Tressor moved, for him, a trifle impatiently. "You think so, do you?" he said. "Oh, yes," said Paul, much more sure of his ground now. "I confess I do not. What of the discrepancies in the story? What of the late additions to the text? And what, still more, of the atmosphere in which it was written? But I grant you, in a different sense, that the Bible picture is simple enough. Jesus is to me a simple, brave, kindly man whose gospel has never been transcended and whose spirit will never die. If you allow for Eastern imagination and Catholic reductions, it is indeed simple enough." Paul heard bewildered. He knew, of course, that Higher Critics existed, a strange, disloyal, un-Christian few, mostly to be found in Germany--and left there by sensible people. It ought, perhaps, to be explained that he had taken a scholarship in history and was reading for that Tripos. At Claxted, a theological degree seemed unnecessary. The Gospel was so simple that the Bishop's examination, to be taken in due course, was training all sufficient for a Christian minister. Gipsy Smith, for example, knew little theology. "But," he stammered, "our Lord was God. He died to save us. If He had not been God, what power could there have been in the Cross? What merit in His Blood?" A little silence fell on them all. Tressor, after his fashion, was smoking cigarettes in hasty puffs, extinguishing one after another in his ash-tray half burned. Manning stared thoughtfully and a little cynically into the fire. Paul's questions hung in the air, and his listeners' silence answered them. "I wonder how long you will believe all that," queried Tressor gravely. "All my life," answered Paul resolutely, his embarrassment gone. "I hope to spend it preaching the Gospel. It seems to me there is nothing else worth doing. What good is there in"--(he nearly said "all this," but checked himself in time)--"in learning, comfort, art, music, anything, except as aids to this? What else matters besides this? Sir, surely you see that!" It was odd that the don should echo Maud Thornton, but he did. "You would make us all foreign missionaries, I suppose," he said. Only for a moment did Paul hesitate. Then: "Yes," he said simply, "I suppose I would. Not all are called to the same sort of work, of course, but it should be all to that end." Again his listeners exchanged glances, but this time they could afford to smile. "I fear I should make a poor missionary," said Tressor. Paul looked at him, distressed. He had not meant to bring the conversation to such a head, but what else could he have said? The don saw his uneasiness, and rose, smiling.