It is remarkable how all doors to spiritual growth were

closed to me at this time or opened only to reveal a bleak,

cheerless interior. At first I joined one or two others from my
college in going to weekly evangelical meetings in town.
We sat on upright chairs in a bare room while impromptu
prayers were said, and some one gave a talk on being saved and
what a wonderful experience it was. Well, I thought, it must be
a wonderful experience for him, but I dont seem to have it. So
I stopped going. During most of my first year I attended
morning chapel instead of roll call twenty minutes instead
of two. I was usually the only person there. I also went to some
special kind of evening service that was held in the chapel once
or twice a week. But it seemed cold and lifeless and meant
nothing to me and I gradually stopped going. Neither the college
chaplain nor any other ecclesiastic (and there were some, because
Christ Church chapel is also Oxford Cathedral) offered any
help or encouragement or even seemed aware of my seeking.
During one vacation I went to stay at the Christ Church mission
in East London. It was doing useful social work but there was
nothing spiritual about it. I visited an Anglo-Catholic priory
but felt no atmosphere such as might impel me to probe deeper.
I toyed with the idea of Catholicism, but more for its poetic
than its religious appeal. I made friends with the two Indian
undergraduates at my college one a Hindu and the other a
Muslim and became a frequent visitor at the Majlis, the
Indian undergraduates club, with the vague hope, based on
recollections of Tagore, that it would lead to some spiritual