"Then tell them that it is only a fairy tale."
"That's of no consequence."
"It is of the greatest consequence that children should not learn everlasting truths in an untrue form--at least, so I think."
He saw that she was working herself up into a state of excitement, and reproved her for it; surely they ought to be able to talk together without that.
"No," she said, "I cannot; for you must know that not only our boy's future, but yours and mine too, depend on this." She went up to the desk to be nearer to him, maybe too she needed support.
But he was not to be put down. "If you yourself, Josephine, were as thoroughly convinced of the eternal truth as you pretend to be, and were you protesting for that truth's sake, then all the rest would be of small importance. And what we wish to put in its stead is very uncertain too; we know that everything did not exactly happen as the revered Book tells us; what we do not know is what the real state of things was. This only we do know, that our life proceeds from God, and in God alone can we be happy; therefore, let both children and grown-up people accept the first teachings of our fathers, at any rate for the present." There was all the honest strength of conviction in his words, and they were full of power. She was silent for a long time; but all at once something else came over her.
"Do you know that, if it had not been for the total mismanagement of my intelligence and character when I was a child, I too would have become--different from what I am now?"
"Yes," he said, coldly, "I hear that latterly you have come to this conclusion; that faith is the misfortune of your life."
"I never said that!" she exclaimed, very pale, "never meant it either!" But she added, more quietly: "I have never allowed faith in God and salvation through Jesus to be a restraint on my intelligence. Never!"
"Dear me, how fortunate!" said he, but he sighed deeply afterwards.