'It is a book written by an atheist for atheists; it might almost be called the Atheist's Bible, Jessie.' 'And did you never speak to your mother about uncle Bryan's religion? 'I have tried to, but mother is like me; there are some things she does not like to speak of.' 'And this is one of them,' said Jessie, following out her train of thought; 'and out of your love for her, when she said, "Let us talk of something else, my dear," you have talked of something else.' 'That is so, Jessie. It is almost as if you overheard what we said.' 'It is easy to see into your mother's heart, Chris. She did not like to speak about uncle Bryan's religion, because she loves him, and because she wants you to love him. Now, if it had been anything that would have made uncle Bryan stand out in a good light, she would have encouraged you to speak about it.' 'That is true enough, Jessie.' 'Chris, your mother is all heart.' 'She is everything that is good, if you mean that?' 'I do mean that; she is the best, the sweetest, the dearest woman in the world. Ah, if I were like her! But I am very, very different. What I say and what I think comes more often out of my head than out of my heart. Chris, it is impossible for an atheist to be a good man!' I saw the pit we were walking into, but I had not the skill to lead Jessie away from it. 'A man who does not believe in God,' she exclaimed, 'cannot believe in anything good. No wonder that he is what he is. I am not satisfied--I am not satisfied! It is shocking--shocking to think of!' She shook her head at herself, and I listened to her words in no pleasant frame of mind. She was showing me an entirely new phase in her character. It was Jessie reasoning, and reasoning on the most solemn of subjects. 'Why,' she continued, 'God made everything that's good, and if uncle Bryan is an atheist, he is a bad man. And yet your mother loves him.' 'That she does, Jessie, with all her heart.' 'She couldn't love anything that's bad. If you were an atheist, Chris, I should hate you.' 'Thank God, I am not, Jessie; even if I were, you could make me different. But I don't like to hear you speak like this,' I said, reproaching myself bitterly for having been the cause of this conversation; for when I had told Jessie that uncle Bryan was an atheist I had spoken with a full measure of dislike towards him. 'Mother does not reason as you do. After all, I may be mistaken, Jessie, and we maybe doing him a great injustice. I know so much that is good of him--more than you possibly imagine.' And then I told her what, from a false feeling of shame, I had hitherto withheld from her--the story of my mother's hard battle with the world when we came to London, and of uncle Bryan's noble behaviour to us when we were sunk in the bitterest poverty. 'All the time I have known him, Jessie, I have never known him to be guilty of an unjust action. He is as upright and honest a man as ever lived. Can such a man be a bad man?'