“I want him to be frightened by Evil,” declared James.  “But go your own way.  Soften down everything in our Holy Religion that is ugly and difficult.  Sentimentalize the whole business.  That’s our modern method in everything.”

This was one of many arguments between husband and wife about the religious education of their son.

Luckily for Mark his father had too many children, real children and grown up children, in the Mission to be able to spend much time with his son; and the teaching of Sunday morning, the clear-cut uncompromising statement of hard religious facts in which the Missioner delighted, was considerably toned down by his wife’s gentle commentary.

Mark’s mother taught him that the desire of a bad boy to be a good boy is a better thing than the goodness of a Jack Horner.  She taught him that God was not merely a crotchety old gentleman reclining in a blue dressing-gown on a mattress of cumulus, but that He was an Eye, an all-seeing Eye, an Eye capable indeed of flashing with rage, yet so rarely that whenever her little boy should imagine that Eye he might behold it wet with tears.

“But can God cry?” asked Mark incredulously.

“Oh, darling.  God can do everything.”

“But fancy crying!  If I could do everything I shouldn’t cry.”

Mrs. Lidderdale perceived that her picture of the wise and compassionate Eye would require elaboration.

“But do you only cry, Mark dear, when you can’t do what you want?  Those are not nice tears.  Don’t you ever cry because you’re sorry you’ve been disobedient?”

“I don’t think so, Mother,” Mark decided after a pause.  “No, I don’t think I cry because I’m sorry except when you’re sorry, and that sometimes makes me cry.  Not always, though.  Sometimes I’m glad you’re sorry.  I feel so angry that I like to see you sad.”

“But you don’t often feel like that?”

“No, not often,” he admitted.

“But suppose you saw somebody being ill-treated, some poor dog or cat being teased, wouldn’t you feel inclined to cry?”

“Oh, no,” Mark declared.  “I get quite red inside of me, and I want to kick the people who is doing it.”

“Well, now you can understand why God sometimes gets angry.  But even if He gets angry,” Mrs. Lidderdale went on, for she was rather afraid of her son’s capacity for logic, “God never lets His anger get the better of Him.  He is not only sorry for the poor dog, but He is also sorry for the poor person who is ill-treating the dog.  He knows that the poor person has perhaps never been taught better, and then the Eye fills with tears again.”

“I think I like Jesus better than God,” said Mark, going off at a tangent.  He felt that there were too many points of resemblance between his own father and God to make it prudent to persevere with the discussion.  On the subject of his father he always found his mother strangely uncomprehending, and the only times she was really angry with him was when he refused out of his basic honesty to admit that he loved his father.