The minister's face glowed. "Yes, I love it—of course I love it; but I do not condemn those who do not love it as I do. As long as there are different types of character, there must be different forms of worship; yet nothing appeals to me like the good old Methodist fashion of bringing religion into the common experiences of everyday life, and treating it as a familiar thing. To a Ritualist this might seem irreverent; to a Broad Churchman, oppressive; but I always feel it may be said of the Methodists, as of the Israelites of old, 'They did eat and drink, and saw God'."
"The thing that grieves me in Paul's book is its want of idealism and its disbelief in the underlying goodness of human nature," remarked Joanna, as they turned into Chayford Wood.
"I do not agree with you there. Human nature, apart from God, is not a fine thing, and I have no sympathy whatever in the modern worship of Humanity with a capital H. Human nature is our disease—Christ is our cure; and a physician who diagnoses any complaint without suggesting the remedy, may be an able scientist, but he is a sorry doctor. I cannot quarrel with Paul for showing us that human nature is bad; but I do quarrel with him for trying to show us that religion is not much better."
"Still we must do Paul justice," said Joanna loyally; "and one cannot deny that Shams and Shadows is a brilliantly clever book."
"So be it; yet it is character—not intellect—that governs this world and inherits the next."
"Yet, father, if Paul were really in such dreadful trouble and bitterness of spirit, he could not write a book and keep himself, and therefore his sorrow, out of it."
"Perhaps not," replied Mr. Seaton, "then why write a book at all? Our fathers doubtless sorrowed as we sorrow now, yet they locked their grief up in their own breasts, while we proclaim it on the housetops. I cannot approve the modern custom of telling out all we know and feel."
"Don't you think people ought to write books?" asked Joanna.
"Not unless they have a message to deliver; and, moreover, a message which will make for good and not for evil. Now every boy who learns a lesson or loves a woman must needs write a book about it, till we feel inclined to ask, like the Egyptian of old: 'Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?'"
"That is quite true!"