"But, James, he is an exceptionally clever little boy. Most observant, with a splendid memory and plenty of imagination."
"Too much imagination. His nights are one long circus."
"But, James, you yourself have insisted so often on the personal Devil; you can't expect a little boy of Mark's sensitiveness not to be impressed by your picture."
"He has nothing to fear from the Devil, if he behaves himself. Haven't I made that clear?"
Mrs. Lidderdale sighed.
"But, James dear, a child's mind is so literal, and though I know you insist just as much on the reality of the Saints and Angels, a child's mind is always most impressed by the things that have power to frighten it."
"I want him to be frightened by Evil," declared James. "But go your own way. Soften down everything in our Holy Religion that is ugly and difficult. Sentimentalize the whole business. That's our modern method in everything."
This was one of many arguments between husband and wife about the religious education of their son.
Luckily for Mark his father had too many children, real children and grown up children, in the Mission to be able to spend much time with his son; and the teaching of Sunday morning, the clear-cut uncompromising statement of hard religious facts in which the Missioner delighted, was considerably toned down by his wife's gentle commentary.
Mark's mother taught him that the desire of a bad boy to be a good boy is a better thing than the goodness of a Jack Horner. She taught him that God was not merely a crotchety old gentleman reclining in a blue dressing-gown on a mattress of cumulus, but that He was an Eye, an all-seeing Eye, an Eye capable indeed of flashing with rage, yet so rarely that whenever her little boy should imagine that Eye he might behold it wet with tears.