courtesy, said
that I would not waste his time further, that I must go home and face
the difficulties, openly leaving the Church and taking the
consequences. Then for the first time his serenity was ruffled.

"I forbid you to speak of your disbelief," he cried. "I forbid you to
lead into your own lost state the souls for whom Christ died."

[Illustration: THOMAS SCOTT.]

Slowly and sadly I took my way back to the station, knowing that my
last chance of escape had failed me. I recognised in this famous
divine the spirit of priest-craft, that could be tender and pitiful to
the sinner, repentant, humble, submissive; but that was iron to the
doubter, the heretic, and would crush out all questionings of
"revealed truth," silencing by force, not by argument, all challenge
of the traditions of the Church. Out of such men were made the
Inquisitors of the Middle Ages, perfectly conscientious, perfectly
rigid, perfectly merciless to the heretic. To them heretics are
centres of infectious disease, and charity to the heretic is "the
worst cruelty to the souls of men." Certain that they hold, "by no
merit of our own, but by the mercy of our God, the one truth which He
has revealed," they can permit no questionings, they can accept nought
but the most complete submission. But while man aspires after truth,
while his mind yearns after knowledge, while his intellect soars
upward into the empyrean of speculation and "beats the air with
tireless wing," so long shall those who demand faith from him be met
by challenge for proof, and those who would blind him shall be
defeated by his resolve to gaze unblenching on the face of Truth, even
though her eyes should turn him into stone. It was during this same
autumn of 1872 that I first met Mr. and Mrs. Scott, introduced to them
by Mr. Voysey. At that time Thomas Scott was an old man, with
beautiful white hair, and eyes like those of a hawk gleaming from
under shaggy eyebrows. He had been a man of magnificent physique, and,
though his frame was then enfeebled, the splendid lion-like head kept
its impressive strength and beauty, and told of a unique personality.
Well born and wealthy, he had spent his earlier life in adventure in
all parts of the world, and after his marriage he had settled down at
Ramsgate, and had made his home a centre of heretical thought. His
wife, "his right hand," as he justly called her, was young enough to
be his daughter--a sweet, strong, gentle, noble woman, worth