"My dear friend—for dear I must call you in remembrance of your many self-denying efforts for the good of mankind—I must decline to discuss this subject any further with you. For two thousand years the Church of Christ has endured, and guided itself according to the words of Christ himself—"
"All of his words, or only such of them as have been fullest of promise of safety?" interrupted Mr. Alleman.
"All of them," boldly replied the doctor. "The Church has taught everything that Christ did. I, myself, have preached from every verse of Christ's sermon on the Mount."
"But you have carefully avoided the literal meanings of these verses in nearly every instance," said Mr. Alleman.
"I have attached to each one such meaning as the Spirit has indicated to me," said the doctor, with rather chilling dignity. "And I would further say that I have treated them according to the habit of the Church during the nineteen centuries that have nearly elapsed since Christ appeared. If I had taught from my own understanding alone, I might have had misgivings; but with countless prophets, apostles, and martyrs to whom to look for example, I have felt secure in my position. You cannot, therefore, expect me to accept your views as opposed to those of the whole body of Christian teachers. The experience of the world is always of value in teaching the teacher what to do and say, and that experience—"
"Is always based upon selfishness," interrupted Mr. Alleman.
"And that experience," continued Dr. Humbletop, "has been that the atonement made by Christ is the all in all of Scripture."
The doctor called for his letters, bowed in a dignified manner to Mr. Alleman and the Squire, and departed.
Let no one blame Dr. Humbletop for his lack of clear vision. A more honest, conscientious, and generous soul could not be found in Valley Rest. Receiving an income which to many of his acquaintances would have seemed insufficient to a man of good breeding and refined tastes, he found ways of devoting more than a tithe of it to charities either private or public. He was always ready to forego his own tastes and inclinations in order to visit the sick, counsel the troubled, or pray with the dying; his voice and vote were never lacking in affairs of public interest, and they were always used in the interest of the highest morality. But the doctor had been born and bred under a religious system which he had been taught was to be accepted, not changed, and not even to be questioned. To him, as to the wise Solomon, the law of the Lord was perfect, the difference between the two men being that the doctor found the whole law in the letter of a single department of it, instead of in the Spirit, and that this peculiarity of his mind had come to him by birth, been strengthened by a special education, and established by habit. Whenever he for a moment questioned his belief, he very naturally contemplated the many generations of wiser men who had accepted beliefs like his own, and in their wisdom and their interpretation of Scripture his soul rested.