“Curiouser and curiouser,” he murmured, raising his eyes to the ceiling. “Where do the young people of the present day get their ideas, I wonder?”
“Well, chiefly from books like yours, I think,” she returned demurely. “I read your ‘Veritas’ a year ago.”
“Verily my sin has found me out!” he exclaimed. “Well, and at what conclusion have you arrived?”
“I think,” she said slowly, “that it’s impossible to tell whether there is or is not a God. If there is, I’m sure of one thing, He’s not the Bible God.”
“Why, may I ask?”
“Well, for many reasons, but chiefly because it’s so unjust to call people into the world without asking if they want to come, and then by way of adding insult to injury to tell them, directly they get here, that if they don’t believe that a man who lived thousands of years ago was God, they shall go to hell.”
“Bid!” said Helen, deprecatingly.
“But that is exactly what Christians are invited to believe,” she returned.
The Professor was silent. He looked at Bridget attentively, without speaking for some moments.
“Where did you learn that? Who has talked to you about these things?” he said at last.