In one respect Lady Venniker’s view of religion was so different from that in which Gerald had been brought up, that it came upon him as a revelation. She looked upon religious belief not as in any sense a burden or an obligation, but as a boon. She was only sorry for a person who did not believe in God; she was not angry with him at all, she could not imagine how anybody could be angry. She thought of one who had no sense for spiritual things as of one who had no ear for music or no eye for colour. She was very anxious, not so much to restore faith to him as to restore him to faith, or, in other words, to place him again in such a position that faith might seem to him not difficult, but easy and natural. She would sometimes remark that if a person is not moved by a beautiful scene, it is not the scene which needs changing, but the person. Only she did not think the change was best made by preaching, still less by scolding, but by living oneself in the light of the Divine Life. Our Lord (she would say) had never argued very much about God; only He lived the God-like life, and it was impossible to live near Him and not believe in God. The sunshine does not argue with the night shadows; it simply shines them away. And if Gerald ever expressed any surprise at the pure intensity of her faith, she used to say that by her long months of lying on the couch of sickness she thought God had given her more insight into the realities of the spiritual world than He gave sometimes to the strong and healthy who had not so much leisure for meditation. Ethel Venniker, who was growing up from girlhood now into the dawn of a rich and beautiful womanhood, would often sit by when Gerald Eversley read some of his favourite passages of literature to her mother or discussed with her religious and other topics. Gerald could not help noticing the quick intelligence of her comments upon the reading, and how her cheek would flush at any deed or word of cruelty, and her eyes fill with tears at a tale of suffering. ‘O mamma,’ she cried once, ‘why is there so much misery in the world? I feel as if everybody ought to be happy as we are.’ ‘It is, I think,’ her mother replied, ‘that those who are as happy as we are may try to make others happy too.’ ‘But it is so hard to see other people suffer pain,’ said Ethel. ‘Yes, indeed it is,’ said her mother; ‘but life would lose its preciousness if there were no pain, no sorrow to be relieved; for then there would be no sympathy, and that is the most divine thing on earth.’