"And all this came of Helena's letter from Khartoum?"
"Was suggested by it," said the Consul-General.
"You told me she was there, but I could not imagine what she was doing—what her errand was. Good heavens, what a revenge! It makes one shiver! Carries one back to another age!"
"A better age," said the Consul-General. "A more natural and less hypocritical age at all events."
"The age of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, perhaps—the age of a hot and consuming God."
"Yes, a God of wrath, a God of anger, a God who did something, not the pale, meek, forgiving, anæmic God of our day—a God who does nothing."
"The God of our day is at least a God of mercy, of pity, and of love," said the Sirdar.
"He is a lay figure, my friend, who permits wrong without avenging it—in short, no God at all, but an illogical, inconsequential, useless creature."
The Sirdar made no further resistance, and the Consul-General went on to defend Helena's impulse of vengeance by assailing the Christian spirit of forgiveness.
"There was at least something natural and logical as well as majestic and magnificent in the old ideal of Jehovah, but your new ideal of Jesus is contrary to nature and opposed to the laws of life. 'Love your enemies.' 'Do good to them that hate you.' 'If a man smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.' 'Resist not evil!' 'If any man take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also!' Impossible! Fatal! If this is Christianity, I am no Christian. When I am hit, I hit back. When I am injured, I demand justice. The only way! Any other would lead to the triumph of the worst elements in humanity. And what I do everybody else does—everybody—though the hypocrisy of the modern world will not permit people to admit it."