Here his eye which had swerved for a moment, again caught Dacre’s. “The reasons why we have insisted upon the denial of this knowledge to our children are many. Firstly, my wife and I consider that it is hardly fair to any human creature, with normal brain power in its young receptive condition, to give this brain power a distinct bias with regard to the fundamental points of any science. I speak of it not in the common but in the original application of the word, which is merely empiric and can certainly not be looked upon as proven in any part,—however great its ethical value as a factor of culture may be,” he added with an apologetic glance at the rector. “For the same reason we have withheld geology and the advanced parts of several of the natural sciences, wherein is evolved the doctrine of evolution. But of these later.
“We have been more stringent in our regulations with regard to religion and its most advanced and refined development—that known as Christianity—because it enters so largely into all current questions, and entrenches, or at least the arguments of its exponents do, on so many of our more exact sciences. Another reason for withholding this knowledge was the strange methods so many of its disciples have of apprehending and applying it—even of considering its literature. The process of exclusion by which we have striven to our goal has, I fear, seemed to our dear friends here to-day an unwise one, but we have taken deep thought concerning this matter and have taken no step lightly. We have awaited a state of consciousness in our children capable of receiving and judging the evidences of religion—more especially of that form of it known as Christianity—in an unprejudiced and reasonable manner, without bias, and with no early half-true half-false impressions to confuse and mislead.
“Mr. Fellowes,” he concluded with solemnity, “we have done, as we consider, our duty, and in the best way we know of. Heredity and other inner influences will no doubt in some measure nullify our efforts, as will also the possible impressions—no doubt of a low order—which our children, in that period of mere physical development before the culture of their higher parts began, may have received from outside; but with these exceptions, I feel confident that, as regards all knowledge of religion, the minds of our children are a blank.”
He was silent for a moment and regarded the blanks with supreme satisfaction.
“Mr. Fellowes,” he began again, “my wife and I are most anxious that our children should receive all the facts and arguments in favour of Christianity before the counter arguments are put before them, and in the most reasonable and enlightened manner. We have therefore invited you to be present to-day and would feel ourselves under still one more obligation to you—” here he looked from Mr. Fellowes to his wife and so made one of them, “you who are so eminently fitted for the task—if you would make our children acquainted with the leading points in the history of religion. Would you also be so good as to direct them in their course of reading—our daughter at least, for Dacre, I believe, goes to Eton to-morrow? My wife and I have, as you know, been reluctantly obliged to relinquish our plans in this instance, owing to the pressure of strong ancestral bias which will, I fear, also compel us to allow the boy to devote himself to brutal pursuits, and finally to enter the army. His ordinary culture then in religious matters must be entrusted to the tutors of his school, who, no doubt, will fill his mind with strange vagaries. However,” he went on with a fixed melancholy look at the boy, “Dacre’s intellect is not of a high order, it matters little; but with Gwen very specially we desire your aid. We have discovered in her an unusual power of applying knowledge, and we would be glad if you would examine her from time to time, that she may have a sound and reasonable knowledge of the arguments on the one side of this very interesting question, before she considers those on the other; we may be accused,” he continued with a sigh, “and perhaps justly, of an unfair attempt to bias the girl’s mind by not arranging that the study of the opposed facts and arguments should run side by side with these. But in this matter, I fancy,” he said, with a little smile at his wife, “I fancy both my wife’s and my hereditary tendencies have rather handicapped our intelligence, I do trust with no ill-results to our children,” he added, embracing them both in one perturbed glance and sitting down rather wearily.
CHAPTER XI.
During the latter part of this discourse Mr. Fellowes had been sorting the books on the small table, and had them now arranged in two separate heaps.
Gwen had been gradually edging her chair near Mrs. Fellowes and her face was alight and eager.
Any new thing is always full of possibilities to a young creature moving out in all directions after experience. Besides, there was an undercurrent of quiet anxious affection running all through her father’s half-incomprehensible speech, that struck her and kept down for the moment her usual defiant attitude of mind when had up before her parents.
Dacre’s reflections, whenever the paternal eye was off him, partook of the most primitive simplicity.