In one of these impetuous walks, Mr. Southard came across an old minister, and went into his study with him, and told him something of his difficulties. He was too well aware of his own excitement to venture on a full explanation. Moreover, there was something soothing and silencing in the look of this man, in his tranquil, rather sad expression, his noble face, and snowy hair.
The old doctor leaned back in his chair, and calmly listened while his younger brother spoke, smiling indulgently now and then at some vivid turn of expression, some flash of the eyes, some impatient gesture.
Elderly ministers were always pleased with Mr. Southard, who would ask advice and instruction of them with a docility that was almost childlike. Such respect was very pleasant to those who seemed to have fallen upon evil days, who saw the prestige of the ministry departing, to whom boys had ceased to take off their caps, to whom even women did not look up as of yore.
"My dear brother," said the doctor gently when the other had ceased speaking, "you have made a mistake in attempting this work. I tell you frankly, we can never argue down the Catholic Church. All the old theologians know that, and avoid the contest. For perfect consistency with itself, and for wonderful complexity yet harmony of structure, the world has not seen, and will not again see its equal. It is the masterwork of the arch-enemy."
"So much the more reason why we should attack it with all our might!" exclaimed the other.
"No," replied the doctor, "That does not follow. There are dangers which must be shunned, not met; and this is one. As with wine, so with Romanism, 'touch not, taste not, handle not!'"
"That might be said to the laity," Mr. Southard persisted. "But for us who teach theology, we ought to search, we ought to examine. It is essential that we know the weapons of our adversary in order to destroy them."
"Truth has many phases, and so has belief," was the quiet reply. "We begin by believing that the doctrines we hold are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and that everything else is unmitigated falsehood. But after a while, according to the degree of candor of which we are capable, we begin to admit that every religion on earth has something reasonable to say for itself. There is a grain of good in Mohammedanism, in Brahminism, in Buddhism. We are now credibly assured that the old story of people throwing themselves under the wheels of Juggernaut is a myth. Hindu converts say that there were sometimes accidents at these religious celebrations, on account of the crowd, as we have accidents on the fourth of July; but that Juggernaut was a beneficent deity who took no pleasure in human pain, and whose attributes were a dim reflection of Christianity. I used to tell that story in perfect good faith whenever a collection was wanted for the missionaries. I don't tell it now. At last we learn to choose what seems to us best, to present its advantages to others, but not to insist that all shall agree with us under pain of eternal loss. When I hear a man crying out violently against the purely religious opinions of others, I always set him down as a man of narrow heart and narrower head. The principal reason for my well-known hostility to Catholicism is a political one.
"The fact is, brother, God's light falling on the mind of man, is like sunlight falling on a prism. It is no longer the pure white, but is shattered into colors which each one catches according to his humor. We ministers are not like Moses coming from the mountain with the whole law in his two hands, and a dazzling face to testify for him that he had been with God, he alone. I wish we were, brother! I wish we were!"
"But faith," exclaimed the other, "is there no faith?"