"Oh, Mr. Delcher—" a look of horror grew big in her eyes—"You don't mean to say he's gone and joined the Universalists?"
The old man shook his head.
"And he ain't a Unitarian?"
"No, Clytie; but our boy has been to college and it has left him rather un—unconforming in some little matters—some details—doubtless his doctrine is sound at core."
"But I supposed he'd learn everything off at that college, only I know he never got fed half enough. What with all its studies and football and clubs and things I thought it was as good as a liberal education."
"Too liberal, sometimes! Pray for Bernal—and we won't talk about it again, Clytie, if you please."
Presently came Allan, who had heard the news.
"Bernal tells me he will not enter the ministry, sir; that he is going away."
"We have decided that is best."
"You know, sir, I have suspected for some time that Bernal was not as sound doctrinally as you could wish. His mind, if I may say it, is a peculiarly literal one. He seems to lack a certain spiritual comprehensiveness —an enveloping intuition, so to say, of the spiritual value in a material fact. During that unhappy agitation for the revision of our creed, I have heard him, touching the future state of unbaptised infants, utter sentiments of a heterodoxy that was positively effeminate in its sentimentality—sentiments which I shall not pain you by repeating. He has often referred, moreover, with the same disordered sentimentality, to the sad fate of our father—about whose present estate no churchman can have any doubt. And then about our belief that even good works are an abomination before God if performed by the unregenerate, the things I have heard him——"