Children of clergy -- Fiction; Clergy -- England -- Fiction
"_By faith are ye justified_," Mr. Bullock and Mr. Smillie shouted
simultaneously.
Mark paused for a moment to consider whether argument was worth while,
and then he returned to the attack.
"I'm afraid I think that people like you do a great deal of damage to
Christianity. You only flatter human conceit. You get hold of some
emotional creature and work upon his feelings until in an access of
self-absorption he feels that the universe is standing still while the
necessary measures are taken to secure his personal salvation. You
flatter this poor soul, and then you go away and leave him to work out
his own salvation."
"If you're dwelling in Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus is dwelling in you,
you haven't got to work out your own salvation. He worked out your
salvation on the Cross," said Mr. Bullock contemptuously.
"And you think that nothing more is necessary from a man? It seems to me
that the religion you preach is fatal to human character. I'm not trying
to be offensive when I tell you that it's the religion of a tapeworm.
It's a religion for parasites. It's a religion which ignores the Holy
Ghost."
"Perhaps you'll explain your assertion a little more fully?" Mr. Bullock
invited with a scowl.
"What I mean is that, if Our Lord's Atonement removed all responsibility
from human nature, there doesn't seem much for the Holy Ghost to do,
does there?"
"Well, as it happens," said Mr. Bullock sarcastically, "Mr. Smillie and
I here do most of our work with the help of the Holy Ghost, so you've
hit on a bad example to work off your sneers on."
"I'm not trying to sneer," Mark protested. "But strangely enough just
before you came along I was thinking to myself how much I should like to
travel over England preaching about Our Lord, because I think that
England has need of Him. But I also think, now you've answered my
question, that _you_ are doing more harm than good by your
interpretation of the Holy Ghost."
"Mr. Smillie," interrupted Mr. Bullock in an elaborately off-hand voice,
"if you've counted the change and it's all correct, we'd better get a
move on. Let's gird up our loins, Mr. Smillie, and not sit wrestling
here with infidels."
"No, really, you must allow me," Mark persisted. "You've had it so much
your own way with your tracts and your talks this last few weeks that by
now you must be in need of a sermon yourselves. The gospel you preach is
only going to add to the complacency of England, and England is too
complacent already. All Northern nations are, which is why they are
Protestant. They demand a religion which will truckle to them, a
religion which will allow them to devote six days of the week to what is
called business and on the seventh day to rest and praise God that they
are not as other men."
"_Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's and unto God the things
that are God's_," said Mr. Smillie, putting the change in his pocket and
untying the nosebag from the horse.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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