“Not at all; I could not express myself better.  What you have found out is stated by Dr. Whewell, the famous Master of Trinity, in the Platonic form, that every good thing in man and in the world has its archetype in the Divine Mind.  Every bad thing, such as revenge and anger, has no such archetype, but is a falling away, a deflection, from the good.”

“How do you explain the imputation of bad things to God, such as hate, revenge, terrorism, disease, death, beasts of prey, and all the rest?”

“In two ways; first, as a heathen survival in Christianity, borrowed partly from pagan national religions, partly from the misunderstood phraseology of the Old Testament; and, second, as the necessary result of a well-meant attempt to escape from Persian and Manichaean dualism.”

“But there is a dualism in law, in morals, in nature, and in human nature, everywhere in this world; there’s no getting over it.”

“Of course there is, but the difference between the dualism of fact and that of the Persian system is, that the evil is not equal, but inferior and subordinate, to the good.”

“It gets the upper hand pretty often, as far as this world is concerned.”

“And why?  Just for the same reason that bad governments and corrupt parties often get the upper hand, namely, by the vote of the majority, through which the minority has to suffer.  Talk about vicarious suffering!  Every good man suffers vicariously.”

“These are deep things, Mr. Wilkinson, too deep for the average parson, who doesn’t trouble himself much with facts unless he find them confirmed by his antiquated articles.”

“Yet my attention has been drawn to them by thoughtful clergymen of different denominations.”

“Well, I don’t think I’ll trouble the clergymen to-day, thoughtful or not thoughtful.  I’ve had my sermon in the open air, a sort of walking camp meeting.  What did they call these fellows who studied on the move?”

“Peripatetics.”

“That’s it; we’re a peripatetic church.”

“But, without praise or prayer or scripture lessons, which are more important than the sermon.”

“Oh, you can do the praise and prayer part in a quiet way, as a piece of poetry says that I learnt when I was a boy.  It ends something like this:—­

     So we lift our trusting eyes
     To the hills our fathers trod,
     To the quiet of the skies,
     And the Sabbath of our God.

That’s pretty, now!  Hallo! here’s the doctor!”

Coristine came up at the gallop, and reported that all the people he expected to find at the Carruthers’ were there, Grinstun man, Mrs. Carmichael, and Marjorie, included, all except Miss Du Plessis, who was staying at a house three miles this side of the farm, helping to nurse a sick neighbour.

“Has Rawdon seen her?” asked the detective.  The lawyer did not know, but suggested that they could find out by calling at the house of Mrs. Talfourd, the sick woman, on the way.