“I don’t quite know what a Unitarian is,” said Philip.

Weeks in his odd way again put his head on one side:  you almost expected him to twitter.

“A Unitarian very earnestly disbelieves in almost everything that anybody else believes, and he has a very lively sustaining faith in he doesn’t quite know what.”

“I don’t see why you should make fun of me,” said Philip.  “I really want to know.”

“My dear friend, I’m not making fun of you.  I have arrived at that definition after years of great labour and the most anxious, nerve-racking study.”

When Philip and Hayward got up to go, Weeks handed Philip a little book in a paper cover.

“I suppose you can read French pretty well by now.  I wonder if this would amuse you.”

Philip thanked him and, taking the book, looked at the title.  It was Renan’s Vie de Jesus.

XXVIII

It occurred neither to Hayward nor to Weeks that the conversations which helped them to pass an idle evening were being turned over afterwards in Philip’s active brain.  It had never struck him before that religion was a matter upon which discussion was possible.  To him it meant the Church of England, and not to believe in its tenets was a sign of wilfulness which could not fail of punishment here or hereafter.  There was some doubt in his mind about the chastisement of unbelievers.  It was possible that a merciful judge, reserving the flames of hell for the heathen—­Mahommedans, Buddhists, and the rest—­would spare Dissenters and Roman Catholics (though at the cost of how much humiliation when they were made to realise their error!), and it was also possible that He would be pitiful to those who had had no chance of learning the truth,—­this was reasonable enough, though such were the activities of the Missionary Society there could not be many in this condition—­but if the chance had been theirs and they had neglected it (in which category were obviously Roman Catholics and Dissenters), the punishment was sure and merited.  It was clear that the miscreant was in a parlous state.  Perhaps Philip had not been taught it in so many words, but certainly the impression had been given him that only members of the Church of England had any real hope of eternal happiness.

One of the things that Philip had heard definitely stated was that the unbeliever was a wicked and a vicious man; but Weeks, though he believed in hardly anything that Philip believed, led a life of Christian purity.  Philip had received little kindness in his life, and he was touched by the American’s desire to help him:  once when a cold kept him in bed for three days, Weeks nursed him like a mother.  There was neither vice nor wickedness in him, but only sincerity and loving-kindness.  It was evidently possible to be virtuous and unbelieving.