"That, then," said Manning, "is my business. My soul is my own, at any rate."
"No," said Paul, "it was bought with a price. 'Ye are not your own.'"
"I was not aware that I had put mine up for sale," retorted Manning, "and if it was purchased, on your own showing, some nineteen hundred years before it came into my possession at all, it seems to me that I don't get much of a chance."
"Christ bought you to set you free," said Paul, and he mentally recalled a favourite anecdote of his concerning a travelling Englishman and a freed slave. For the first time, perhaps, he decided not to use it in this connection.
"Thanks," said Manning drily. "Then I claim my freedom."
"But," capped Paul, "you have to choose whom you will serve."
Manning flicked off his cigarette ash with a little gesture. "Look here," he said, "words are words. They serve a purpose, but they are not ends in themselves. St. Paul used Jewish and Rabbinic phraseology, and appealed to his day with metaphors. Thus—it's as old as the hills—if you talk of purchase, you imply a seller. Did Christ buy me from Satan or from Almighty God or from whom? So far as I am aware, the point is not even yet settled. Nor is it meant to be settled. It implies a conception of the universe generally that is outworn. Neither you nor I are ancient Jews. A good deal of water has flowed under the bridges since Habakkuk."
Paul said nothing. In point of fact, he hardly understood. This was all new to him.
"Well, I see God in art and beauty. He has given me a soul that finds Him there, rather than in sacrifice of the fat of rams and the thunder of Sinai. I take it, even you do not regard Him as tied to pitch-pine, corrugated iron and Moody and Sankey's hymns. He is not to me a tribal deity, needing propitiation and ordering the slaughter of women and children, flocks and herds. 'Nothing but the Blood of Jesus,' sounded all right on Parker's Piece and offers an emotional stimulus to uneducated people. But when you come to definitions, the thought of the Old Testament leaves me rather cold. How in the world can blood wash me clean?"
"But you believe in the Bible, surely?" queried Paul, puzzled and honestly grieved.