158 GEOEGE JOHN E0MANE8 isai- 



of Cliristianity should for a long while remain as it is, 

 your children may never, in their later years, feel that 

 you ever taught them anything which you did not 

 believe : on every ground I long to avoid all danger of 

 such a thought crossing their minds. But at the 

 same time I do long that they may be spared to the 

 very last possible moment the knowledge that in the 

 judgment of the mind which they, I hope, will most 

 reverence and love, the bases of their religious trust 

 and hope are uncertain. It is only far on in life, I 

 think, that a man comes to realise either the vast im- 

 portance of things which are not held with absolute 

 certainty, or the mysterious and complex nature of the 

 act of faith, and the discipline of obscurity, and the 

 way in which real spiritual progress may be going on 

 where the mind seems only to be holding on, as it 

 were, with fear and trembhng. 



To a boy of sixteen the mere knowledge of uncer- 

 tainty in his father's mind may drain all the moral 

 cogency out of the whole conception of rehgion : — the 

 very suspicion of the uncertainty may unnerve him 

 more than the full realisation of the doubt would 

 change his father's aim and hope in doing his duty. 



And so, at the risk of paining you — behove me, I 

 would rather have the pain than give it you — and pre- 

 suming very thankfully on the wish of which you 

 spoke, I would plead that your children might remain 

 as long as possible in ignorance of your uncertainty 

 and anxiety ; that they should only know in a general 

 way that the religious influences, the principles of 

 their Godward life which they receive, are given to 

 them by your wish — that you would have them grow 



