THEOPHOBIA: ITS CAUSE 35 



interrogation would be made as to my spiritual 

 condition. 



Let me be reminiscent and recall one case. 

 I was a boy at school and spending my Easter 

 vacation away from home and with friends. It 

 was my lot to have to dine one night with an old 

 friend of my father's, a person of some distinction, 

 who having, I believe, been a viveur in his youth, 

 had in later years embraced the most ferocious 

 type of Evangelicanism. When the ladies had 

 retired I was left alone with this formidable per- 

 son, whom I eyed much as a rabbit eyes a snake 

 into whose cage he has been introduced. Nor 

 were my fears groundless, for no sooner was the 

 room empty than he peremptorily demanded of 

 me whether I was saved. On hearing my 

 trembling but perfectly truthful reply that I 

 really did not know, he struck the table with his 

 fist (I can see the whole thing quite plainly to- 

 day, though it is five-and-forty years ago), ex- 

 claiming, " Then you are a fool, and if you were 

 to die to-night you most certainly would be 

 damned." I ask those who were brought up in 

 a more kindly and more rational scheme of 

 Christianity whether it is any wonder that those 

 whose youth was spent in these gloomy shades 

 should welcome the thought that there was no 

 such being as a God ? 



Associated with this gloomy creed a new 

 series of sins was invented, as if there were not 

 enough already in the world. It was sinful to 

 dance, even under the most domestic and proper 

 circumstances. It was a sin to play cards, even 



