ast it down on the table with a gesture of annoyance. "What a
fool one is to argue!" he said--and then stopping, he said, "But you wanted
something--what is it?" It was a question about some books which was soon
answered. Then he said: "Stay a few minutes, won't you, unless you are
pressed? I have got a tiresome letter, and if you will let me pour out my
complaint to you, I shall be all right--otherwise I shall go about
grumbling and muttering all day, and inventing repartees."

I sate down in a chair. "Yes, do tell me!" I said; "I have really very
little to do this morning, but finish up a bit of work."

He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. "I expect you ought to be at
work," he said, "and if I were conscientious, I should send you away--but
this is rather interesting, I think."

He meditated for a moment, and then went on. "It's this! I have got
involved in an argument with an old friend of mine who is a stiff sort of
High-Churchman--a parson. It's about religion, too, and it's no good
arguing about religion. You only confirm your adversary in his opinion. He
brings forth the bow, and makes ready the arrows within the quiver. I
needn't go into the argument. It's the old story. He objected to something
I said as 'vague,' and I was ass enough to answer him. He is one of those
people who is very strong on dogma, and treats his religion as if it were a
sort of trades' union. He thinks I am a kind of blackleg, not true to my
principles; or rather he thinks that I am not a Christian at all, and only
call myself one for the sake of the associations. Of course he triumphs
over me at every point. He is entrenched in what he calls a logical system,
and he fires off texts as if from a machine-gun. Of course my point is that
all strict denominations have got a severely logical system, but that they
can't all be sound, because they all deduce different conclusions from the
same evidence. All denominational positions are drawn up by able men, and I
imagine that an old theology like the Catholic theology is one of the most
ingenious constructions in the world from the logical point of view. But
the mischief of it all is that the data are incomplete, and many of them
are not mathematically demonstrable at all. They are all coloured by human
ideas and personalities and temperaments, and half of them are intuitions
and experiences, which vary at different times and under different
circumstances. All precise denominational systems