So too with the Creeds. I believed every one of them as recited by Mr Jeremy, and I found the Athanasian the most convincing of them all. The Sundays set down for the use of that Creed--and its use was never omitted in our parish--were the most serious Sundays of the year to Mr Jeremy, and the vigour of his voice and his attitude, and the fervour of his participation, made a spectacle to be remembered. I wish William James might have seen it before he wrote his _Varieties of Religions Experience_; it would have given him a new chapter. At the very first words Jeremy joined in like a trained sprinter starting for a race; and though the clergyman rattled through the clauses as fast as he could pronounce, or mispronounce, the syllables, the farmer headed him by a word or two from the very first, gradually increasing his lead as the race proceeded until towards the end he was a full sentence to the good. It was evident that to Jeremy's mind, and perhaps to the clergyman's also, a subtle relation existed between the truth of the Creed and the speed with which it could be rendered. Long before the end was in sight, and while Jeremy was still battling with various "incomprehensibles," the rest of the competitors had retired from sheer exhaustion; the children were munching sweets; the lads and lasses were ogling one another at the back of the church; Mrs Jeremy was staring in front of her, wondering perhaps if the careless Susan would remember that onion sauce _always_ went with a leg of mutton on Sundays; while Lady Agatha and Lady Sybil--I grieve to record this, but my historical conscience compels me--sat down. As to those of us who remained attentive to what was going on, our confidence in Catholic Truth gradually took the form of a certainty that the farmer would come in first and the clergyman be nowhere. So it always proved. Standing in the pew behind that of Jeremy, I could see the muscles of his mighty back working up and down beneath the broadcloth of his Sunday coat; and as I looked from him to the easily winded gentleman from Pusey House who was running against him in the chancel, I could not help reflecting how ridiculous, nay, how unsportsmanlike, it was to allow two men so ill matched to compete for the same event. This, no doubt, was the first symptom that, in spite of the standing attitude, I was going to sleep. But before it could happen I was suddenly brought to my senses by the _fortissimo e prestissimo_ of Jeremy's conclusion. "He _cannot_ be saved," he roared out, banging his prayer-book down on the book-rest, with a defiant look around him, as though the whole Liberal Party were in church. "He _cannot_ be saved,"--and visions of all sorts of people boiling in coppers filled the mental eye.