第38章 Hard at Work (4)

"Dear me," she said, "it never struck me, this is our Lenten penance! Now, wouldn't any one looking in fancy we were poor Romanists without an indulgence?""Certainly without any self-indulgence," said Tom, who never lost an opportunity of making a bad pun.

"It would be a great indulgence to stop eating," said Erica, sighing over the soup yet to be swallowed.

"Do you think it is more inspiriting to fast in order to save one's soul than it is to pay the chieftain's debts? I wish I could honestly say, like the little French girl in her confession: 'J'ai trop mang.'"Tom dearly loved that story, he was exceeding fond of getting choice little anecdotes from various religious newspapers, especially those which dealt in much abuse of the Church of Rome, and he retailed them CON AMORE.Erica listened to several, and laughed a good deal over them.

"I wonder, though, they don't see how they play into our hands by putting in these things," she said after Tom had given her a description of some ludicrous attack made by a ritualist on an evangelical."I should have thought they would have tried to agree whenever they could, instead of which they seem almost as spiteful to each other as they are to us.""They'd know better if they'd more than a grain of sense between them," said Tom, sweepingly, "but they haven't; and as they're always playing battledoor and shuttlecock with that, it isn't much good to either.Of course they play into our hands.I believe the spiteful ultra-high paper, and the spiteful ultra-low paper do more to promote atheism than the 'Idol-Breaker' itself.""How dreadful it must be for men like Mr.Osmond, who see all round, and yet can't stop what they must think the mischief.Mr.

Osmond has been here this afternoon."

"Ah, now, he's a stunning fellow, if you like," said Tom."He's not one of the pig-headed narrow-minded set.How he comes to be a parson I can't make out.""Well, you see, from their point of view it is the best thing to be; I mean he gets plenty of scope for work.I fancy he feels as much obliged to speak and teach as father does.""Pity he's not on our side," said Tom; "they say he's a first-rate speaker.But I'm, afraid he is perfectly crazy on that point;he'll never come over."

"I don't think we've a right to put the whole of his religiousness down to a mania," said Erica."Besides, he is not the sort of man to be even a little mad, there's nothing the least fanatical about him.""Call it delusion if you like it better.What's in a name? The thing remains the same.A man can't believe what is utterly against reason without becoming, as far as that particular belief is concerned, unreasonable, beyond the pale of reason, therefore deluded, therefore mad."Erica looked perplexed; she did not think Tom's logic altogether good, but she could not correct it.There was, however, a want of generosity about the assertion which instantly appealed to her fine sense of honor.

"I can't argue it out," she said at last, "but it doesn't seem to me fair to put down what we can't understand in other people to madness; it never seemed to me quite fair for Festus to accuse Paul of madness when he really had made a splendid defense, and it doesn't seem fair that you should accuse Mr.Osmond of being mad.""Only on that one point," said Tom."Just a little touched, you know.How else can you account for a man like that believing what he professes to believe?""I don't know," said Erica, relapsing into perplexed silence.

"Besides," continued Tom, "you cry out because I say they must be just a little touched, but they accuse us of something far worse than madness, they accuse us of absolute wickedness.""Not all of them," said Erica.

"The greater part," said Tom."How often do you think the chieftain meets with really fair treatment from the antagonists?"Erica had nothing to say to this.The harshness and intolerance which her father had constantly to encounter was the great grief of her life, the perpetual source of indignation, her strongest argument against Christianity.