42 THEOPHOBIA AND NEMESIS 



by a stomach-ache, remorse came upon him and 

 he rushed to his father, exclaiming : " Oh ! papa, 

 papa, I have eaten of flesh offered to idols ! " 

 When the father learned what had happened, 

 he sternly said, " Where is the accursed thing ? " 

 Having heard that it was on the kitchen table, 

 "he took me by the hand, and ran with me into 

 the midst of the startled servants, seized what 

 remained of the pudding, and with the plate in 

 one hand and me still tight in the other, ran till 

 we reached the dust-heap, where he flung the 

 idolatrous confectionery on to the middle of the 

 ashes, and then raked it deep down into the mass. 

 The suddenness, the velocity of this extraordinary 

 act, made an impression on my memory which 

 nothing will ever efface." Such is a plain un- 

 varnished account of the kind of way in which 

 numbers of people were brought up in the 'fifties 

 and 'sixties of the last century. Can it be 

 wondered that those who had such a childhood 

 should grow up with an absolute horror of the 

 Person in Whose name such things absurdities 

 when not positive crimes were perpetrated ? 

 I firmly believe that these wholly false ideas of 

 God and of sin have had more to do with the 

 spread of materialism than many will perhaps be 

 disposed to admit. Educated people, especially 

 those trained in scientific methods, demand a 

 certain common sense and sobriety in their beliefs. 

 If they are brought up to believe that a grievous 

 sin is committed when they invent an innocent 

 story ; when they go to a theatre or to a dance, 

 or play a game of cards ; if they have never 



