“Mr. Santley is like all his tribe, I suppose—a meddler and a mischief-maker. That is the worst of other-worldliness; it gives these traders in the Godhead, these peddlers who would give us in exchange for belief in their superstitions a bonus in paradise, an excuse for making this world unbearable. Well, my atheism, if you choose to call it so, against his theism. Mine at least keeps me a man among men, while his keeps him a twaddler among women.”
Haldane spoke with heat, for the word “atheist” had somehow stung him to the quick. This man, who rejected all outward forms of belief, and whose conversation was habitually ironical, was in his inmost nature deeply and sincerely religious; humbly reverent before the forces of nature; spiritually conscious of that Power beyond ourselves which makes for righteousness. True, he rejected the ordinary forms of theism; but he had, on the other hand, a deep though dumb reverence for the character of Christ, and he had no sympathy with such out-and-out materialists as Haeckel and hoc genus omne. For the rest, he was liberal-minded, and had no desire to interfere with his wife’s convictions; could smile a little at her simplicity, and would see no harm in her clerical predispositions, so long as the clergyman didn’t encroach too far on the domain of married life and domestic privacy.
His indignation did not last. Seeing his wife greatly agitated, and fearing that he had caused her pain, he drew her forehead down and kissed it; then, patting her cheek, he said—
“Forgive me, Nell. I did not mean to scold; but one does not like hard names. When any one calls me ‘atheist,’ I am like the old woman whom Cobbett called a ‘parallelogram;’ it is not the significance of the epithet, but its opprobrium, that rouses me. Besides, I do not like any man to abuse me—to my own wife.”
“No one does that,” she cried. “You know I would not listen.”
“I hope not, my dear.” He added after a little, looking at her thoughtfully and sadly, “Man and wife have fallen asunder before now, on this very question of religion. Well, rather than that should happen, I will let you convert me. Will that satisfy you?”
“I shall never be quite satisfied till I know that you believe as I do.”
“What is that, pray?”
“That there is a just God, who made and cherishes us; and that, through the blood of His Son we shall live again although we die!”
“Well, it is a beautiful creed, my dear.”