because it’s not meant to. Innocence is the seed. Understanding is the harvest.”

Jack: “You talk like a theologian.”

Jeeny: “No, like a woman who stopped believing perfection was the goal.”

Host: The candles flickered, and for a moment, their faces were painted in soft gold and shadow — her gentleness against his skepticism, the two halves of faith in dialogue.

Jack: “So you’d rather have a flawed church? One that bleeds and doubts?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because that’s the only kind that belongs to people.”

Jack: “But without order, without restraint, faith becomes chaos.”

Jeeny: “No. Without compassion, faith becomes tyranny.”

Host: The sound of her words filled the space like music — not loud, but resonant. The kind of truth that doesn’t demand belief, only hearing.

Jack: “You know, Baring-Gould wrote hymns too. ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers.’ Marching, not meditating. Maybe that’s the irony — he longed for peace, but wrote for conflict.”

Jeeny: “Because the two are married. Every hymn is a battle between the world as it is and the world as it could be.”

Jack: “And we sing to bridge the distance.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: The rain began to patter softly against the stained glass, each drop refracting light across the pews — reds, blues, golds bleeding together, divine and human all at once.

Jeeny: “You know, this idea of the primitive church — it’s nostalgia disguised as faith. People dream of a time before temptation, before division. But the truth is, without those things, there’s no choice. And without choice, there’s no love.”

Jack: “So Eden wasn’t perfection.”

Jeeny: “No. It was preparation.”

Jack: “For what?”

Jeeny: “For becoming human.”

Host: Her voice softened, barely audible under the sound of the rain. Jack stepped closer, the echo of his boots carrying up through the arches.

Jack: “Then maybe the real blamelessness isn’t in avoiding passion — it’s in sanctifying it.”

Jeeny: “To walk blameless before God doesn’t mean to walk untouched. It means to walk with awareness — to feel everything and still choose grace.”

Jack: “You make it sound possible.”

Jeeny: “It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be holy.”

Host: The bell rang again, longer this time — as if to mark agreement. They stood side by side, looking up at the window depicting the early disciples — faces serene, robes simple, eyes lifted. Saints who were once men.

Jack: “You ever think they got tired of being called perfect?”

Jeeny: “They weren’t perfect. Just willing.”

Jack: “To do what?”

Jeeny: “To keep walking. Even after Eden closed.”

Host: The rain eased, and a faint beam of sunlight broke through the stained glass, scattering fragments of color across their faces — red for sacrifice, blue for faith, gold for revelation.

Jeeny smiled faintly.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what the primitive church really was — not the end of innocence, but the beginning of courage.”

Jack: “And the beginning of imperfection.”

Jeeny: “And the beginning of love.”

Host: The candles burned lower, the flames steady now, as if calmed by the truth that had filled the space.

Because Sabine Baring-Gould had understood — perhaps without meaning to — that the ideal church is not passionless perfection, but passionate devotion.
Not an Eden free from sin,
but a world redeemed by its capacity to love despite it.

Host: And as Jack and Jeeny stepped out into the damp, glimmering world beyond the cathedral doors,
the bells still ringing behind them,
they carried with them the understanding that holiness is not the absence of flaw —

but the embrace of humanity as sacred,
the balance between order and heart,
and the quiet, stubborn grace
of those who keep walking —
blameless not because they are pure,
but because they continue to love.