"Not a dissenter!" he exclaimed, with a sudden
hardening of his genial face.
I shook my head again.
"Ah, a little lax--a little remiss!" he said
playfully, and with an expression of relief.
"Professional men get into these ways. They have much to
distract them. At least, you cling fast, no doubt, to
the fundamental truths of Christianity?"
"I believe from the bottom of my heart," said I,
"that the Founder of it was the best and sweetest
character of whom we have any record in the history of
this planet."
But instead of soothing him, my conciliatory answer
seemed to be taken as a challenge. "I trust," said he
severely, "that your belief goes further than that. You,
are surely prepared to admit that He was an
incarnation of the God-head."
I began to feel like the old badger in his hole who
longs to have a scratch at the black muzzle which is so
eager to draw him.
"Does it not strike you," I said, "that if He were
but a frail mortal like ourselves, His life assumes a
much deeper significance? It then becomes a standard
towards which we might work. If, on the other hand, He
was intrinsically of a different nature to ourselves,
then His existence loses its point, since we and He start
upon a different basis. To my mind it is obvious that
such a supposition takes away the beauty and the moral of
His life. If He was divine then He COULD not sin,
and there was an end of the matter.
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