‘A joint epistle, if you like.’

Mr. Morton, who had brightened since dinner, began to speak caustically of the form of intellect necessary nowadays in a popular clergyman.

‘He must write a good deal,’ put in Earwaker, ’and that in a style which would have scandalised the orthodox of the last century.  Rationalised dogma is vastly in demand.’

Peak’s voice drew attention.

’Two kinds of books dealing with religion are now greatly popular, and will be for a long time.  On the one hand there is that growing body of people who, for whatever reason, tend to agnosticism, but desire to be convinced that agnosticism is respectable; they are eager for anti-dogmatic books, written by men of mark.  They couldn’t endure to be classed with Bradlaugh, but they rank themselves confidently with Darwin and Huxley.  Arguments matter little or nothing to them.  They take their rationalism as they do a fashion in dress, anxious only that it shall be “good form”.  Then there’s the other lot of people—­a much larger class—­who won’t give up dogma, but have learnt that bishops, priests, and deacons no longer hold it with the old rigour, and that one must be “broad”; these are clamorous for treatises which pretend to reconcile revelation and science.  It’s quite pathetic to watch the enthusiasm with which they hail any man who distinguishes himself by this kind of apologetic skill, this pious jugglery.  Never mind how washy the book from a scientific point of view.  Only let it obtain vogue, and it will be glorified as the new evangel.  The day has gone by for downright assaults on science; to be marketable, you must prove that The Origin of Species was approvingly foreseen in the first chapter of Genesis, and that the Apostles’ Creed conflicts in no single point with the latest results of biblical criticism.  Both classes seek to avoid ridicule, and to adapt themselves to a standard of respectability.  If Chilvers goes in for the newest apologetics, he is bound to be enormously successful.  The man has brains, and really there are so few such men who still care to go into the Church.’

There was a murmur of laughing approval.  The speaker had worked himself into eloquent nervousness; he leaned forward with his hands straining together, and the muscles of his face quivering.

‘And isn’t it surprising,’ said Marcella, ’in how short a time this apologetic attitude has become necessary?’

Peak flashed a triumphant look at her.

‘I often rejoice to think of it!’ he cried.  ’How magnificent it is that so many of the solemn jackasses who brayed against Darwin from ten to twenty years ago should live to be regarded as beneath contempt!  I say it earnestly:  this thought is one of the things that make life tolerable to me!’

‘You have need of charity, friend Peak,’ interposed Earwaker.  ’This is the spirit of the persecutor.’