" He
would explain all this to the Archbishop of Canterbury by-and-by,
but as he could not get hold of him just now, it occurred to him
that he might experimentalise advantageously upon the viler soul of
the prison chaplain. It was only those who took the first and most
obvious step in their power who ever did great things in the end, so
one day, when Mr. Hughes -for this was the chaplain's name- was
talking with him, Ernest introduced the question of Christian
evidences, and tried to raise a discussion upon them. Mr. Hughes had
been very kind to him, but he was more than twice my hero's age, and
had long taken the measure of such objections as Ernest tried to put
before him. I do not suppose he believed in the actual objective truth
of the stories about Christ's Resurrection and Ascension any more than
Ernest did, but he knew that this was a small matter, and that the
real issue lay much deeper than this.
Mr. Hughes was a man who had been in authority for many years, and
he brushed Ernest on one side as if he had been a fly. He did it so
well that my hero never ventured to tackle him again, and confined his
conversation with him for the future to such matters as what he had
better do when he got out of prison; and here Mr.
Pages:
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487