36 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. I 



the people, they accepted what was practically an armistice 

 in respect of certain matters about which the contending 

 parties were absolutely irreconcilable. 



The clericals have now "denounced" the treaty, 

 doubtless thinking they can get a new one more favourable 

 to themselves. 



From my point of view, I am not sure that it might 

 not be well for them to succeed, so that the sweep into 

 space which would befall them in the course of the next 

 twenty-three years might be complete and finaL 



As to the case you put to me permit me to continue 

 the dialogue in another shape. 



Boy. Please, teacher, if Joseph was not Jesus' father 

 and God was, why did Mary say, " Thy father and I have 

 sought thee sorrowing " ? How could God not know 

 where Jesus was ? How could He be sorry ? 



Teacher. When Jesus says Father, he means God ; but 

 when Mary says father, she means Joseph. 



Boy. Then Mary didn't know God was Jesus' father ? 



Teacher. Oh yes, she did (reads the story of the 

 Annunciation). 



Boy. It seems to me very odd that Mary used 

 language which she knew was not true, and taught her 

 son to call Joseph father. But there's another odd thing 

 about her. If she knew her child was God's son, why 

 was she alarmed about his safety. Surely she might 

 have trusted God to look after his own son in a crowd. 



I know of children of six and seven who are quite 

 capable of following out such a line of inquiry with all 

 the severe logic of a moral sense which has not been 

 sophisticated by pious scrubbing. 



I could tell you of stranger inquiries than these which 

 have been made by children in endeavouring to understand 

 the account of the miraculous conception. 



Whence I conclude that even in the interests of what 

 people are pleased to call Christianity (though it is my 

 firm conviction that Jesus would have repudiated the 



