afternoon of early August that
this opportunity presented itself. They sat together in the study, and
Martin was in a graver mood than usual, not much disposed to talk, but
a willing listener. There had been mention of a sermon at the
Cathedral, in which the preacher declared his faith that the maturity
of science would dispel all antagonisms between it and revelation.

'The difficulties of the unbeliever,' said Peak, endeavouring to avoid
a sermonising formality, though with indifferent success, 'are, of
course, of two kinds; there's the theory of evolution, and there's
modern biblical criticism. The more I study these objections, the less
able I am to see how they come in conflict with belief in Christianity
as a revealed religion.'

'Yet you probably had your time of doubt?' remarked the other, touching
for the first time on this personal matter.

'Oh, yes; that was inevitable. It only means that one's development is
imperfect. Most men who confirm themselves in agnosticism are kept at
that point by arrested moral activity. They give up the intellectual
question as wearisome, and accept the point of view which flatters
their prejudices: thereupon follows a blunting of the sensibilities on
the religious side.'

'There are men constitutionally unfitted for the reception of spiritual
truth,' said Martin, in a troubled tone. He was playing with a piece of
string, and did not raise his eyes.

'I quite believe that. There's our difficulty when we come to
evidences. The evidences of science are wholly different in _kind_ from
those of religion. Faith cannot spring from any observation of
phenomena, or scrutiny of authorities, but from the declaration made to
us by the spiritual faculty. The man of science can only become a
Christian by the way of humility--and that a kind of humility he finds
it difficult even to conceive. One wishes to impress upon him the
harmony of this faith with the spiritual voice that is in every man. He
replies: I know nothing of that spiritual voice. And if that be true,
one can't help him by argument.'

Peak had constructed for himself, out of his reading, a plausible
system which on demand he could set forth with fluency. The tone of
current apologetics taught him that, by men even of cultivated
intellect, such a position as he was now sketching was deemed tenable;
yet to himself it sounded so futile, so nugatory, that he had to harden
his forehead as he spoke. Trial more severe to his co