“And my misfortunes express his disapproval. Well, I have believed that; I have believed that the rightness of a schoolmaster’s conscience must needs be the same thing as the rightness of destiny, I too had fallen into that comforting persuasion of prosperity; but this series of smashing experiences I have had, culminating in your proposal to wipe out the whole effect and significance of my life, brings me face to face with the fundamental question whether the order of the great universe, the God of the stars, has any regard or relationship whatever to the problems of our consciences and the efforts of man to do right. That is a question that echoes to me down the ages. So far I have always professed myself a Christian....”
“Well, I should hope so,” said Mr. Dad, “considering the terms of the school’s foundation.”
“For, I take it, the creeds declare in a beautiful symbol that the God who is present in our hearts is one with the universal father and at the same time his beloved Son, continually and eternally begotten from the universal fatherhood, and crucified only to conquer. He has come into our poor lives to raise them up at last to Himself. But to believe that is to believe in the significance and continuity of the whole effort of mankind. The life of man must be like the perpetual spreading of a fire. If right and wrong are to perish together indifferently, if there is aimless and fruitless suffering, if there opens no hope for an eternal survival in consequences of all good things, then there is no meaning in such a belief as Christianity. It is a mere superstition of priests and sacrifices, and I have read things into it that were never truly there. The rushlight of our faith burns in a windy darkness that will see no dawn.”
“Nay,” said Sir Eliphaz, “nay. If there is God in your work we cannot destroy it.”
“You are doing your best,” said Mr. Huss, “and now I am not sure that you will fail.... At one time I should have defied you, but now I am not sure.... I have sat here through some dreary and dreadful days, and lain awake through some interminable nights; I have thought of many things that men in their days of prosperity are apt to dismiss from their minds; and I am no longer sure of the goodness of the world without us or in the plan of Fate. Perhaps it is only in us within our hearts that the light of God flickers—and flickers insecurely. Where we had thought a God, somehow akin to ourselves, ruled in the universe, it may be there is nothing but black emptiness and a coldness worse than cruelty.”
Mr. Dad was about to interrupt, and restrained himself by a great effort.
“It is a commonplace of pietistic works that natural things are perfect things, and that the whole world of life, if it were not for the sinfulness of man, would be perfect. Paley, you will remember, Sir Eliphaz, in his ‘Evidences of Christianity,’ from which we have both suffered, declares that this earth is manifestly made for the happiness of the sentient beings living thereon. But I ask you to consider for a little and dispassionately, whether life through all its stages, up to and including man, is not rather a scheme of uneasiness, imperfect satisfaction, and positive miseries....”
§ 8
“Aren’t we getting a bit out of our depth in all this?” Mr. Dad burst out. “Put it at that—out of our depth.... What does this sort of carping and questioning amount to, Mr. Huss? Does it do us any good? Does it help us in the slightest degree? Why should we go into all this? Why can’t we be humble and leave these deep questions to those who make a specialty of dealing with them? We don’t know the ropes. We can’t. Here are you and Mr. Farr, for instance, both of you whole-time schoolmasters so to speak; here’s Sir Eliphaz toiling night and day to make simple cheap suitable homes for the masses, who probably won’t say thank you to him when they see them; here’s me an overworked engineer and understaffed most cruelly, not to speak of the most unfair and impossible labour demands, so that you never know where you are and what they won’t ask you next. And in the midst of it all we are to start an argey-bargey about the goodness of God!
“We’re busy men, Mr. Huss. What do we know of the world being a scheme of imperfect satisfaction and what all? Where does it come in? What’s its practical value? Words it is, all words, and getting away from the plain and definite question we came to talk over and settle and have done with. Such talk, I will confess, makes me uncomfortable. Give me the Bible and the simple religion I learnt at my mother’s knee. That’s good enough for me. Can’t we just have faith and leave all these questions alone? What are men in reality? After all their arguments. Worms. Just worms. Well then, let’s have the decency to behave as such and stick to business, and do our best in that state of life unto which it has pleased God to call us. That’s what I say,” said Mr. Dad.