ope I am a religious person myself, and yet,
for example, I cannot give an unreserved assent to the whole of the
Athanasian Creed."

"The Athanasian Creed is the most splendid ecclesiastical lyric ever
poured forth by the genius of man. I give to every clause of it an
implicit assent. It does not pretend to be divine; it is human, but the
Church has hallowed it, and the Church ever acts under the influence of
the Divine Spirit. St. Athanasius was by far the greatest man that
ever existed. If you cavil at his creed, you will soon cavil at other
symbols. I was prepared for infidelity in London, but I confess, my dear
Ferrars, you alarm me. I was in hopes that your early education would
have saved you from this backsliding."

"But let us be calm, my dear Nigel. Do you mean to say, that I am to
be considered an infidel or an apostate, because, although I fervently
embrace all the vital truths of religion, and try, on the whole, to
regulate my life by them, I may have scruples about believing, for
example, in the personality of the Devil?"

"If the personality of Satan be not a vital principle of your religion,
I do not know what is. There is only one dogma higher. You think it is
safe, and I daresay it is fashionable, to fall into this lax and
really thoughtless discrimination between what is and what is not to be
believed. It is not good taste to believe in the Devil. Give me a
single argument against his personality which is not applicable to the
personality of the Deity. Will you give that up; and if so, where are
you? Now mark me; you and I are young men--you are a very young man.
This is the year of grace 1839. If these loose thoughts, which you
have heedlessly taken up, prevail in this country for a generation or
so--five and twenty or thirty years--we may meet together again, and I
shall have to convince you that there is a God."

CHAPTER LV

The balance of parties in the House of Commons, which had been virtually
restored by Sir Robert Peel's dissolution of 1834, might be said to be
formally and positively established by the dissolution of parliament
in the autumn of 1837, occasioned by the demise of the crown. The
ministerial majority became almost nominal, while troubles from all
quarters seemed to press simultaneously upon them: Canadian revolts,
Chartist insurrections, Chinese squabbles, and mysterious complications
in Central Asia, which threatened immediate hostilities with Persia, and
even with one