Rufus began to have an uncomfortable feeling that he had scarcely treated this sacred figure with ordinary chivalry or fair play. The very ideals he stood for and advocated were among those the Man of Nazareth lived for and died for. From what, then, had he revolted? Against what had he protested?
He closed his eyes while the bells rang on, and tried to think. He could recall no word of Christ to which he could take exception, no single act that was not in itself a message of goodwill to men. Here was a life absolutely unselfish, and sacrificed in the pursuit of the noblest ideal. Here was teaching that struck at the greed and hypocrisy and lust of a corrupt age. Here was an influence, if taken by itself, which must always be for the common good.
Why, then, had he revolted? He had called Christianity a delusion and a snare. A benumbing superstition, an invention of priests for the enslavement of men and women. In his defence of the position he had taken up he had pointed out that Christianity had stood for slavery, for war, for oppression, for persecution, for greed, and for the rule of the strong over the rights and consciences of the weak. Had he been wrong in this contention? And if not, where was the discrepancy?
Could it be true that Christ stood for one thing, and Christianity for another? In other words, was the thing that bore the name of Christianity, Christianity at all? Did it bear anything but the most distant resemblance to that sweet and ennobling influence that Jesus breathed into the life of the world?
He became interested in the problem. The bells ceased their wild revel, and a little company of carol singers broke out in the front garden:
Hark! the glad sound, the Saviour comes,
The Saviour promised long,
Let every heart prepare a throne,
And every voice a song.
They sang well and tunefully, sustaining all the parts, and throwing heart and enthusiasm into the exercise. He listened with interest and pleasure. A new chord seemed to have been struck in his nature. A fresh window had been opened in his mind. A year ago the carol might have irritated him, and he would probably have laid the flattering unction to his soul, that he had outgrown a mouldy and moth-eaten superstition.
He wondered if loving Madeline Grover had made his heart sensitive to new influences, or if it was the possibility of a speedy escape from life that had turned his heart anew to these questions.