“You think a man must be a second Plato to start a new philosophic system--a new religion, in fact! Why, look you, parson, most undergraduates have doubts about a Great First Cause even; and there are monstrous few university men who don’t expect to make a new religion some time or other. They have the disease, like measles or whooping-cough, and get over it and are better afterwards.” Conyers had an idea that among men of true learning the Christian religion was treated as a lot of old women’s fables, while all systems of philosophy were regarded with the utmost respect. This, too, he expressed to Bulstrode. “Don’t know, I’m sure, how it is in this queer country,” answered Bulstrode, pouring himself out a ninth cup of tea, “but, comparing things according to their size, the biggest system is small compared with that enormous fact of Christianity. Mind, I ain’t a Christian myself, though I lean that way, and when I’m drunk and my mind works rapidly, and I see the relations of things better, I lean that way still more; for, know you, Wat Bulstrode drunk is a better man than Wat Bulstrode sober.” If this was meant as a hint for Conyers to produce something stronger than tea, it failed of its object, for not even to make Bulstrode talk like a Christian, would Conyers so far outrage his conscience as to give liquor to a man already too fond of it. Bulstrode really threw out the remark more as a test of the man than a hint, but when Conyers refused the bait a strange glitter came into Bulstrode’s dull eyes. Here was that honest man, whose untarnished integrity was like the sun at noonday. Bulstrode, in admiration for this, conceived the idea of establishing in Conyers a sincere belief of Christianity; for, half-educated, starved spiritually, and the prey of scruples that were really doubts, Conyers scarcely knew where he stood. So, then, the extraordinary spectacle was presented of a man little better than a heathen preaching the gospel to a man after God’s own heart. Bulstrode was fully sensible of the grotesqueness of the thing, but all disposition to laugh was checked by the sublime earnestness with which Conyers followed him. Bulstrode marshalled with singular power and precision all the arguments in favour of the immortality of the soul, beginning with Plato. He then argued profoundly and subtly in favour of a revealed religion. He pointed out all the weak spots in the various substitutes for religion that had been offered in various ages, and laid bare their defects mercilessly. He sat until late in the night talking, Conyers’s eyes all the time growing less and less sombre. “Now,” said Bulstrode, getting up toward midnight, “I’ve given you all the weapons I have, and taught you how to thrust and parry the best I know how; and, hang me, parson, I’ve almost argued myself into being a Christian too while I’ve been trying to convert you!”