"There is not a good father in Scotland that would do the like of that, Jessy." "Then be a bad father and do it. I am sure you may risk the consequences." "These children are a great anxiety to me. Something is wrong if they will not listen to their father. I am very much worried, Jessy. I will go and unpack those books and then read awhile." "Listen to me, Ian. You say that now you have perfect Faith. When you have gone through those books, your Faith will be in rags and tatters." "I do not fear. There is no danger but in our own cowardice. We are ourselves the rocks of our own doubt. The danger lies in fearing danger. I made a promise to the dead. I cannot break it, Jessy. Such a promise is a finality." "You made that promise by the special instigation of the devil, Ian." "Jessy, you never read these books. The men who wrote them were morally good men, seekers after truth and righteousness. I believe so much of them." "You are partly right. I have never read the books, but I have read long, elaborate, wearisome reviews of them. That was enough, and more than enough, for me." "Why did you read such reviews?" "Because I wanted to know whether Donald and Marion should be warned against them. I think they ought to be warned." "You can leave that duty to me. If I think it necessary, they will receive the proper instruction." "I wonder the government allows such books to be published. They will ruin the coming generations. The Romans had not much of a religion, but when they began to doubt it they went madly into vice and atheism and national ruin. If men have such wicked thoughts as are in the books you are going to read, they ought to keep them in their own hearts. If they could not do that, I would put them in prison, and take pen and ink from them." "Do be more charitable, Jessy. The Bible teaches----" "It teaches us to let such destructive books alone. God himself specially warned the Israelites not even 'to make inquiry' about the religion of the Canaanites; they did it, of course, and you know the result as well as I do. And men these days are so set up with their long dominion and the varieties of strange knowledge they have accepted that they do not require any Eve to pull this apple of disobedience and doubt of God. They manage it themselves." "Jessy Caird, you have no right to impute evil to either men or books that are only known to you through some critic's opinion." Then he rose and, standing with uplifted eyes, said with singular emotion: "'O God, that men would see a little clearer! Or judge less harshly where they cannot see. O God, that men would draw a little nearer To one another! They'd be nearer Thee!'" With these words he left Jessy and went to the room where the fateful books were waiting for him. And Jessy could say no more. But she threw her knitting out of her hands and let them drop hopelessly into her lap.