"Yes, Mr. Schuabe," said Mrs. Armstrong, "you are right, incalculably right. It is to human intellect and that alone—the great Intellect of The Nazarene among others—that we must look from henceforth. Already by his unaided efforts man's achievements are everywhere breaking down superstition. The arts, the laws of gravitation, force, light, heat, sound, chemistry, electricity, and all that these imply—botany, medicine, bacteria, the circulation of the blood, the functions of the brain and nervous system (last-named abolishing all witchcraft and diabolic possession, such as we read of in the 'inspired' writings)—all these are but incidents in a progress never aided by the supernatural, but always impeded by the professors of it. Christians tortured the man who discovered the rotation of the earth, and in every church to-day absolutely false accounts of the origin of the world are publicly read. And as long as the world was content to believe that Jesus rose from the dead so long error has hindered development."
"Yes," replied Schuabe, "all this will, I believe, inevitably follow the discovery of the professors in Palestine. And what does Christianity, as it is at present accepted, bring to the Christians? Localise it, and look at the English Church—Canon Walke's Church. At one time every one is a rigid Puritan and decries the bare accessories of worship, at another a Ritualist who twists and turns everything into fantastic shapes, as if he were furnishing an æsthetic bazaar. At another time these people are swayed with the doctrines of 'Christian Science,' and believe that pain is a pure trick of the diseased fancy, and matter the morbid creation of an unhealthy mind. Then we hear priests who tell us that the Old Testament (which in the same breath they announce to be witnessed to by Christ and His Apostles and the unbroken continuity of the Catholic Church) is an enlarged and plagiarised version of the days of a fantastic god discovered on a burnt brick at Babylon. And others sit anxiously waiting to know the precise value which this or that Gospel may possess, as its worth fluctuates like shares in the money market, with the last quotation from Germany! All this will cease."
The while these august ones had been speaking, Father Wilson, the domestic chaplain at Fencastle, had remained silent but attentive.
He was a lean, dark man, monk-like in appearance, somewhat saturnine on the surface. It was Sir Michael's wish, not the chaplain's, that he should sit with the guests as one of them, and make experience of the great ones of the world. For he had but little interest in worldly things or people.
Schuabe's voice died away. Every one was a little exhausted, great matters had been dealt with. There came a little clink and clatter as they sought food.
Suddenly Wilson looked up and began to speak. His voice was somewhat harsh and unsympathetic, his manner was uncompromising and without charm. As he spoke every one realised, with a sense of unpleasant shock, that he cared little or nothing for the society he was in.
"It's very interesting, sir," he said, turning to Schuabe, "to hear all you have been saying. I have seen the paper and read of this so-called discovery too. Of course such a thing harmonises exactly with the opinions of those who want to believe it. But go and tell a devoted son of the Church that he has been fed with sacraments which are no sacraments, and all that he has done has been at best the honest mistake of a deceived man, and he will laugh in your face, as I do! There are memories, far back in his life, of confirmation, when his whole being was quickened and braced, which refuse to be explained as the hallucinations of a well-meaning but deceived man. There are memories when Christ drew near to his soul and helped him. Struggles with temptation are remembered when God's grace saved him. He also says, 'Whether He be a sorcerer or not I know not; one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.' It is easy to part with one in whom we have never really believed. We can easily surrender what we have never held. But you haven't a notion of the real Christian's convictions, Mr. Schuabe. Your estimate of the future is based upon utter ignorance of the Christian's heart. You are incapable of understanding the heart to which experience has made it clear that Jesus was indeed the very Christ. There are many people who are called Christians with whom your sayings and writings, and those of this lady here, have great power. It is because they have never found Christ. Unreal words, shallow emotions, unbalanced sentiment, leave such as these without armour in a time of tumult and conflicting cries. But if we know Him, if we can look back over a life richer and fuller because we have known Him, if we know, every man, the plague of his own heart, then your explorers may discover anything and we shall not believe. It is easy to prophesy as you have been doing all this meal-time—it is popular once more to shout the malignant 'Crucify'—but events will show you how utterly wrong you are in your estimate of the Christian character."
They all stared at the chaplain. His sudden vigorous outburst, the harsh, unlovely voice, the contempt in it, was almost stupefying at first.
Indeed, though they had certainly no cue from Sir Michael, they had regarded the silent, rather forbidding priest, in his cassock and robe, a dress which typified his reserve and detachment from all their interests, in the light of an upper servant, almost. Nor was it so much his interference they resented as his manner of interfering. The supreme confidence of the man galled them; it was patronising in its strength.
Mrs. Armstrong heard the outburst with a slight frown of displeasure, which, as the priest continued, changed into a smile of kindly tolerance, the attitude of a housemaid who spares a spider. She remembered that, after all, her duty lay in being kind to those of less power than herself.