"No," Hodder answered, patiently, "that is not what I mean. I ask whether these stories in any way enter into your life, become part of you, and tend to make you a more useful woman?"
"Well—I have never considered them in that way," she replied, a little perplexed.
"Do you believe in them yourself?"
"Why—I don't know,—I've never thought. I don't suppose I do, absolutely—not in those I have mentioned."
"And you think it right to teach things to your children which you do not yourself believe?"
"How am I to decide?" she demanded.
"First by finding out yourself what you do believe," he replied, with a touch of severity.
"Mr. Hodder!" she cried in a scandalized voice, "do you mean to say that I, who have been brought up in this church, do not know what Christianity is."
He looked at her and shook his head.
"You must begin by being honest with yourself," he went on, not heeding her shocked expression. "If you are really in earnest in this matter, I should be glad to help you all I can. But I warn you there is no achievement in the world more difficult than that of becoming a, Christian. It means a conversion of your whole being something which you cannot now even imagine. It means a consuming desire which,—I fear,—in consideration of your present mode of life, will be difficult to acquire."