The amiable Presbyterian, not relishing this, still amiably threw the gauntlet down to Father Riley, demanding the Catholic view of the future of unbaptised children.

The speech of the latter was a mellow joy—­a south breeze of liquid consonants and lilting vowels finely articulated.  Perhaps it was not a little owing to the good man’s love for what he called “oiling the rusty hinges of the King’s English with a wee drop of the brogue”; but, if so, the oil was so deftly spread that no one word betrayed its presence.  Rather was his whole speech pervaded by this soft delight, especially when his cherubic face, his pink cheeks glistening in certain lights with a faint silvery stubble of beard, mellowed with his gentle smile.  It was so now, even when he spoke of God’s penalties for the souls of reprobate infants.

“All theologians of the Mother Church are agreed,” replied the gracious father, “first, that infants dying unbaptised are excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven.  Second, that they will not enjoy the beatific vision outside of heaven.  Third, that they will arise with adults and be assembled for judgment on the last day.  And, fourth, that after the last day there will be but two states, namely:  a state of supernatural and supreme felicity and a state of what, in a wide sense, we may call damnation.”

Purlingly the good man went on to explain that damnation is a state admitting of many degrees; and that the unbaptised infant would not suffer in that state the same punishment as the adult reprobate.  While the latter would suffer positive pains of mind and body for his sins, the unfortunate infant would doubtless suffer no pain of sense whatever.  As to their being exempt from the pain of loss, grieving over their exclusion from the sight of God and the glories of His Kingdom, it is more commonly held that they do not suffer even this; that even if they know others are happier than themselves, they are perfectly resigned to God’s will and suffer no pain of loss in regard to happiness not suited to their condition.

The Presbyterian called upon them to witness that his church was thus not unique in attaining this sentimentality regarding reprobate infants.

Then little Floud cited the case of still another heretic within the church, a professor in a western Methodist university, who declared that biblical infallibility is a superstitious and hurtful tradition; that all the miracles are mere poetic fancies, incredible and untrue—­even irreverent; and that all spiritual truth comes to man through his brain and conscience.  Modern preaching, according to the book of this heretic, lacks power because so many churches cling to the tradition that the Bible is infallible.  It is the golden calf of their worship; the palpable lie that gives the ring of insincerity to all their moral exhortations.

So the talk flowed on until the good men agreed that a peculiarity of the time lay in this:  that large numbers of ministers within the church were publishing the most revolutionary heresies while still clinging to some shred of their tattered orthodoxy.