It Never Can Happen Again

by William De Morgan

"Do you, or do you not, think a parent is bound to supply a child with a religious faith? Failing the parent, is it the duty of the guardian—of the State? That seems to me to lie at the root of all questions of religious education. But our question is about the parent's duty when one exists. Exempli gratiâ, yourself and Master Bob! It seems to me that your policy was one of evasion, and that the devolution of responsibility upon your wife was a rather cowardly evasion. Especially as her responsibility could only be for her own children!"

Challis's hand pressed the arm he held a little more warmly. There was certainly no offence. "You are perfectly right, Rector," said he. "I took a mean advantage of a little local patch of obscurantism to get my boy inoculated in his youth with a popular form of Christianity, in order that his father's heretical ideas should not stand in the way of his advancement. But I lay this unction to my soul; that if ever he sees his way to a bishopric, nothing I have ever said to him need stand in his way.... Oh no!—there is no idea at present of his entering the Church. The Army is engaging his attention at this moment—and phonographs.... But go on pitching into me about cowardly evasions."

"I am afraid you are incorrigible, Challis. I can't help laughing sometimes. But for all that, I think you were wrong. You were wrong towards your wife, because, instead of helping her, you made her task difficult. What can be harder than to turn a child's mind into any channel with a strong counter-influence, as a father's must needs be, constantly at work against one's efforts?"

Challis smiled in his turn. "It was Marianne, you see," he said. "I can't express it. The position was harder to deal with than you think." He then went on to tell one or two incidents connected with Bob's early indoctrinations of the Scriptures. How, for instance, when Marianne once crushed him under, "You know perfectly well, Titus, what the words of Our Lord were," and followed it up with a quotation, he had remarked in the presence of Master Bob that at any rate Jesus Christ didn't speak English; and then she had flounced out of the room white with anger, and not spoken to him for two days; and when she did at last, it was to declare that if there was to be any more blasphemy and impiety before the boy, she should go straight away to Tulse Hill, and not come back. Also, when he once innocently remarked that he believed there was now a tram-line from Joppa to Jerusalem, she had become very violent, and accused him of speaking of Jerusalem as if it was a place in Bradshaw.

The Rector considered, and then said: "I was just going to say Mrs. Challis must be unusually ill-informed, when I happened to recollect what a number of very good people are exactly like her. In fact, a very dear old friend of mine"—he was thinking of the Rev. Mr. Fossett—"is rather shocked when he hears Our Lord spoken of as a real person; and with him it isn't exactly ignorance, because he's a priest in orders. It's a phase of mind that seems to have its source in a belief that nothing can be both Good and Actual." He stopped abruptly, as one who changes a subject. "By-the-bye, should you have said the little person looked delicate—that little Lizarann, I mean?"

Challis had stopped to think. "N-no!" he said. "On the contrary, I thought she had such a good colour." On which the Rector said, "Ah—well!" and then more cheerfully, "Well—well!—I suppose it's all right. However, we must keep our eyes open."

"Isn't the child strong? She's a funny little party."

"Why, no!—they say she isn't. Isn't strong, I mean. Never mind! What were we talking about?"

"People and Scripture, don't you know. Things being actual...."

"I know. I was just going to tell you what dear old Gus—my friend—won't forgive me for. I'll risk it. Only don't you make copy of it.... Very well!—mind you don't.... It was this. Some years ago I was urging him to marry, and he pleaded in extenuation of his celibacy that he wished to model his life on Our Lord's in every point within his power. 'It's all very fine,' I said. 'But why do you suppose the Apostles did not model their lives on Our Lord's? Do you mean that they all led celibate lives?' Gus said this was almost an insinuation that Our Lord was or had been married. I'm sorry to say I couldn't help saying, 'Can you produce a single particle of direct evidence that Our Lord was not a widower when John baptized Him?' Gus hardly spoke to me all that day. But what hurt him was the realism of the expression 'widower.' The case was exactly on all fours with your wife's."