'Ten years ago I was a clergyman of the Church of England. I had just been presented to a living in Worthing. It was such an attractive church, not old, but vey beautifully decorated, six candles on the altar, Reservation in the Lady Chapel, and an excellent heating apparatus which burned coke in a little shed by the sacristy door, no graveyard, just a hedge of golden privet between the church and the rectory.
'As soon as I moved in my mother came to keep house for me. She bought some chintz, out of her own money, for the drawing‑room curtains. She used to be "at home" once a week to the ladies of the congregation. One of them, the dentist's wife, gave me a set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica for my study. It was all very pleasant until my Doubts began
'Were they as bad as all that? asked Paul.
'They were insuperable, said Mr Prendergast; 'that is why I am here now. But I expect T am boring you?
'No, do go on. That's to say, unless you find it painful to think about.
'I think about it all the time. It happened like this, quite suddenly. We had been there about three months, and my mother had made great friends with some people called Bundle ‑ rather a curious name. I think he was an insurance agent until he retired. Mrs Bundle used very kindly to ask us in to supper on Sundays after Evensong. They were pleasant informal gatherings, and I used quite to look forward to them. I can see them now as they sat there on this particular evening; there was my mother and Mr and Mrs Bundle, and their son, rather a spotty boy, I remember, who used to go in to Brighton College by train every day, and Mrs Bundle's mother, a Mrs Crump, rather deaf, but a very good Churchwoman, and Mrs Aber ‑ that was the name of the dentist's wife who gave me the Encyclopaedia Britannica ‑ and old Major Ending, the people's warden. I had preached two sermons that day besides taking the children's Bible-class in the afternoon, and I had rather dropped out of the conversation. They were all talking away quite happily about the preparations that were being made on the pier for the summer season, when suddenly, for no reason at all, my Doubts began. He paused, and Paul felt constrained to offer some expression of sympathy.
'What a terrible thing! he said.
'Yes, I've not known an hour's real happiness since. You see, it wasn't the ordinary sort of Doubt about Cain's wife or the Old Testament miracles or the consecration of Archbishop Parker. I'd been taught how to explain all those while I was at college. No, it was something deeper than all that. I couldn't understand why God had made the world at all. There was my mother and the Bundles and Mrs Crump talking away quite unconcernedly while I sat there wrestling with this sudden assault of doubt. You see how fimdamental that is. Once granted the first step, I can see that everything else follows ‑ Tower of Babel, Babylonian captivity, Incarnation, Church, bishops, incense, everything ‑ but what I couldn't see, and what I can't see now, is, why did it all begin?
'I asked my bishop; he didn't know. He said that he didn't think the point really arose as far as my practical duties as a parish priest were concerned. I discussed it with my mother. At first she was inclined to regard it as a passing phase. But it didn't pass, so finally she agreed with me that the only honourable thing to do was to resign my living; she never really recovered from the shock, poor old lady. It was a great blow after she had bought the chintz and got so friendly with the Bundles.
A bell began ringing down a distant passage.