But the impression left upon my mind was that we were engaged in no mere scholastic discussion; it was no mere intellectually satisfactory creed which was sought: it was something deeper and more abiding than anything which may be modified in form from age to age; the soul needs an anchorage, and to find it there must be no ignoring of facts and no juggling with them once they are found. In illustration of this I may relate how once, when walking with him among the heather-clad heights round Aldworth, he spoke of the apparent dualism in Nature: the forces of darkness and light seemed to meet in conflict. "If I were not a Christian," he said, "I should be perhaps a Parsee."[73] He felt, however, that if once we accepted the view that this life was a time of education, then the dark things might be found to have a meaning and a value. In the retrospect hereafter the pain and suffering would seem trivial. I think that this idea must have taken hold of his thought as we were conversing; for he suddenly stopped in his walk, and, standing amid the purple landscape, he declaimed the lines, then unpublished: The Lord spake out of the skies To a man good and a wise: "The world and all within it Will be nothing in a minute." Then a beggar began to cry: "Give me food or else I die." Is it worth his while to eat, Or mine to give him meat, If the world and all within it Were nothing the next minute? He once quoted to me Hinton's view that we were not in a position to judge the full meaning of life; that we were in fact looking at the wrong side of things. We saw the work from the underside, and we could not judge of the pattern which was perhaps clear enough on the upper side. Next day I was able to remind him that he had approved this view of life. He was not well, and I think that the darker aspects loomed larger in his mind; at any rate, he was speaking more gloomily than usual. When I remarked that God did not take away men till their work was done, he said, "He does; look at the promising young fellows cut off." Then I brought up Hinton's theory and illustration, and asked whether we could judge when a man had finished his appointed work. Immediately he acquiesced; the view evidently satisfied him.