“Even though his followers are such lying scoundrels as that Pogson? What do you make of that? What do you think of that?”
“I think,” she replied quietly, “that my father is too just a man to judge Christianity by the very worst specimen of a Christian to be met with. Any one who does not judge secularism by its very best representatives, dead or living, is unfair and what is unfair in one case is unfair in another.”
“Well, if I judged it by you, perhaps I might take a different view of it,” said Raeburn. “But then you had the advantage of some years of secularism.”
“Not by me!” cried Erica. “How can it seem anything but very faulty when you judge it only by faulty people? Why not judge it by the life and character of Christ?”
Raeburn turned away with a gesture of impatience.
“A myth! A poetic creation long ago distorted out of its true proportions! There, child, I see we must stop. I only pain you and torture myself by arguing the question.”
“One more thing,” said Erica, “before we go back to the old silence. Father, if you would only write a life of Christ I mean, a really complete life; the one you wrote years ago was scarcely more than a pamphlet.”
He smiled, knowing that she thought the deep study necessary for such an undertaking would lead to a change in his views.
“My dear,” he said, “perhaps I would; but just see how I am overdone. I couldn't write an elaborate thing now. Besides, there is the book on the Pentateuch not half finished though it was promised months ago. Perhaps a year or two hence when Pogson gives me time to draw a long breath, I'll attempt it; but I have an idea that one or other of us will have to be 'kilt intirely' before that happy time arrives. Perhaps we shall mutually do for each other, and reenact the historical song.” And, with laughter in his eyes, he repeated:
“There once were two cats of Kilkenny, Each thought there was one cat too many, So they quarreled and spit, and they scratched and they bit, Till, excepting their nails and the tips of their tails, Instead of two cats, there weren't any.”