,
and having accomplished this would proceed himself to administer a new
oath and see that it was kept. Alcohol seemed to have no effect whatever
on him. Though he was in the class above me, I met him frequently at a
club to which I had the honour to belong, then a suite of rooms over a
shop furnished with a pool and a billiard table, easy-chairs and a bar.
It has since achieved the dignity of a house of its own.

We were having, one evening, a "religious" argument, Cinibar, Laurens
and myself and some others. I can't recall how it began; I think
Cinibar had attacked the institution of compulsory chapel, which nobody
defended; there was something inherently wrong, he maintained, with a
religion to which men had to be driven against their wills. Somewhat to
my surprise I found myself defending a Christianity out of which I had
been able to extract but little comfort and solace. Neither Laurens
nor Conybear, however, were for annihilating it: although they took
the other side of the discussion of a subject of which none of us knew
anything, their attacks were but half-hearted; like me, they were still
under the spell exerted by a youthful training.

We were all of us aware of Ralph, who sat at some distance looking over
the pages of an English sporting weekly. Presently he flung it down.

"Haven't you found out yet that man created God, Hughie?" he inquired.
"And even if there were a personal God, what reason have you to think
that man would be his especial concern, or any concern of his whatever?
The discovery of evolution has knocked your Christianity into a cocked
hat."

I don't remember how I answered him. In spite of the superficiality
of his own arguments, which I was not learned enough to detect, I was
ingloriously routed. Darwin had kicked over the bucket, and that was all
there was to it.... After we had left the club both Conybear and Laurens
admitted they were somewhat disturbed, declaring that Ralph had gone too
far. I spent a miserable night, recalling the naturalistic assertions
he had made so glibly, asking myself again and again how it was that the
religion to which I so vainly clung had no greater effect on my actions
and on my will, had not prevented me from lapses into degradation. And
I hated myself for having argued upon a subject that was still sacred.
I believed in Christ, which is to say that I believed that in some
inscrutable manner he existed, continued to dominate the world and had
suffered