VII
Scholars, like nations, are happiest when they have no history: judged by that standard, both Elfrey School and Berney's house must have been fortunate. Everything ran smoothly and Martin flourished in mind and body. He not only reached the Upper Sixth in the shortest possible time, but also played with average success in his house teams. Without being a brilliant scholar, he always did sound work: without being a born athlete, he could easily hold his own among boys of his size and age. Generally speaking, he had no adventures. Beyond a few petty rows with masters and prefects, such rows as fall inevitably to the lot of all, be they sinners or saints, he pursued an even course and found in life a quite tolerable combination of boredom and excitement. His main interest consisted now, as before, in discoveries.
Religion is always a field for engrossing, if unprofitable, exploration. Until the time arrived for his confirmation Martin had adopted the average position of his kind. He had taken everything for granted, but his acceptance had implied neither strength of faith nor the application of faith to the phenomena of workaday existence. During chapel he had chanted the psalms and sung the hymns when the music or his own mood encouraged him to do so. Hymns like 'Fight the good fight,' which offered an opportunity for a good, throat-bursting yell, he had always enjoyed: his young emotions had at times been touched by the more sentimental tunes and he found 'For all Thy saints' peculiarly affecting. He was not so impassive as the average Elfreyan who could easily forget the sermons of the Reverend Frank Adair, the one master who had the courage to let himself go when he preached and the ability to gain his effect. Adair could grip Martin and make him feel a very weak vessel. Foskett delivered an address from time to time, exhortations, as a rule, on the duties of a gentleman and the traditions of school life. As he never dealt with concrete instances or dabbled, as did one or two preachers, in thrilling casuistry of the study or the cricket field, no one paid much attention to his high-pitched voice and rapt expression. During the repetition of prayers Martin's thoughts wandered to secular subjects, prep, and games, and So-and-so's chances of a cap: and he knew, as he gazed at the long rows of kneeling figures, that nineteen out of twenty minds were engaged upon the same topics.
Most boys took confirmation very much as a matter of form, as something you had done to you at some time or another. Perhaps they prayed a little longer at night, for it was the custom to say prayers, and the traditional shoe, had it been flung, would more probably have been aimed at the shirker than the devotee. But otherwise they were unaffected. Martin took a deeper interest because he had listened closely to an address in which there had been almost a definite promise that the first Communion would bring a gift, a spiritual reality about which no mistake could be made. He was curious to discover what exactly this gift was and how it would feel to be filled with the Holy Ghost. So he awaited with more enthusiasm than most the day of his strengthening in the Church.
Confirmation stirred him because the bishop spoke warmly and, as bishops go, sensibly. But first Communion was a disappointment. He had expected so much, he had looked forward with so tense a curiosity to the receiving of a priceless and unknown gift, and he had to admit that he felt exactly as he had felt before. It couldn't be, he decided, his own faith that was lacking, for he had gone to the sacrament in perfect confidence about the blessing that was to come, and he resolved to continue his search for the truth and the help that it would bring. So for two terms he attended the Communion with fair regularity. But still nothing happened, the promise seemed to him unfulfilled, and he came to the conclusion that it was no use going on. For the future he lay in bed on Sunday mornings and listened to the faithful washing and groping for their studs. The position of the sceptic had, after all, its consolations.
In course of the following holidays he discovered among some paper-covered books of his uncle's a three-penny copy of Blatchford's God and My Neighbour. He read it through almost without a break, for he had just reached the necessary stage to appreciate it. The short, stabbing sentences and the obvious good-will of the author made a great impression upon him, and he was thrilled by the peroration and flaming appeal for a world set free from kings and priests and all such evil-doers. He caught the spirit of the book at once and read it aloud to himself, rejoicing:
"'Rightly or wrongly, I am for reason against dogmas, for evolution against revolution: for humanity always: for earth, not heaven: for the holiest trinity of all—the trinity of man, woman, and child.'
"This," he thought, "is literature."
And then the final thunderclap: "'Let the holy have their heaven. I am a man, and an Infidel. And this is my apology. Besides, gentlemen, Christianity is not true.'"
Martin saw it all now: Christianity was not true: it was a lie and a fraud kept alive by priests and bishops with a view to salaries. He wanted very much to speak to his uncle and question him about science and the New Testament authorities, but, though they were on very intimate terms, he dared not approach him on this occasion. The reason was that he had taken the book from a cupboard usually locked. Martin had found the key by accident while his uncle was up in town and could not resist the temptation to look through the hidden literature. So he put the books away and remained silent.
But when he went back to Elfrey he felt that he could no longer restrain the gushing fountain of secularism, and he determined to talk to a Berneyite called Gregson. Martin was sixteen and a member of the Upper Sixth: Gregson was a year older and in the same form. He was much less adaptable than Martin, hated all games, and had taken up the position of school heretic. In the evenings they used to settle the problem of the universe over cocoa and sardines, and there was nothing on which they had not touched. Martin had picked up some revolutionary politics from his uncle and he was delighted to find in Gregson a disciple of William Morris. At one time they had been joint leaders of Liberalism in the school debating society (they had one follower in a house of thirty), but now, to the great joy of the Tories, they turned to Socialism and lashed their former supporter. Consequently it was natural for Martin to approach Gregson on the subject of doubt, and to his great surprise he found that Gregson knew all about it. As a matter of fact there could have been few more fruitful grounds for the seed of scepticism than Gregson's soul. Gregson had an acute hair-splitting brain and an abhorrence of emotion: he came from a country parsonage, and he had to attend church in the holidays whether he liked it or not: moreover he had a brother at the varsity who possessed a great genius for blasphemy and a quantity of rationalist pamphlets. Gregson took up comparative religion, used long words, and became very bitter.
"Why didn't you let on that you were an agnostic?" asked Martin.
"Oh, it's no use. They think you're wicked. It's best to wait till you have escaped from this prison before you open your lips."
"But you might have told me."
"I thought I'd let you find out for yourself. It was bound to happen."
Martin was surprised at Gregson's certainty.
"Bound?" he asked. "Very few people doubt."
"All rational people doubt," said Gregson with decision. "Tell me this. How can God be all-good and all-powerful and leave misery in the world?"
Martin had a vague idea that there was an answer to this. "Training, I suppose," he answered weakly.
"Yes, that's what the bishops say. Good for people to be poor, strengthens the fibre and all that. And back they slope to their palaces. But what I want to know is, why this beastly training? If God was all-powerful, the thing could be done without it and we would all be angels at once. After all, why should people die of cancer or inherit filthy diseases?"
Martin didn't see why they should.
"And then there's the Atonement," Gregson continued. "There's a childish story for you. First, it seems, God made men: then He was angry because He hadn't made them good enough. Then, just to complete the muddle, He found it necessary to kill His Son to pay for the sins of the people whom He might have made perfect if He had wanted to. That's not good enough, thank you."
It was just the type of sharp, bitter-phrased reasoning to complete the extinction of Martin's spark of faith. At first Gregson's violent attitude naturally drove Martin to a modified defence of religion, but Gregson carried far too many guns when it came to a battle of argument. He could make great play with his comparative religion, and Martin used to leave Gregson's study with a wealth of new phrases ringing in his ears: at last he could think of nothing but solar myths and gods of dying vegetation. It seemed to him very strange that the world should continue to pay any attention to the monstrous imposture which the combined efforts of Blatchford and Gregson had shown Christianity to be. But his discoveries did not make him unhappy: he had his secular socialism and, as religion had never formed a vital element in his life, its loss could involve no pain.