stagnate like that. It is a grand thing to be able to tell it all to a
sympathetic listener--and the more so perhaps when he looks at it all
from another standpoint. It steadies and sobers one.

Those whom I love best are those who have least sympathy with my
struggles. They talk about having faith, as if it could be done by an
act of volition. They might as well tell me to have black hair instead
of red. I might simulate it perhaps by refusing to use my reason at all
in religious matters. But I will never be traitor to the highest thing
that God has given me. I WILL use it. It is more moral to use it and go
wrong, than to forego it and be right. It is only a little foot-rule,
and I have to measure Mount Everest with it; but it's all I have, and
I'll never give it up while there's breath between my lips.

With all respect to you, Bertie, it is very easy to be orthodox. A man
who wanted mental peace and material advancement in this world would
certainly choose to be so. As Smiles says--"A dead fish can float with
the stream, but it takes a man to swim against it." What could be more
noble than the start and the starter of Christianity? How beautiful
the upward struggle of an idea, like some sweet flower blossoming out
amongst rubble and cinders! But, alas! to say that this idea was a final
idea! That this scheme of thought was above the reason! That this
gentle philosopher was that supreme intelligence to which we cannot even
imagine a personality without irreverence!--all this will come to rank
with the strangest delusions of mankind. And then how clouded has become
that fine daybreak of Christianity! Its representatives have risen from
the manger to the palace, from the fishing smack to the House of Lords.
Nor is that other old potentate in the Vatican, with his art treasures,
his guards, and his cellars of wine in a more logical position. They are
all good and talented men, and in the market of brains are worth perhaps
as much as they get. But how can they bring themselves to pose as the
representatives of a creed, which, as they themselves expound it, is
based upon humility, poverty, and self-denial? Not one of them who
would not quote with approval the parable of the Wedding Guest. But
try putting one of them out of their due precedence at the next Court
reception. It happened some little time ago with a Cardinal, and England
rang with his protests. How blind not to see how they would spring at
one leap into the rea