Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/188

, are such as to make the mouths of more obscure journalists water. The ample library looks out on a beautifully embowered lawn, while every domestic detail is perfect. A man who cannot write well with such happy surroundings has hopelessly mistaken his calling. And best of all is the frank, truthful, earnest conversation of the host himself. There is no evasion, no hedging. When I first met him, we plunged right into the questions of Deity, of the immortality of the soul, of the republic, of Robespierre, of Burke, of his friend Chamberlain, et de omni scibili, in an hour's time.

In reflecting, he has a curious habit of listening, as it were, to the tones of some far-off voice. I could not agree with many of his positions, but felt the greatest difficulty in maintaining my own. His religious scepticism is very deep and subtle. He might, I dare say if hard pressed, admit that there are evidences of divine arrangement in the universe amounting to a low degree of probability; and, as regards a life beyond the grave, he might go the length of dreading, with Hamlet, "what dreams may come in that sleep of death." But, in any case, he would turn away from such conjectural speculations, and substitute social for religious duties. This at once raises the intricate question of the influence of religion on morality. Is the connection necessary, or accidental? It would not be difficult, for example, to show that the pagan Cetewayo was, throughout the Zulu troubles, a pattern of justice as compared with our eminently Christian High Commissioner, Sir Bartle Frere; or that so public-spirited a citizen and infidel as Mr. Charles Bradlaugh would be a much more trustworthy custodian of other people's moneys than the pious directors of the City of Glasgow Bank.