“I don’t quite know what a Unitarian is,”
said Philip.
Weeks in his odd way again put his head on one side:
you almost expected him to twitter.
“A Unitarian very earnestly disbelieves in almost
everything that anybody else believes, and he has
a very lively sustaining faith in he doesn’t
quite know what.”
“I don’t see why you should make fun of
me,” said Philip. “I really want
to know.”
“My dear friend, I’m not making fun of
you. I have arrived at that definition after
years of great labour and the most anxious, nerve-racking
study.”
When Philip and Hayward got up to go, Weeks handed
Philip a little book in a paper cover.
“I suppose you can read French pretty well by
now. I wonder if this would amuse you.”
Philip thanked him and, taking the book, looked at
the title. It was Renan’s Vie de Jesus.
It occurred neither to Hayward nor to Weeks that the
conversations which helped them to pass an idle evening
were being turned over afterwards in Philip’s
active brain. It had never struck him before that
religion was a matter upon which discussion was possible.
To him it meant the Church of England, and not to
believe in its tenets was a sign of wilfulness which
could not fail of punishment here or hereafter.
There was some doubt in his mind about the chastisement
of unbelievers. It was possible that a merciful
judge, reserving the flames of hell for the heathen—Mahommedans,
Buddhists, and the rest—would spare Dissenters
and Roman Catholics (though at the cost of how much
humiliation when they were made to realise their error!),
and it was also possible that He would be pitiful to
those who had had no chance of learning the truth,—this
was reasonable enough, though such were the activities
of the Missionary Society there could not be many
in this condition—but if the chance had
been theirs and they had neglected it (in which category
were obviously Roman Catholics and Dissenters), the
punishment was sure and merited. It was clear
that the miscreant was in a parlous state. Perhaps
Philip had not been taught it in so many words, but
certainly the impression had been given him that only
members of the Church of England had any real hope
of eternal happiness.
One of the things that Philip had heard definitely
stated was that the unbeliever was a wicked and a
vicious man; but Weeks, though he believed in hardly
anything that Philip believed, led a life of Christian
purity. Philip had received little kindness in
his life, and he was touched by the American’s
desire to help him: once when a cold kept him
in bed for three days, Weeks nursed him like a mother.
There was neither vice nor wickedness in him, but
only sincerity and loving-kindness. It was evidently
possible to be virtuous and unbelieving.
