And with this certainty surely we have all that is
necessary for an elemental religion. Come what may after
death, our duties lie clearly defined before us in this
life; and the ethical standard of all creeds agrees so
far that there is not likely to be any difference of
opinion as to that. The last reformation simplified
Catholicism. The coming one will simplify Protestantism.
And when the world is ripe for it another will come and
simplify that. The ever improving brain will give us an
ever broadening creed. Is it not glorious to think that
evolution is still living and acting--that if we have an
anthropoid ape as an ancestor, we may have archangels for
our posterity?
Well, I really never intended to inflict all this
upon you, Bertie. I thought I could have made my
position clear in a page or so. But you can see how one
point has brought up another. Even now I am leaving so
much unsaid. I can see with such certainty exactly
what you will say. "If you deduce a good Providence from
the good things in nature, what do you make of the evil?"
That's what you will say. Suffice it that I am inclined
to deny the existence of evil. Not another word will I
say upon the subject; but if you come back to it
yourself, then be it on your own head.
You remember that when I wrote last I had just
returned from visiting the Cullingworths at Avonmouth,
and that he had promised to let me know what steps he
took in appeasing his creditors.
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