"Yet it was small help or comfort you gave your congregation last Sabbath."
"I did not see you in Church."
"I was there. It is indeed a very rare circumstance, but I was there, and I heard you tell your hearers that, bad as this life was, the next life would be much worse unless they lived a kind of righteousness impossible to them. Why do people listen to such words? Why do you say them? How do you dare to represent God as ordaining all things, yet angry with the actions of the creatures whom He has created to disobey His orders? And, since a man must sin by the very necessity of his nature, why is he guilty of his sins? How can people bear such sermons?"
"They do not feel them. No one takes them as for themselves. The majority give all menaces to their neighbors. A great many do not believe such doctrine any more than you do."
"Then why do they go and hear it?"
"Because in Glasgow, Uncle, the respectable element compel the scornful to sit in the seat of the righteous. It is fashionable to go to church, and the strictest sect is the most fashionable. Anything like Armenianism or Methodism is democratic, and suitable only for the lower classes—it is too emotional, and brings religion down to Ohs! and Ahs! and to feelings that compel expression. There are various other reasons not worth mentioning."
"And you are permitting this false preaching of a false doctrine to kill you?"
"My trouble is far greater. Is there a God at all?"
"Now, Ian, such a question as that never darkened any man's life who did not go out of his way to seek it. Why did you meddle with those cloudy German philosophies? Like Satan, they are one everlasting No! How could you be influenced by them? I defy any metaphysician to argue me out of the testimony of my soul and my senses. It is not the 'No!' but the victorious 'Yes!' that life demands."
Then Ian made some explanations, but without success. The Major laughed scornfully at the names of his misleaders, and said, "I know all about them that I want to know. I could not sleep if their books were under my roof. Imphm!" he added with ejaculatory disdain. "You call their ravings scientific religion and religious philosophy. Rubbish, rubbish is the exact term for them."