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 between partial and relative good on the one hand and partial and relative evil on the other. But it is obvious that there cannot be antagonism between universal good and universal evil, or you would postulate two universes, which is a contradiction in terms,—as much a contradiction as it would be to say that two and two make more or less than four.’

‘Frankly, Smeeth, you begin to make me a little groggy. Gods and devils are not much in my line; and of the two, I rather prefer the second. But there! the bell’s stopped; we shall be late for the fun.’

And so they found it.

‘All seats full, sir,’ said the old sexton at the church porch, ‘twenty minutes before service, and very little standing-room now. You’re welcome to my corner, gentlemen, an you care to stand there!’

They managed, however, to edge far enough into the crowd to be within hearing, and what they heard was a discourse on the text ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians,’ wherein the apostle was dexterously likened to ‘an upstart individual from the Cannibal Islands,’ who might be imagined to come into Dulham church where they were now assembled, and begin to denounce the Christian worship.

No hard epithets were used, but the congregation nevertheless left their places when it was over, under the vague impression that the goddess was sacrilegiously wronged, and that the missionary of the Lord was an ill-conditioned cur. This was nothing unusual nor unexpected; it was the sort of thing they came to hear, or four-fifths of them would have stayed away.

The people streamed out; in due course the vicarage party appeared, and each shook hands with the two friends in the churchyard.

‘How do you do, Miss Newman?’ said Lockstable.