From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn.

’GARRANARD, BOHOLA,

’August 22, 19—.

’DEAR MISS GLYNN,

’I gather from your letter that religion has ceased to interest you, except as a subject for argument, and I will not begin to argue with you, but will put instead a simple question to you:  In what faith do you intend to bring up your child? and what will be your answer when your child asks:  “Who made me?” Mr. Poole may be a learned man, but all the learning in the world will not tell you what answer to make to your child’s questions; only the Church can do that.

’I have thought a great deal about the danger that your post of secretary to Mr. Poole involves and am not sure that the state of indifference is not the worst state of all.  One day you will find that indifference has passed into unbelief, and you will write to me (if we continue to write to each other) in such a way that I shall understand that you have come to regard our holy religion as a tale fit only for childhood’s ears.  I write this to you, because I have been suddenly impelled to write, and it seems to me that in writing to you in this simple way I am doing better than if I spent hours in argument.  You will not always think as you do now; the world will not always interest you as much as it does now.  I will say no more on this point but will break off abruptly to tell you that I think you are right when you say that we all want change.  I feel I have lived too long by the side of this lake, and I am thinking of going to London....’

The room darkened gradually, and, going to the window, he longed for something to break the silence, and was glad when the rain pattered among the leaves.  The trees stood stark against the sky, in a green that seemed unnatural.  The sheep moved as if in fear towards the sycamores, and from all sides came the lowing of cattle.  A flash drove him back from the window.  He thought he was blinded.  The thunder rattled; it was as if a God had taken the mountains in his arms and was shaking them together.  Crash followed crash; the rain came down; it was as if the rivers of heaven had been opened suddenly.  Once he thought the storm was over; but the thunder crashed again, the rain began to thicken; there was another flash and another crash, and the pour began again.  But all the while the storm was wearing itself out, and he began to wonder if a sullen day, ending in this apocalypse, would pass into a cheerful evening.  It seemed as if it would, for some blue was showing between the clouds drifting westward, threatening every moment to blot out the blue, but the clouds continued to brighten at the edges.  ’The beginning of the sunset,’ the priest said; and he went out on his lawn and stood watching the swallows in the shining air, their dipping, swerving flight showing against a background of dappled clouds.  He had never known so extraordinary a change; and he walked to and fro in the freshened air, thinking