Think of it, and think of what he is, an atom among
atoms, standing at the meeting point of two
eternities! But what am I, a brother atom, that I
should judge him?
After all, I own to you, that it might have been
better had I listened to what he had to say, and refused
to give my own views. On the other hand, truth MUST
be as broad as the universe which it is to explain, and
therefore far broader than anything which the mind of man
can conceive. A protest against sectarian thought must
always be an aspiration towards truth. Who shall dare to
claim a monopoly of the Almighty? It would be an
insolence on the part of a solar system, and yet it is
done every day by a hundred little cliques of mystery
mongers. There lies the real impiety.
Well, the upshot of it all is, my dear Bertie, that
I have begun my practice by making an enemy of the man
who, of the whole parish, has the most power to injure
me. I know what my father would think about it, if he
knew.
And now I come to the great event of this morning,
from which I am still gasping. That villain Cullingworth
has cut the painter, and left me to drift as best I may.
My post comes at eight o'clock in the morning, and I
usually get my letters and take them into bed to read
them. There was only one this morning, addressed in his
strange, unmistakable hand. I made sure, of course, that
it was my promised remittance, and I opened it with a
pleasurable feeling of expectation.
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