trines without further delay. The Athanasian Creed was not
necessarily true because the fire would not light or the sword would not
cut, nor, excuse me, were all your old beliefs wrong because your prayer
was unanswered. It is an ancient story, that we cannot tell whether the
answering of our petitions will be good or ill for us. Of course I do
not know anything about such things, but it seems to me rash to suppose
that Providence is going to alter the working of its eternal laws merely
to suit the passing wishes of individuals--wishes, too, that in many
cases would bring unforeseen sorrows if fulfilled. Besides I daresay
that the poor child is happier dead than he would have been had he
lived. It is not an altogether pleasant world for most of us."

"Yes, Mr. Bingham, I know, and I daresay that I should have got over the
shock in time, only after that I began to read. I read the histories of
the religions and compared them, and I read the works of those writers
who have risen up to attack them. I found, or I thought that I found,
the same springs of superstition in them all--superstitions arising from
elementary natural causes, and handed on with variations from race to
race, and time to time. In some I found the same story, only with a
slightly altered face, and I learned, moreover, that each faith denied
the other, and claimed truth for itself alone.

"After that, too, I went to the college and there I fell in with a lady,
one of the mistresses, who was the cleverest woman that I ever knew,
and in her way a good woman, but one who believed that religion was the
curse of the world, and who spent all her spare time in attacking it in
some form or other. Poor thing, she is dead now. And so, you see, what
between these causes and the continual spectacle of human misery which
to my mind negatives the idea of a merciful and watching Power, at last
it came to pass that the only altar left in my temple is an altar to the
'Unknown God.'"

Geoffrey, like most men who have had to think on these matters, did not
care to talk about them much, especially to women. For one thing, he was
conscious of a tendency to speech less reverent than his thought. But he
had not entered Beatrice's church of Darkness, indeed he had turned
his back on it for ever, though, like most people, he had at different
periods of his past life tarried an hour in its porch. So he ventured on
an objection.

"I am no theologian," he said, "and I am not fon