at
the same time as you learnt about common morality, from the same people,
in the same way. And you mean to say that if one may be disputed, so
may the other. Well, let that pass for the moment. But let me ask you
a question in turn. Did not this system of yours, which you swallowed
whole, contain all sorts of things that were merely local, the respect
for the chief of your clan, or such things; the village ghost, the
family feud, or what not? Did you not take in those things, too, along
with your theology?"

MacIan stared along the dim village road, down which the last straggler
from the inn was trailing his way.

"What you say is not unreasonable," he said. "But it is not quite true.
The distinction between the chief and us did exist; but it was never
anything like the distinction between the human and the divine, or
the human and the animal. It was more like the distinction between one
animal and another. But----"

"Well?" said Turnbull.

MacIan was silent.

"Go on," repeated Turnbull; "what's the matter with you? What are you
staring at?"

"I am staring," said MacIan at last, "at that which shall judge us
both."

"Oh, yes," said Turnbull in a tired way, "I suppose you mean God."

"No, I don't," said MacIan, shaking his head. "I mean him."

And he pointed to the half-tipsy yokel who was ploughing down the road.

"What do you mean?" asked the atheist.

"I mean him," repeated MacIan with emphasis. "He goes out in the early
dawn; he digs or he ploughs a field. Then he comes back and drinks ale,
and then he sings a song. All your philosophies and political systems
are young compared to him. All your hoary cathedrals, yes, even the
Eternal Church on earth is new compared to him. The most mouldering gods
in the British Museum are new facts beside him. It is he who in the end
shall judge us all."

And MacIan rose to his feet with a vague excitement.

"What are you going to do?"

"I am going to ask him," cried MacIan, "which of us is right."

Turnbull broke into a kind of laugh. "Ask that intoxicated
turnip-eater----" he began.

"Yes--which of us is right," cried MacIan violently. "Oh, you have long
words and I have long words; and I talk of every man being the image of
God; and you talk of every man being a citizen and enlightened enough to
govern. But if every man typifies God, there is God. If every man is an
enlightened citizen, there is your enlightened citizen. The first man
one meets is always m