"Everlasting flame, or everlasting dishonor—nothing between!
"Isn't it ludicrous as well as pitiful—a thing to make one snigger through one's tears? Isn't it a grievous sin to believe in such things as these, and go about teaching and preaching them, and being paid for it—a sin to be heavily chastised, and a shame? What a legacy!
"They were shocking bad artists, those conceited, narrow-minded Jews, those poor old doting monks and priests and bigots of the grewsome, dark age of faith! They couldn't draw a bit—no perspective, no chiaro-oscuro; and it's a woful image they managed to evolve for us out of the depths of their fathomless ignorance, in their zeal to keep us off all the forbidden fruit we're all so fond of, because we were built like that! And by whom? By our Maker, I suppose (who also made the forbidden fruit, and made it very nice—and put it so conveniently for you and me to see and smell and reach, Tray—and sometimes even pick, alas!).
"And even at that it's a failure. Only the very foolish little birds are frightened into good behavior. The naughty ones laugh and wink at each other, and pull out its hair and beard when nobody's looking, and build their nests out of the straw it's stuffed with (the naughty little birds in black, especially), and pick up what they want under its very nose, and thrive uncommonly well; and the good ones fly away out of sight; and some day, perhaps, find a home in some happy, useful father-land far away, where the Father isn't a bit like this. Who knows?
"And I'm one of the good little birds, Tray—at least, I hope so. And that unknown Father lives in me whether I will or no, and I love Him whether He be or not, just because I can't help it, and with the best and bravest love that can be—the perfect love that believeth no evil, and seeketh no reward, and casteth out fear. For I'm His father as much as He's mine, since I've conceived the thought of Him after my own fashion!
"And He lives in you too, Tray—you and all your kind. Yes, good dog, you king of beasts, I see it in your eyes....
"Ah, bon Dieu Père, le Dieu des bonnes gens! Oh! if we only knew for certain, Tray! what martyrdom would we not endure, you and I, with a happy smile and a grateful heart—for sheer love of such a father! How little should we care for the things of this earth!
"But the poor parson?
"He must willy-nilly go on believing, or affecting to believe, just as he is told, word for word, or else good-bye to his wife and children's bread and butter, his own preferment, perhaps even his very gentility—that gentility of which his Master thought so little, and he and his are apt to think so much—with possibly the Archbishopric of Canterbury at the end of it, the bâton de maréchal that lies in every clerical knapsack.
"What a temptation! one is but human!