"It is taught her as a necessary lesson, and will be explained to her at the proper age."
"No; there is no proper age for it. It will never be explained to her. Neither Flora nor her father will ever understand anything about it. But they will always believe it. Am I old enough to understand it? Explain it to me. No one yet has ever attempted to do so; and yet my education was not neglected."
Wilkinson had too great a fear of his friend's powers of ridicule to venture on an explanation; so he again suggested that they should change the subject.
"That is always the way," said Bertram. "I never knew a clergyman who did not want to change the subject when that subject is the one on which he should be ever willing to speak."
"If there be anything that you deem holy, you would not be willing to hear it ridiculed."
"There is much that I deem holy, and for that I fear no laughter. I am ready to defy ridicule. But if I talk to you of the asceticism of Stylites, and tell you that I admire it, and will imitate it, will you not then laugh at me? Of course we ridicule what we think is false. But ridicule will run off truth like water from a duck's back. Come, explain to me this about the resurrection of the body."
"Yet, in my flesh, shall I see God," said Arthur, in a solemn tone.
"But I say, no. It is impossible."
"Nothing is impossible with God."
"Yes; it is impossible that his own great laws should change. It is impossible that they should remain, and yet not remain. Your body—that which we all call our body—that which Flora Buttercup believes to be her body (for in this matter she does believe) will turn itself, through the prolific chemistry of nature, into various productive gases by which other bodies will be formed. With which body will you see Christ? with that which you now carry, or that you will carry when you die? For, of course, every atom of your body changes."