"I dare say not," replied Mary. "How should you, when you don't know him?"
"Then what's to be done? I can't very well show myself where I hate the master of the house!"
"If you knew him, you would love him."
"You are judging by yourself. But there is as much difference between you and me as between light and darkness."
"Not quite that," replied Mary, with one of those smiles that used to make her father feel as if she were that moment come fresh from God to him. "If you knew Jesus Christ, you could not help loving him, and to love him is to love God."
"You wear me out! Will you never come to the point? Know Jesus Christ! How am I to go back two thousand years?"
"What he was then he is now," answered Mary. "And you may even know him better than they did at the time who saw him; for it was not until they understood him better, by his being taken from them, that they wrote down his life."
"I suppose you mean I must read the New Testament?" said Mr. Redmain, pettishly.
"Of course!" answered Mary, a little surprised; for she was unaware how few have a notion what the New Testament is, or is meant for.
"Then why didn't you say so at first? There I have you! That's just where I learn that I must be damned for ever!"