“They'd know better if they'd more than a grain of sense between them,” said Tom, sweepingly, “but they haven't; and as they're always playing battledoor and shuttlecock with that, it isn't much good to either. Of course they play into our hands. I believe the spiteful ultra-high paper, and the spiteful ultra-low paper do more to promote atheism than the 'Idol-Breaker' itself.”
“How dreadful it must be for men like Mr. Osmond, who see all round, and yet can't stop what they must think the mischief. Mr. Osmond has been here this afternoon.”
“Ah, now, he's a stunning fellow, if you like,” said Tom. “He's not one of the pig-headed narrow-minded set. How he comes to be a parson I can't make out.”
“Well, you see, from their point of view it is the best thing to be; I mean he gets plenty of scope for work. I fancy he feels as much obliged to speak and teach as father does.”
“Pity he's not on our side,” said Tom; “they say he's a first-rate speaker. But I'm afraid he is perfectly crazy on that point; he'll never come over.”
“I don't think we've a right to put the whole of his religiousness down to a mania,” said Erica. “Besides, he is not the sort of man to be even a little mad, there's nothing the least fanatical about him.”
“Call it delusion if you like it better. What's in a name? The thing remains the same. A man can't believe what is utterly against reason without becoming, as far as that particular belief is concerned, unreasonable, beyond the pale of reason, therefore deluded, therefore mad.”
Erica looked perplexed; she did not think Tom's logic altogether good, but she could not correct it. There was, however, a want of generosity about the assertion which instantly appealed to her fine sense of honor.
“I can't argue it out,” she said at last, “but it doesn't seem to me fair to put down what we can't understand in other people to madness; it never seemed to me quite fair for Festus to accuse Paul of madness when he really had made a splendid defense, and it doesn't seem fair that you should accuse Mr. Osmond of being mad.”
“Only on that one point,” said Tom. “Just a little touched, you know. How else can you account for a man like that believing what he professes to believe?”