He sighed, and turned over a page of his atlas blindly.

“Only we want it soon.  The world is weary of this bloodshed, weary of all this weeping, of this wasting of substance and this killing of sons and lovers.  We want it soon, and to have it soon we must work to bring it about.  We must give our lives.  What is left of our lives....

“That is what you and I must do, Letty.  What else is there left for us to do?...  I will write of nothing else, I will think of nothing else now but of safety and order.  So that all these dear dead—­not one of them but will have brought the great days of peace and man’s real beginning nearer, and these cruel things that make men whimper like children, that break down bright lives into despair and kill youth at the very moment when it puts out its clean hands to take hold of life—­these cruelties, these abominations of confusion, shall cease from the earth forever.”

Section 10

Letty regarded him, frowning, and with her chin between her fists....

“But do you really believe,” said Letty, “that things can be better than they are?”

“But—­Yes!” said Mr. Britling.

“I don’t,” said Letty.  “The world is cruel.  It is just cruel.  So it will always be.”

“It need not be cruel,” said Mr. Britling.

“It is just a place of cruel things.  It is all set with knives.  It is full of diseases and accidents.  As for God—­either there is no God or he is an idiot.  He is a slobbering idiot.  He is like some idiot who pulls off the wings of flies.”

“No,” said Mr. Britling.

“There is no progress.  Nothing gets better.  How can you believe in God after Hugh? Do you believe in God?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Britling after a long pause; “I do believe in God.”

“Who lets these things happen!” She raised herself on her arm and thrust her argument at him with her hand.  “Who kills my Teddy and your Hugh—­and millions.”

“No,” said Mr. Britling.

“But he must let these things happen.  Or why do they happen?”

“No,” said Mr. Britling.  “It is the theologians who must answer that.  They have been extravagant about God.  They have had silly absolute ideas—­that He is all powerful.  That He’s omni-everything.  But the common sense of men knows better.  Every real religious thought denies it.  After all, the real God of the Christians is Christ, not God Almighty; a poor mocked and wounded God nailed on a cross of matter....  Some day He will triumph....  But it is not fair to say that He causes all things now.  It is not fair to make out a case against him.  You have been misled.  It is a theologian’s folly.  God is not absolute; God is finite....  A finite God who struggles in his great and comprehensive way as we struggle in our weak and silly way—­who is with us—­that is the essence of all real religion....  I agree with you so—­Why! if I thought there was an omnipotent God who looked down on battles and deaths and all the waste and horror of this war—­able to prevent these things—­doing them to amuse Himself—­I would spit in his empty face....”