for me to reproach you, Father Antony—the worm of conscience will do that efficiently, God knows—but it is necessary I should answer your last letter at once in order to prove my position and give no countenance to yours. You ask me to suspend judgment on you, which means that I should pass judgment on Father David forthwith and dub him slanderer, at the bidding of one who has obviously betrayed a sacred trust.
‘With reference to your Upton sermon it is true I suggested its publication for the benefit of your mission. Unsuspicious of heterodoxy I failed at first to catch its true import, but quiet reflection afterwards revealed it to me as a subtle attack on Christianity itself, through the doctrine of evolution as applied to morals and religion.[1] How in the face of this you can still talk of your “religious opinions” is inexplicable, surely? I can just conceive you as an Agnostic with a shred of honesty remaining—but as any other odd fish—No! However it may be, God save you from the lowest depths of unbelief! We know too well the evolution of the apostate.
‘Yet I desire to speak without bitterness [?] and
- ↑ He refers to the sermon mentioned on p. 91; there were just two lines in it on the ‘evolution of morals and religion,’ and they were orthodox. The writer it was who came to thank me for the sermon—a most unusual proceeding—and ask for its publication. He repeated his praise and his request twenty-four hours afterwards. It was a plea for the better education of the clergy, and, although it hit my own colleagues in a tender spot (and on that very account so much gratified the laity) they congratulated me on it without a murmur.
