A pause.—Then I:
'I think I ought to tell you something, sir, that I have not told you yet.'
'Aha?' he said.
'I am not a Christian, and … I do not say that I do not believe in a God, but I do not think that I believe in one.'
He put his hand on my shoulder again, and smiled:
'It will pass, it will pass! We most of us go in a circle now-a-days: most of us, that is, who are worth anything. Christian, or perhaps nothing at all, till seventeen: Atheist till twenty: Materialist till twenty-one (we soon get tired of that!): Deist till thirty, (though some of the wilder sort go in for a course of that nonsense called Pantheism): and then, either the old original Christianity again on to the end, or some slight modification of it. Take my word for it, boy, there is no religion worth calling a religion that does not take Christ and Christ's teaching as its original. And how much better is it to lift up your eyes from considering the shadow on the ground, to consider the One that casts the shadow, even Christ Jesus, who is as the standing figure that watches this our on-rolling earth, yearning for it as a mother for her wandering child, waiting for the hour when He shall take it to His bosom and for ever?' He paused. I kept silence.
We shook hands. I turned to go.
He called to me: I turned again:
'I shall not write to Craven.'
'Thank you, sir.'
We again shook hands, and I had my hand on the door, when he said:
' Stay a moment. You are my secretary—for a year. It is so agreed?'
'Yes, sir: as far as I am concerned.'
'Then allow me to give you your first quarter in advance. It is always—I always manage it in that way. You may be in want of a little ready money. And … as regards Messrs.—Messrs. X. Y. and Z., you will of course allow me to settle that with them myself.'
I stood irresolute.
