"You hear, Lady Kilrush, my wife and I are of one mind. But to prove that 'tis for no stubborn pride that I reject your generous offer, I promise to appeal to your kindness at any hour of need, and, further, to call upon you once in a way for those charitable works in which the men I most honour are engaged. There is Mr. Whitefield's American Orphanage, for example——"
"Oh, command my purse, I pray you, sir. I rejoice in helping the poor—I who have known poverty. I will send you something for your orphans to-night. Let me assist all your good works."
"'Tis very generous of your ladyship to help us; for I doubt your own religious views scarcely tally with those of my friends."
"I have no religious views, Mr. Stobart. I have no religion except the love of my fellow-creatures."
"Great Heaven, madam, have the undermining influences of a corrupt society so early sapped your belief in Christ?"
"No, sir, society has not influenced me. I have never been a believer in Christianity as a creed, though I can admire Jesus of Nazareth as a philanthropist, and grieve for him as a martyr to the cruelty of man. I was taught to reason, where other children are taught to believe; to question and to think for myself, where other children are taught to be dumb and to stifle thought."
Stobart gazed at her with horror. Mrs. Stobart listened open-mouthed, astonished at the audacity which could give speech to such opinions.
"Oh, madam, 'tis sad to hear outspoken unbelief from the lips of youth. I doubt you have suffered the influence of that pernicious writer whose pen has peopled France with infidels."
"If, sir, you mean Voltaire, you do ill to condemn the apostle of toleration, to whom you and all other dissenters should be grateful."
"I scorn the championship of an infidel. I am no more a dissenter than the Wesleys or George Whitefield. I have not ceased to belong to the Church of England because I follow heaven-born teachers sent to startle that Church from a century of torpor. They have not ceased to be of the Church because bishops disapprove their ardour and parish priests exclude them from their pulpits."