“What,” he said to me, very coherently and quietly, “was I to do?  I had struck a bargain with that dear fellow, though he knew not what I meant, to the effect that I should try to undo the harm I had done, by standing up before the people on Sunday and saying who I was.  True, they would not believe me.  They would look at my hair and see it black, whereas it should be very light.  On this they would look no further, but very likely tear me in pieces then and there.  Suppose that the authorities held a post-mortem examination, and that many who knew me (let alone that all my measurements and marks were recorded twenty years ago) identified the body as mine:  would those in power admit that I was the Sunchild?  Not they.  The interests vested in my being now in the palace of the sun are too great to allow of my having been torn to pieces in Sunch’ston, no matter how truly I had been torn; the whole thing would be hushed up, and the utmost that could come of it would be a heresy which would in time be crushed.

“On the other hand, what business have I with ‘would be’ or ’would not be?’ Should I not speak out, come what may, when I see a whole people being led astray by those who are merely exploiting them for their own ends?  Though I could do but little, ought I not to do that little?  What did that good fellow’s instinct—­so straight from heaven, so true, so healthy—­tell him?  What did my own instinct answer?  What would the conscience of any honourable man answer?  Who can doubt?

“And yet, is there not reason? and is it not God-given as much as instinct?  I remember having heard an anthem in my young days, ’O where shall wisdom be found? the deep saith it is not in me.’  As the singers kept on repeating the question, I kept on saying sorrowfully to myself—­’Ah, where, where, where?’ and when the triumphant answer came, ’The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding,’ I shrunk ashamed into myself for not having foreseen it.  In later life, when I have tried to use this answer as a light by which I could walk, I found it served but to the raising of another question, ‘What is the fear of the Lord, and what is evil in this particular case?’ And my easy method with spiritual dilemmas proved to be but a case of ignotum per ignotius.

“If Satan himself is at times transformed into an angel of light, are not angels of light sometimes transformed into the likeness of Satan?  If the devil is not so black as he is painted, is God always so white?  And is there not another place in which it is said, ’The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,’ as though it were not the last word upon the subject?  If a man should not do evil that good may come, so neither should he do good that evil may come; and though it were good for me to speak out, should I not do better by refraining?